J.R.

What result, 32° on a warm day, 27.5° and climbing on a cooler day?

Wire hook is for something else (towing eye cover?) but will work in an emergency, the proper tool is a U shaped plastic tong with small retaining lugs, dead cheap to buy on e-bay, sorry but I don't have the VAG part number.

When I click on that link it takes me back to this self same page, even if I try to open it in a new window.

Was the vehicle on 100% finance, no deposit, no part exchange?

It means that you need to do the hard work that whoever the miscreant was could not be bothered to do. Progressive wet flatting through the wet n dry grades to 1200 finishing with a worn 1200 sheet, then compounding, cutting and polishing. I can't say what grade to start with as I would need to see the area with my own eyes to establish what grade was used.

Pinion sprag clutch failure, if you are lucky it may behave if you flush it through with a degreaser.

Front, rear or even both subframes misaligned, was any work done on the vehicle before the problem appeared, clutch perhaps? No point having a 4 wheel alignment done if the person is incapable of interpreting the results and what needs doing to remedy it, they have probably screwed up the steering track rod adjustments when they should have been aligning a subframe.

3rd photo showing a good example of a decomposed bumpstop which will lead to premature spring & damper failure as well as giving a very harsh ride when carrying loads or rear seat passengers.

Definitely replace the rear foam bump stops, they may already have decomposed, if so then check to make sure that someone has not removed the damper rod cover to stop it rattling, if they are absent then add them to the list, otherwise they are fine to reuse with the new bump stops.

To prove to yourself whether it could have been present but hidden for some while spray on some silicone spray or even WD40, it wont last anywhere near as long as a highlight polish but will give you the effect and can be washed off immediately. Even throwing water on it has the same effect but would run off before you could stand back and view it. It won't help you find the suspect but will tell you if we are wrong, its very difficult to tell from a photo.

I have yet to see a pipe bender made from sponge I did however make the same cut on mine but for my own reason, the sponge profile is to seal against, or at the very least minimise, water infiltration, if its compressed against the gas strut body there will be gaps at each side so I made a similar cut to fit as close as possible to the casing.

Teenager of any age (I've only just become a responsable adult) garage where vehicle serviced etc?

It looks exactly like someone has started flatting out a scratch or scuff in the clear coat & then given up before going through all the wet n dry grades, compound, polish etc, had you recently bought the car I would say that someone had gone over it with highlight polish & it has now washed off but not in the case of 3 years. You say that you rarely clean it, was it cleaned in any different way last time, a hot jet wash perhaps?

If you want to analyse your suspension you look at the tyre wear (also temperature gradient), for skiing you look at the tracks made by the ski edges, for valgus foot posture you look at wet footprints from bare feet, for running gait the sole wear reveals a lot.

Beeping when reversing (with the trailer plug connected) is a standard feature to meet the legal requirement which is either a visual or audible indication that the indicators are working on the towed vehicle, it's really to warn you in its absence that the plug has probably not been connected.

I live in France & have no phone or ADSL in the UK, I am using my limited data allowance on my French mobile phone to use the computer, videos would gobble it up.

Sorry am in the UK and using my French mobile for internet access, no videos for me!!!

With the unceasing demise of so many energy suppliers can EV owners be confident of getting super cheap off peak deals even next month let alone in the future? To get this 5p off peak rate is the peak rate significantly higher than the normal standard tariff? This is a con trick that EDF have slowly been tweaking over the years in France. At some stage electricity for EV owners will have to be as highly taxed as other road fuels, each person that switches is a loss to the treasury, aside from the public charging network how are they going to tax you for recharging at home? I sincerely hope that they don't just put the tax on all electricity for heating and lighting, manufacturing etc.

I think that 2.9 is just on the threshold of it not giving a reading and defaulting to the 0.0° figure, it is devilishly hard to even tweak it within the limits that it gives the readings for and takes a lot of patience and nudging to get it close to a true zero, I know when mine was on the limit it had a very rough idle, so rough that I did not even want to try driving it and it was reluctant to fire up so I would advise you to attend to that before any other faultfinding.

What is the torsion value in VCDS? If it is 0.0° be very wary and rev the engine to see if a small negative value appears, I may have got that backwards and it goes positive at higher revs, in any case you are looking for an actual value and not 0.0°. Was any work done which preceeded this idle roughness? It does sound tappety.

Do you know this from witnessing it with your own eyes or what VCDS or whatever is telling you? I very much doubt that the mechanical diesel pump on a MK1 Sdi will be coded, if it does not show up as a controller in the Installation List scan on VCDS then it does not exist.

Questioning incorrect statements is not irrelevant, you only have to look at some of the beliefs posted on this thread alone to realise that many people believe without question what they have read or been told. All it would have taken was to say "No, I should have worded that differently, what I wanted to say was........................." but I understand now why that could not happen.

I understand how the system operates and the charging profiles dependant on battery type. Thank you for your confirmation that the vehicle will still accurately measure voltage, current and temperature and will not transmit false readings if a battery has been changed and the recoding not done.

I will ask you a 3rd time MX5, perhaps I am not explaining well enough. Do you believe that the supposed J367 module is not capable of measuring current, voltage and temperature correctly if a different battery to the one coded into the system is fitted and will thus give false information to the supposed J533 module? That is all that I want to know, not to argue, not to tell you different, just to know if you believe what you stated.

It is exactly what you said and in simple words as well, unlike your denial. coding in a new battery is a necessary step to ensure that the J367 is providing the correct information back to the J533 and onwards to other sub-system ("information having been defined as temperature, voltage and charging current) Do you really believe that?