J.R.

It is indeed normal behaviour for a dealer to either deny a fault or call it a characteristic of the model "they all do that sir!"

That sounds far more like differential failure, are you certain the drained oil containing swarf was not from the differential? It sounds very much like someone there has got their holes confused. I did the same and ran for a couple of hundred miles with a dry differential, I avoided catastrophic failure but have diff noise and under the circumstances you describe I sometimes feel transmission wind up before something releases with a jerk, I initially thought the Halde coupling was snagging but it should not be engaged in those situations and is free spinning when tested, I am pretty sure its half shaft windup from the planet gears locking before releasing with a snatch, I had eactly the same with a Ford diff that would lock up occasionally. Lucky that its still under warranty because other owners have been stuffed for £4.5k to make good the dealers incompetence, I bet you a pound to a penny they will find some excuse to eplain why they had to replace the whole differential.

Road toll ticket holder for me!

Its amazing the amount of room that is needed these days for a young family, my parents would take me as a child with my two older sisters on camping holidays with all the minimal luggage they had in those days in a Morris 8 Tourer, being a soft top there would not even have been a roof rack. My place was the Dicky seat hanging off the rear exposed to the elements and the exhaust fumes probably with the tents and luggage strapped to me. They bought a Hillman Minx when I was at infants school so we three children would have been up to 5, 12 and 15 years old while still using the Morris. Even being of an age to consider an miniscule HA Viva as a normal family car I was still shocked at just how small a Morris 8 was when I first saw one.

Once a clutch starts slipping then its toast, you might be able to drag a few more months out of it but if its going to slip under max torque acceleration or upshifting when overtaking the heat builds up instantly and you lose all drive. The main culprit is the clutch bleed block AKA peak torque limiter, it slows down the clutch engagement to protect the transmission from drag starts especially on 4x4 versions, once a vehicle is remapped it revs higher and when using all the acceleration its natural to change gear quicker, the slow response and the turbo being inhibited until the clutch pedal has returned to its stop make it impossible for smooth fast gearchanges but far worse than that is the clutch slip that it induces even in first gear pulling across a junction sharply. I replaced my clutch & DMF because of air being drawn into the concentric slave cylinder, the flywheel face was burned and the pressure plate dished resulting in the driven plate being worn like a wedge of cheese, I had previously modified the bleed block but put it all back to standard with the new clutch. On test drives it was fine but the upshifts were very jerky because of the turbo lag caused by the damped clutch engagement, I did one very quick gearchange as one might do if you misjudged an overtake, ran out of revs in 3rd and upshifted in panic, I dont know why but that time there was full boost, maybe inertia, but the clutch engagement was damped, the clutch slipped under full torque and the revs shot up, I was convinced that I had shifted into neutral but it was the feckin peak torque limiter = we would rather you burn out your clutch which we can charge you for than break the transmission which would be a warranty repair. My slippage was instantaneous and the heat soon dissipated, no problems with normal driving and shifting but I put my modified bleed block back on instantly, I dont intend repeating the experience but want to know that if I get caught out in a real situation I am not going to lose all drive again. Do VAG sell the 170hp diesels with a manual 6 speed box or are they all DSG's? With the peak torque limiter its really a poor experience and a DSG would be far better if you are going to regularly use all the power.

Thicker (even if hardly) when warm?

I cant see the slip angles from the video and have to rely on your commentary, the speedo reading seemed reasonable and you were following a vehicle that was not being driven quickly, quite sedately I would have said. I would not expect any under or oversteer from a 4x4 vehicle under those circumstances. It's a shame that we couldn't see the steering wheel.

I think that you may have fallen into the trap that many motor dealers set when they either sell you a warranty or include one for free, both of which I would refuse vehemently. How long ago did you buy the vehicle from them? If you are still within the period where the dealer is obligated to repair the fault under the sale of goods act don't get suckered into the old "the warranty company wont accept it", thats precisely why they try to strap you up with one and also so they can be paid if you are a lottery winner in having something that is not excluded by their T&C's. If you have rights then be very firm, its their problem, they have to fix it, you dont want to hear anything about the warranty company.

If nobody has tried to do change the Haldex oil & possibly made the mistake that I and many others have then the most likely culprit will be premature failure of one of the new wheel bearings. TBH I am surprised that the originals had failed.

Dont spend any more money needlessly without having a VCDS scan done. If its not an external fault like the key chip (have you tried the other keys?) or the reader coil the immobiliser can be removed by reprogramming of the ECU which may well be cheaper. To give an idea of cost I bought a remapped "plug n play" ECU from Ebay for my 105hp TDi Octavia for around £100, for that the guy had to buy a second hand ECU, reprogram it with the new map and disable the immobiliser so as to make it plug n play. I would think for half that one of those guys could do just the latter to your ECU.

Its something I would not do without now and limits my choice of vehicles, my last 2 (Octy2 and Yeti) didn't have them but it was dead cheap and easy to convert ones from MK1 Octavia estates in scrapyards, the width and lengths are identical albeit the Yeti only uses 2 of the 3 sections. The hardest part was choosing which of the "essential" items that had found their way into their over the years I had to go without in the Yeti having lost 1/3 of the previous volume. I took a leaf out of my neighbours book and bought 2 plastic storage boxes of the right height & width which are now stuffed with all the small items and can be lifted out easily for retrieval in good light. My vehicles have always been a work base as well as a means of transport but here I have the extra requirement of self sufficiency.

Variofloors aint bendy and no way would they collapse with only 200kg on them. I once squeezed 40 rolls of Muraspec in my MK1 weighing 800kg more than half of which would have been directly over the variofloor, another time it was 6 fire doors, it was full of cement and ballast bags, bricks etc on multiple other occasions. The variofloors are 3/4" plywood and span less than 1 metre. People want the variofloors to store stuff underneath, I have to be totally self sufficient in this country so its not just breakdown tools & spares for the car that are carried in the void, I have a sleeping bag, gore tex bivvi bag, goretex foul weather gear, folding shovel etc, if you get caught in a snowdrift you may only be 15k max from towns but may not see anybody for days. A level loading floor is pretty essential when you are regularly carrying building materials.

Has anyone fitted a dashcam, reversing camera, towbar or other powered accessories recently?

So the hapless owners are VAG's quality assurance checkers. Says it all really.

A pillar trims, in fact all the pillar trims, sill trims, rear side panel & tailgate trims, that clip is used on all of them. Having removed a dashboard I dont recall any being used there or on the glovebox.

The drive angle of the bit does look correct now, sorry for my confusion.

Can you take a photo face on please. Also a face on one of the undmaged fastener shown in your first posting.

Do you have to do that in a loud voice? What if it knows you are lying?

The cost of VCDS is an absolute bargain compared to what people can try to screw you out of when without it you do not have the ability to faultfind youself. I would not have had to scrap my MK1 Octavia had I bought VCDS, a local independant wanted £140 minimum just to do a diagnostic scan (all doors deadlocked except drivers which could be opened by key) and could not look at it for a fortnight.

Numbers 5 and 7 are the only plausible solutions, access may be a problem for 5, number 7 is **** or bust but if someone is competent enough to make the weld then they will be competent enough to remove it possibly choosing number 5 first through their wisdom. As Flybynight is probably alluding to, the proper tri-square spline bit must be used, if anything else damaged it the correct bit combined with axial force might still loosen the fastener.

There is nothing other than the service receptionists bull**** of the day to suggest there is any problem with the infotainment screen.

I think that you are leading yourself down a blind alley. Ask yourself how on earth the alleged failure of an infotainment screen could cause the problems that your vehicle has? Then look carefully at their statement and translate it from money grabbing bull***t to real world talk. "infotainment screen blown and maybe a control unit as well but that can't be ascertained until the screen is replaced at a cost of £900 plus fitting." Translates to "we want to take you for £900 before we consider fixing the real problem at further expense." Once they realise you accept being taken for £900 for nothing then the door is wide open for further exploitation. Ask for a print out of the diagnostic test or better still have a scan done elsewhere with something at least as in depth as VCDS, it will likely be corrupted coding of the body control module. Inconcievable that an infotainment screen that is working normally could be responsable for the faults you have following a voltage transient.

Thanks, will do.

I didnt know that bull***t was a lubricant. The squeaking noise that I hear on the video is the sound of the tyres being rotated on the painted workshop floor, maybe there is a clicking that I cannot hear.

Written off for the cost of an exhaust system How old was the vehicle?