J.R.

Removing and modifying the bleed block is easy. Remove U trunking between air filter and slam panel airbox, disconnect MAF sensor cable & pull off vacuum pipe. Release spring clip & pull away inlet pipe & MAF sensor from air filter. Undo 5mm hex socket screw holding lower part of air filter, leave top cover in place. Give it a good yank to release the rubber AV mounts & wiggle it out, the clutch bleed block is now exposed. Clamp off the flexible pipe, release the 2 spring clips and remove the unit. The only tools for the above work are a 5mm hex screwdriver and slip joint pliers for the air trunking spring clip. Drill 4.5mm hole through bore of bleed block and blow out plastic swarf. Refit and remove hose clamp. Remove dust cap and turn bleed nipple 180° counter clockwise by hand (plastic knurled nut) close off once fluid comes out. Refit the airbox etc and you are all done!!!

@Daveyeti @Schtum I am 99% sure that I have found what the problem is, how to resolve it for free and also how to live with it. Editted, wrong again in hindsight!! The plastic master cylinder pushrod is attached to the metal piston by a segmented plastic collet and the tolerances of the mouldings are not what they should be, the collet has to be fitted to the ball end of the pushrod then both inserted into the piston where a tiny raised ring should clip home into a tiny groove, the mouldings can be such that it either does not engage properly or not well enough and can come out especially when hot. This gives a situation of the clutch pedal with a very strong return spring whose pushrod is not attached to the piston and the collet can slide in and out laterally. The stupid clutch torque limiter means the slave cylinder releases slowly with the fluid going through a tiny orifice, the master cylinder piston will also return slowly but if the collet has displaced or is free to move then the pedal will return as quick as you remove your foot from the clutch making a noise when it hits the stop, the piston will not come up all the way as it has parted company with the pushrod, the fluid port to the reservoir remains closed, the next time you use the pedal it sinks half way to the floor and only returns half way, the collet and pushrod having moved away from the piston. If the pedal is stuck halfway down then lifting it with your foot is counterproductive, it will leave the piston behind and each time you pull the collet out it wears a bit more, I will explain what to do later. To resolve the problem or to prevent it occuring and/or to live with a collet that is detached from the piston you need to remove the bleed block/clutch torque limiter (an easy job I will describe later) and drill a 4.5mm hole through the centre of the bore, there is a 4.5mm bore that will centre the drill for you, you might want to buy a second hand one from Ebay to play with. Once this is done you will have a very firm clutch pedal with no free play, I had to move my seat backwards! Under certain conditions the pedal may still get a small amount of free play, max speed acceleration runs snatching gears, perhaps some end float on the clutch at high revs, possibly first thing in the morning, all you need to do is depress the clutch and bring the pedal up slowly and all will be good again. Its important to do this when you park the vehicle at the end of the day, if the piston does not return fully then the fluid from the reservoir cannot enter the system, as everything cools a partial vacuum will pull the piston back & the next morning you will have the old sinking non returning pedal again, do not hook it up with your foot, instead push it to the floor & let it return slowly, you may need to do this twice. I am going to leave my vehicle at this stage for now and wait for the hot weather to see how it behaves before replacing the cylinder once again with one where I have glued the collet into place, I believe then I will have resolved the problem definitively. The cheap (€18 inc delivery against £135 from Skoda) master cylinders have collets that dont engage, the pushrod of the 2nd new one I bought today came away in my hands, the collet then went into the piston but wont come out without destroying it, the pushrod has to go in the collet & then both pushed into the piston with a retaining glue or loctite, I think they are VAG Q.A. rejects. Thats more than enough words, I will do another posting of how to remove, modify & replace the bleed block. I think the problem starts or is exacerbated when the master cylinder seal starts to break up from the heat from the DPF, these particles find their way through the bleed block and further restrict the tiny return passage, the fluid will be black at this stage as mine was, VAG even make the seal magnetic and have a very strong magnet on the end of the piston to try and trap the particles, mine was covered in detritus and there was no sign of the seal, the cylinder will still function by deplacement without the seal which is a static one like in a brake caliper.

Re the brake figures, someone else will explain better than me but its a function of how many kgf of retardation before the wheel locks compared to the recorded weight of the vehicle, the rear brakes on a FWD do very little work before locking up, I would say that yours are in excellent condition. Why? Because you have the same figures for the handbrake as the footbrake. The pass figure is 16%

No recharging needed, just a 12700km extension lead taking the shortest pole to pole route: https://thunderbirds.fandom.com/wiki/The_Mole

What goes around comes around!

It can be coded out with VCDS together with tear wipe etc, mine was also set to use the rear wiper when selecting reverse gear if the front wipers were on intermittent or full wipe, I deselected that as well.

Ali-Express for peanuts and just buy an aérosol can of plastic primer & another of matt or satin black. Editted. If its that price from Skodaparts then its likely to be even cheaper from a Skoda dealer in France, for trim bits TPS have always been much cheaper for me than E-bay sellers.

Water cooling turbo bearings did not sound plausible to me, an auxiliary oil pump yes, but water at turbo temperatures?????????? But I checked and you are correct, the article could have been written for me! this Garrett white paper will hopefully convince a skeptic that the benefits provided by water-cooling are worth the small effort required to properly set it up. https://www.garrettmotion.com/fr/racing-and-performance/choosing-a-turbocharger/water-cooling-for-your-turbo/ Do the stock VAG diesel turbos have this water cooling?

I dont think that mine was fully engaged when I got the car and I had never engaged it fully, as a consequence I had been slightly overfilling the sump. My neighbour with the same engine pointed it out to me, it took a big shove to take its virginity and its still a little stiff to withdraw. Phnaar Phnaar

My halogen oven would have the highest rating of all in which case although the 17l capacity would work against it.

Immobiliser. Try with the second key.

Do all the engines have the auxiliary water pump or is it just the petrol ones? I am gradually getting to know what all the alien looking parts are that smother my engine and have not yet seen anything resmbling a water pump.

Plenty of people on the bay of evil and Farcebook can clock these vehicles, there is a facility in VCDS to interrogate the ECU to find out the actual mileage the engine has done as opposed to what is showing on the instrument binnacle. Yes an ECU could also be changed but you would have to find one with the exact mileage that you wanted as well as having the instrument binnacle hacked. I fitted a reprogrammed ECU for a remap on my MK2 Octavia & kept the original as a spare, the mileage did not change on the instrument binnacle but if you check using VCDS it showed the higher mileage of the donor vehicle. I explained to the guy I sold it to that the speedo was correct & what would happen if someone checked using VCDS, I also gave him the original ECU.

Sorry no.

No it was an Ebay seller and a reduced price for a returned unit IIRC, it was a gamble, my first unit was a male version as it would throw its toys out of the pram when multitasking, playing music while Satnav on etc, I lived with it but many would have returned it. So I had low expectations and at £80 I would have accepted the same **** as last time but the new one works faultlessly, luck of the draw and I could have returned it anyway.

If they really did order from Skoda then it should be the same service, I'm betting though that they clone the existing key. A key from Skoda should come precut so they will not need to take yours to copy, it should also have one of the tags with a key reference number on it.

Some made up name for whatever its worth, A-Sure or something, its only written on the silly little instruction (not) manual not on the unit.

Ignoring the ratings and just applying common sense then yes, insulation plays a part also the volume of the oven and the surface area of the steel sides, top & bottom that has to be warmed up, the quicker the oven warms up the more efficient it will be. I ditched my built in oven over a decade ago and have been using a Halogen cyclonic glass bowl thing, mine is now Triggers Broom It gets up to cooking temperature in a fraction of the time that a normal oven does, within a couple of minutes and the food is usually cooked before a built in oven gets up to temperature and you can then put the food in to cook, listening to the thermostat cut in and out or simply watching the light from the element you can see that the insulation is very good (even though the glass is too hot to touch) as its 1300 watts compared to 2.2kw and is only heating about 20% of the time to maintain the temperature.

Mine is a cheapo WinCE unit at half the price of yours, the factory code is 3368 (unless that was for the previous one) on the first one I changed it to RHD display for doors open etc, on this one I have not managed to do so, I cannot find a parameter that matches although like VCDS most of them have translations that bear no relevance to what the parameter actually is, its not the end of the world if it shows me the passenger door is open instead of mine.

On my MK2 Octavia the engine cover had an plastic insert which had the fake bulges supposedly covering intake tracts and maybe a Skoda badge, I cant recall, it was so the same basic engine cover could be used on many different models just by changing the insert. It clipped into place but would rattle at certain resonant frequencies, I removed it, added a bead of sealant and clipped it back in place and it was silent thereafter.

The Hoodie on the bike is already eyeing it up

He is right, aside from the physical faceplate differences on the VAG range(compared to a square double DIN fitment) the units are all identical, vehicle specific just means they have selected the relevant Canbus protocole in the factory or warehouse. If you get the access code to the manufacturers settings menu you will be surprised to see that there are several hundred different manufacturers Canbus protocoles to choose from, many makes that you will never have heard of.

In your world maybe, in the real world MOT testers are not obliged to test the regulatory compliance of items on the vehicle, just their presence and in some but not all cases that they function. A type approval application would do, an SVA test also but to a lesser degree, often the presence of a CE mark or an E number on headlights etc suffices. I'm afraid in this modern world most things are a self certification paper chase and Certificates of Conformity even if they are fantasy are the King, I have serious doubts that the tiny clear lensed LED indicators hidden amongst the garish Christmas Tree rear light clusters on many modern vehicles meet the construction and use legislation, they may do in isolation but surrounded by the glaring red Blackpool illuminations its impossible for me to see them operating.

In 45 years of driving aside from the dashboard idiot light I have never been able to see the indicators of any of my cars from the drivers seat, it certainly is not a legal requirement or an MOT failure, they are there to be seen by other road users and the regulatory angles of visibility etc are for them & not the driver. Editted, I understand what you mean now, the ones in the mirrors of my Yeti can be seen from behind but not from the drivers seat, although they are so small as to be practically invisible but I have noticed that tendancy on many new car rear light clusters where aesthetics have over-ruled functionality to the detriment of safety.

Thats a rip off for a cloned key, at that price you could have had the job done properly by a main dealer with a specific key cut with the RFID chip programmed ordered from VAG, doing it that way if the lost key ever resurfaced into the wrong hands it would not start the vehicle. Cost is €240 in France on a 7 day turnaround with the 30 minute workshop programming time included. My cloned key cost £60ish from a Lithuanian on E-bay working out of the front room of his London flat.