J.R.

They are a horrible bodge that locks part of the spring increasing the spring rate but also the strain on the spring and can cause it to go coilbound before the bumpstops have acted, they being made of spongy foam will have probably already degraded. Grayston Engineering who make them also make the far superior helper springs which work very well without changing the ride height. My last 2 Skodas I have fitted uprated OE springs, the ones designated "rough road market" as they are cheaper but they have raised the ride height which was OK by me but not for some others.

Height from ground to wheelarch unladen & then with a fat bloke sat on the wing, preferably on a cushion because the tinwork tends to have the rigidity of a wet lettuce leaf these day.

My mistake, not knowing your engine I thought the auxiliary tensioner was in the centre of the poly-vee belt run where it takes a turn to the centre around the sprung loaded tensioner pulley. That fitting looks to be on the rear of the pump, I think it might be for refilling PAG oil although the holes have me confused. The system is normally tested and refilled from two different diameter dry break couplings which are usually a tee from the piping and in a high accessible position & should have screw on dust caps.

It will be OK to drive. That part is a long way away from the auxiliary belt tensioner and looks to be at the rear of the A/C pump. Looking on the bright side you now are the proud owner of your own personal hole in the ozone layer

Nothing wrong with 16 year old springs in terms of ride comfort unless one or both have broken ends, you definitely would get the benefit of the new rear shocks on older but functional springs. I completely agree that the front springs should have been changed as a pair however it sounds like the new one has far too high a spring rate, I reckon that he did indeed buy a pair but on replacing the first spring either when compressing it or after fitting he realised that the new one was not compatible at all and stopped there before fitting the second one which would have made things twice as bad. You should measure the spring rates by getting somone to sit carefully on each wing while you measure how many mm the suspension sags, ideally find another identical stock unmodified vehicle to compare with.

I am not surprised, the only surprise is that you had any in the first place. I thought you guys’ as owner’s/enthusiasts would appreciate it most. = View it the most and generate me pay per view income. I cant comment on the content of the video, you will probably understand why.

On my 2015 Yeti the wipers work when at a standstill with or without the engine running.

I can see now that it is something that they are slipping in, if you look in the thread "Octavia 3 VRS TDI 184 4x4 with many extras" (sorry, dont know how to link to it) it has a link to a pdf of the factory build sheet and PR codes, the very last one is 12 month subscription to infotainment.

The final item was revealing, "Infotainment subscription 1 year" From reading another thread it would appear that the thing will stop working after a year unless you pay the ransom.

Its a shame because a lot of thought has gone into the design & production of an otherwise very good environmentally sealed strain relief mechanism, its a good example of how good VAG once were by providing a solution to a problem that really didn't exist except in extremis, a high mileage taxi in hostile environmental conditions, then someone cost cutting screwed up all the good work. Whether it was VW speccing the wrong cable & not testing the change or suppliers saving a few cents and VAG not doing their QA properly we will never know but I would speculate that if the main loom were to pass through that bellows without the sub loom (a production nightmare) then the colour coded cables used would not fracture, after all they never used to even after 20 years and millions of miles.

What they want you to pay to retain (to me unnecessary) functions is more than my total fixed annual motoring costs, insurance, CT test (every 2 years) and carte grise (equivalent of road tax but only paid once), plus I dont use a smartphone.

OK, I hadn't realised it was included, that said unless it is someone elses invoice then you should have known, myself I would have refused it and asked for the price to be reduced which would probably have flushed out the truth. But thats a fictional scenario as I would not buy new. Without wanting to sound sarcastic I cannot imagine the scenario you describe with the smart articles because I would never even buy any of them, whipping my 2004 Nokia out of my pocket usually stops any of that sales nonsense. It does appear to be the way things are going, moneterising something given away that people then wont want to live without. As Ronald, or was it Nancy said, JUST SAY NO! No umbrage taken, I realise that I am apart from the rest of the world.

Is it the intermittent noise that comes & goes in the video then gets worse & becomes a screeching? If so then its the alternator pulley one way sprag clutch. Don't let the mechanic tear down the timing belt without checking that first, get him to run the engine with the auxiliary belt removed, you pight be able to get the noise to come & go or change frequency by switching on and off heavy electrical loads like the heated screen.

I never claimed that you could, I was responding to a request for detailed information as to how I visually check my timing belt. I have ears and a high level of mechanical sympathy.

Does that not count as help? If not then neither will the following but as I don't know where it is I am supposed to go I will continue. Soldering will cause a brittle heat affected zone which will be more prone to fracturing, noneltheless its a valid repair method for this if you use a proper flexible cable with flexible insulation and make the 2 soldered joints well away from the part which flexes which looks to be impossible from the photograph, best thing is to replace the loom section, you can find the part number from 7zap. Some machinery I designed was having service failures, the production department were using soldered bootlace ferrules on cable terminations, I got them to move to crimp terminals but failures were still occuring, the I found that they were dipping the wire ends into the solder pot before crimping, despite our best efforts some of them contined to do this so we removed the solder pot on H&S reasons after someone tipped it over and burnt themselves. no more wiring fractures after that.

Who knew? Did you not see the 'Contract period duration 1 year" on the invoice that you paid? How are you £45 the poorer when you have already had the benefits that you paid for during the specified period? What do think that a lawyer could do for you? Sorry if I seem unsympathetic but I dont get why it seems essential to people to control everything with a mobile phone, if your car was incapable of safely and legally conveying you to where you want to go like the speedo km/h issue or real mechanical & electrical issues then that would be a different matter. Presumably all these functions would work if you paid the subscription? You have already put yourself forward to be shaken up by paying the first subscription. Or was it perhaps included in the vehicle price?

Dont buy an old property in France then .

The OP said "repaired" & not replaced, frankly anyone that would call using a chocolate block on a safety critical cable in the tight confines of a flexing door loop a "repair" is an eternal optimist. You can find the part number by using 7zap or any of the other sites.

Wino, I will have to go through my self study guides again, I'm pretty sure that I didn't imagine it, I dont think there is a pressure transducer so that would mean two pressure switches, maybe I did dream it. Mac, with a partially blocked strainer up to a certain RPM the pump output will not be significantly affected but once there is starvation on the inlet side cavitation will occur and the output flow will remain constant or even drop and the pressure will drop. When I dry sumped my X Flow engined Westfield I used solid metal hydraulic pipes along the chassis & fixed parts, tank, thermostat, filter housing, cooler etc & braided lines to the 5 port pump, the lines were not big enough and I had to keep the revs low until the oil had warmed through and the viscosity dropped because the oil pressure would fall above 2K rpm, it gradually got higher as the oil warmed.

Nowadays it only ever cuts in for an emergency response to an idiot coming the other way tailgating the vehicle in front and pulling out to overtake without being able to see the oncoming traffic, or someone ignorant of priorité a droite which has not happened for a year, - Covid restrictions preventing UK visitors. When I was young and the road was my personal racetrack my company car was a Sierra XR4x4 (88-90) it was a 20 minute cross country drive to work and the ABS would cut in at least 4 times every journey One place where it really bugged me was downhill late braking for a bend where a front wheel would hit a bump and trigger the ABS which decreased the retardation and made the entry speed too quick. I deglaze my brake pads every couple of months and thats the only time aside from the idiots that I trigger the ABS.

The pump output is proportional to the engine speed, the higher the revs the greater volume of oil pumped, a partially blocked pick up pipe strainer will pass enough oil at low revs but starve the pump at higher revs resulting in a reduction of output flow & pressure. Also on my engine and probably all others of its generation there are 2 thresholds for the oil pressure warning lights one for idling and low RPM, one for higher RPM's the OP may simply be dropping beneath the threshold.

Clever stuff if it can induce combustion to burn off deposits at one precise location in the exhaust system after having been combusted itself under compression ignition. Clever enough to sell hope. Mr Muscle on the other hand does work but not through the fuel tank, it needs an enema.

The filter is on the pressure side, the oil drains freely within the crankcase once it has exited from the bearings etc. There is also a strainer on the oil pick up pipe (the suction side of the pump) a blocked strainer would give exactly the symptoms that are being described.

It looks very new or at the very least the failures were recent judging by the lack of oxidisation on the exposed copper. The insulation must be made from recycled didlydydos like the soles on my last pair of I now realise knock off hiking boots.

The wheelnut covers are missing as well unless the cheapskates didn't fit them to your model. Make sure that you still have an engine cover, undertray and any other bits that garages like to collect.