J.R.

As would a clairvoyant to know what your engine is and how many miles you consider a long drive to be. My crystal balls tells me its a diesel and you are driving less than 10 miles at moderate speeds, in winter I could easily drive for 10 miles without the thermostat opening unless I accelerated up a hill.

Excellent Sepulchrave, and now I know your real name is not Lol 🤣 "Cheers anyone that responds politely lol "

A one word answer to the question in your thread title: YES! 1 or 2mm is not a measure of temperature, do you mean 1 or 2° it seems that you are talking about water temperature with the reference to the radiator, the temperature guage is fiddled to read 90°c over a very wide range of actual coolant temperatures, what you should be concerned with is the oil temperature which is far more important than water temperature unless the engine is boiling over. Removal of the crash bar will reduce the torsional stiffness that no amount of silly strut braces will replace, if you really want to improve the airflow to the radiator then remove the AC condensor.

I gave up on compatible cartridges several years ago, about €12 bought me a kit with B&W plus the 3 coloured inks, syringes, needles and rubber pads for purging the cartridge. It's worked fine for years, I have since bought a big bottle of black ink for next to nothing, I have also found that all the problems that I had with dried up & blocked cartridges often straight out of the sealed packet could have been resolved by purging with the syringe and rubber pad. The only drawback is hating wearing rubber gloves I have multi-coloured hands that look like they are battered & bruised for a few days afterwards.

I seem to recall that my MK1 Octavia came with what they called a valet key, one that would open and start the car but not open the glovebox (if locked). Anyone recall this? It may have been a previous vehicle, a Galaxy or Alhambra.

And I was being extra carefull this time after the roasting from Ken O Neill for not seeing that someone was in the Ireland, I double checked the vehicle that the OP had, a 2006 Elegance Estate without seeing what section it was posted under 😳 Once again you have corrected me either for an assumption that the Fabia is the same as the Octavia or mistaking the vehicle, I thank you for your patience, understanding and politeness, others could learn from it.

I cant really recall, I no longer have the vehicle, inside & to the right rear I think, it pulled upwards and sat flush when not deployed so was barely invisible until you noticed it and thought "what does this do?", it may have had a hole to hook your finger through or I may have imagined that.

My 2006 Elegance Estate had the control in the glovebox, a pull up slider in the transmission tunnel "big box" but nothing on that cubby hole, I had been up close to it when working so would have seen it.

Despite my visual impairment I can see the difference between the caps on the wheels from standing or kneeling but I suppose that comes with knowing what to look for, does it really matter though as they all need to be pulled off with the same tool? I am now very used to working blind (I can do a wheelchange at the side of the road in pitch darkness) yesterday the low sun was blinding me when I removed the front wheels, today it would be dark or gloomy, I find that the C clip removal tool will whip off all the non locking caps with ease by touch alone, on my wheels it has to be forced into place on the locking bolt cover so that alone will distinguish it if I cannot see clearly.

Sounds a good plan, please let us know how you get on and also if there are only 2 wires in the connector, this will confirm that its a dumb system without any sensors or feedback, my self study guide is in another country so I cannot check for myself at present. From what I recall I think it is dumb and the feedback as such is from the rear wheel speed sensors & when the filter or guaze is blocked full voltage is applied to the pump motor whose output port is blocked.

And you have a history of awarding me negative feedback (groans etc) without ever contributing to the thread in question, not sure if you know but you can look to see what feedback people have left for others, yours is very revealing.

Indeed, I dont have a suggestion which could explain explain that anomoly but thats often the case, from what you have said it will not rev (when cold) at standstill (I think you said from idle) but it drives fine so it is well worth doing my test perhaps at varying engine temperatures and then working from hopefully more information to find a solution or cure.

Thankyou once again Ken for your kind comments. I am partially sighted and can only read with the macular vision of one eye, an icon can be flashing elsewhere on the screen and I will not see it, I had not seen the OP's location, thankyou for pointing it out in such a discreet fashion. I made no mention of France or the CT test. Setting aside your pleasure at throwing insults around the problem of emissions testing a vehicle like mine and all EU5 model VAG vehicles that can not rev above a low threshold at standstill will necessitate a solution in any country, soon I will find out how the French deal with it, a FWD vehicle could be tested on the brake rollers but not a 4WD one like mine. Perhaps they are or will be able to connect to the OBII socket and disable the feature while testing, there was talk of downloading of fault codes being part of the test.

Your car is a bit early but might have the same ECU programming that mine and all other later vehicles have, in my case the engine will not rev above 2.5k rpm when at standstill, the wheels have to be turning even very slowly for it to rev any higher. Try rolling the car forward in first gear, declutching while it is still moving and revving the engine, I bet it will then rev. It should not "fail" the MOT test, it should be passed with a note that the emissions could not be checked as the engine could not reach the RPM stipulated in the procedure, thats what happened to mine, the tester is a good friend and he explained exactly the whys whats and wherefore of my pass certificate.

Thankyou once again for your observation, I'm not sure how you are able to speak for others but I will take your word for it I did not ask for a correction, I asked the reason why you advocated the procedure, I don't have a side other than I cannot think of any reasoning or logic behind the procedure you were reminding others to adhere to, it is not an argument, it was a request for information which you are once again using to be sarcastic which is uncalled for. Your words are incoherent Then why tell people that they should do it? I have no idea what you are asking me for, evidence of what? Understanding of what? It was myself asking for your reasoning behind the procedure that you were telling others to follow. Now can you please let it go?

Possibly the tailgate was not properly closed? I cannot explain why that may have caused the discharge other than the interior lights being on but my vehicles body control module sensibly shuts them down after 30 minutes or so, given all the rubbish software on newer vehicles its quite possible that common sense has been thrown out like the baby with the bathwater. I understand your fear that it might recur and desire for an explanation, I totally get that and am the same way myself, I would take a battery voltage reading, partially close the tailgate & try locking the vehicle to see what happens then after 6 hours test the voltage again, you might be lucky (unlucky?) and see that the interior lights remain on, I suspect its the canbus systems not going into sleep mode due to the anomoly.

Will you please desist from saying that I am offended (I'm not) that I am easily offended (I'm not) and that I offend others easily, putting a smily after it and saying that you are joking does not negate what you say especially as you continue to make reference to it in subsequent postings. If you want to blindly follow what is written in an often badly translated manual without asking yourself or understanding why thats fine by me but when you start advocating it to others you really should know and be able to explain why if asked. If by chance you were brought up in the French education system then I retract the above.

I editted my posting at the time yours was written, read it again as there is more in it now.

That aside if the EGR is blocked it will generate a fault code and/or go into the limited operating strategy because the readings from the mass airflow sensor will not reduce as expected when EGR is commanded by the ECU. That is the reason for the existence of EGR emulator/simulators, they fiddle with the output of the MAF when EGR is commanded thus telling the ECU what it wants to hear rather than the truth. When I fitted an EGR blanking plate to my MK2 Octavia I had to drill a hole in the centre of it to stop the engine going into limp mode, I gradually went up one drill size at a time until it did not happen under all RPM/Throttle opening conditions. Maybe you could have a blanking plate with a hole for the journey to the remapper and a plain one for afterwards? Can't advise on the DPF monitoring sensors, mine was pre DPF. I totally understand why you are doing this!

Should there be power to the brake light circuit when the ignition is off and the car locked? If not then I cannot see a faulty switch causing the problem, I would first check if they still operate with the ignition off, if they do then I would lock myself in the car with the key and wait a couple of minutes for things to settle down, (try not to move & set the alarm off!) then test again. It's possible that even if the brake lights dont work with the ignition off there is still the control current voltage to the switch monitored by the body control module, any activation when locked would be treated as an intruder. Disconnecting the alarm horn seems a sensible move, if it is no longer working it will most likely be draining the battery in any case, it could be causing the anomoly, no rational reason why but there often isn't.

A year all but a couple of weeks.

What reason do you have for advocating that? I hope it's not just "I was told.............", if so then it's time to break the cycle.

Connector contact or sensor damaged by the impact which pulled the connector off, wire broken inside the insulation etc is a much more plausible explanation, the chances of your oil pump failing at the same time are the same as me winning the lottery and I never buy a lottery ticket!!

The way the material is laying on that bolt looks like the damage was done when tightening. Assuming that you would have noticed that damage when putting the socket in place you didn't by any chance crack the socket by accidentally tightening before realising? I completely understand if you are offended by the above question, I certainly would be, it's not a mistake I have ever made but give me time....................... 🤣

I will second that, I'm very pleased with my EGR emulator/simulator, a regen is triggered when the ECU calculates that the DPF will have 25g of soot but the actual measurement confirmed after twice calibrating the sensor is 4g or less. I now want to roll back the emissions fix to reduce the unnecessary regens. And I will never have to declag the inlet tract and throttle valve again.