J.R.

Its not required with an emulator as the EGR valve is no longer commanded, the OP says that his will be "mapped out", surely that means the EGR valve will remain closed & a blanking plate not required? In any case if he fits one before the EGR is mapped out he will have grief.

The tyre tells you all you need to know about how the car has been looked after.

Almost certainly, mine was written off at 3 years old with zero visible body damage due to the airbag deployment, it still wears the original front bumper, unrepaired, unpainted and I would have to show you exactly where to look to see the minor scuff mark in the paint. The good news is that if you retain the salvage you will be able to replace the airbags & the ruptured dashboard, seatbelt pyrotechnics etc very cheaply, keep your cherished vehicle and have at least 60% of the insurance payout in your sky rocket. It cost me exactly £600 for a set of 3 airbags (steering wheel, dashboard & knee) a remanufactured dashboard (looks perfect 18 months later) seatbelts and the removal of crash data from the airbag module. Prices will probably be lower now.

I had one develop wear at 250k miles, the other was still fine at 325000 miles, I thought that I would be able to remove a shim like older vehicles but they were a swaged joint, all I did was deform it in my hydraulic press & there was no play it it lasted for the remaining years and miles. A pig of a job to remove, I did not know there was a special tool and a pig to replace the gaiter clip, I would avoid it if I could these days.

If you are going to be cutting then why not just carefully disc cut off the track rod ends & clean up the threads to fit new ones? It will be quicker and cheaper. Fitting new track rods is a ball-ache. I am talking about cutting a longitudinal slit along the track rod end down to the thread OD and then splitting it with a chisel, you may not need to do the latter, the heat alone will usually allow the track rod to be rotated in the joint.

It can be mitigated by where you put the nozzle, from memory I had to withdraw it from the fully engaged position and incline it upwards.

Unless you fit an EGR emulator/simulator then I believe that fitting a blanking plate will put your engine into limp mode as soon as it is started up.

I am now questioning whether it was the UK or French fuel that had the defoaming agent or more of it, I have brain fade Its been more than 2 years since I filled up the MK2 Octavia in the UK and I was in the habit of very slow filling wherever I was so as to properly brim the tank, something I only need to do at the last knockings with the Yeti.

They are a lot cheaper on E-bay, the good thing about them is they come with a couple of rigid copper tubes although not one close to the size we need for our cars. Another problem with them is that the flexible tubes are not long enough, even when used with the copper extensions you cannot sit the thing on the ground and have enough length to go over the front panel, down the dipstick tube and into the sump, so you will end up sourcing the bits you need in any case! 7mm tubing should go down your dipstick hole if you straighten it and keep it stored straight, indeed it probably is specially sourced for VAG vehicles because the bore of the 6mm is too restrictive even with piping hot oil. I dont like using flexible tube as you cannot feel by tapping when it has reached the bottom of the sump and there is a risk that it will curl upwards like a snorkel leaving oil remaining in the sump.

It is the easiest job in the world to do on the MK2, they really designed it well, easy to strip & lubricate bearings & free brushes, loads of dirt cheap second hand units available.

You have a later vehicle and also have a defoaming agent in your fuel, they had resolved the issue by then, the MK2 was better than the MK1 but still bad with French fuel.

Would you mind sharing it please?

They are very slow fillers, once you have got a little over half a tankfull in you have to release the trigger slightly and reduce the flow to stop the backpressure triggering the pump safety cut off. And even doing that the final 4 litres can take several minutes if you want to brim it completely. When I moved to France with a MK1 it suffered a lot less as the fuel then had more anti-foam additive than UK fuel, dont know if thats still the case but your fuel in Greece might create foam when filling which makes things 100 times worse. They seem to have overcome the problem in the Yeti.

Only one year with mine and a very different year at that, other than the jobs I did when I got it, the replacement of the airbags, dashboard etc, discs & backplates due to corrosion where standing in salvage yard, nothing has gone wrong & its been a very enjoyable drive. The economy will never be what the Octavias gave with the frontal area and 4wd but its better than it was sith the throttle venturi & butterfly declagged & the EGR stopped. Biggest change has been the remap from 108hp to allegedly 184hp, overtaking is now a reasonably safe proposition, I miss the space of the Octavias especially as they carry a full sized spare wheel beneath the variofloor and not taking up its volume. I would not give up the driving position and shorter length to return though. I am amazed at how much better the drive is consdering almost everything is the same components.

You can safely carry an awfull lot more than what they quote, it helps if you have completley filled the area underneath with essential junk Otherwise if you have something really heavy to carry just put a spacer block in the centre of the void underneath.

Are you serious!!!! German made Field trial a product sold on the middle aisle at Lidl FWIW a ductile 6mm copper tube will almost certainly pass through your dipstick tube, the memory of the flexible plastic tubes makes them curl towards their rolled radius and will catch where the dipstick tube enters the engine block, you can work a solid tube through there and if determined a 5/16" fuel pipe will go through the 8mm restriction.

If it is leaking from one of the output seals ie not a cracked casing (unlikely) and there is no radial movement of the flange then you can be reasonably certain that it is simply the seal that has failed. If there is movement then a bearing will have failed & the seal failure is a consequence of that, in both cases its repairable but garages choose not to, and all the time there are pigeons who will pay £3K then they will continue.

Good move, I'm sure all will be revealed now you know what to look out for.

I have fitted one, they are plug & play, the connector to the EGR I had to remove and refit the one from the emulator blind but if you practice on a similar one its not too hard, I have had it on and off since then (for a remap) and find it quite easy now. Its a very good solution that has no noticeable effect while driving, if your EGR has failed in the open position they supply a blanking plate, otherwise its not needed, if its not fitted the emulator can easily be removed from the circuit if there is another fault you have any suspicion that it might be the cause, if the EGR is blanked then the engine wont run without the emulator. Once fitted its invisible unless you go looking for it by tracing back the wiring from the MAF sensor under the intake trunking.

An inch could be the gearbox, I doubt that the transfer box would work in one direction and not the other, gear selector linkage could also be a possibility, that is quite easy to reset in order to rule out. I described earlier what to look for and how to check the rear diff, if it was drained then the failure will be comprehensive, the fix will be as you describe: If I can swap out a diff or transfer box for a few hundred (assuming it’s just nut and bolt work) then it may be worth the effort. I will ultimately have to do the same with my diff, I drove it too long before realising, its noisy but not failed................ yet!

Absolutely but a couple of weeks after a Haldex service is exactly the answer I was hoping the OP would not give A gear selector problem (2 gears engaged) reverse idler shaft problem etc would not allow the car to reverse 1m before binding up and only cause problems in reverse, the offset pinion on the rear differential might especially as the haldex would not initially transfer any power.

The weight of a wheel & tyre acting on one or two contact points is insignificant if the tyre is inflated and there will be no concern regarding flat spots, I have just recommissioned a car left standing in my garage since the end of 2003, the tyres were still fully inflated and no flat spots, others stored on a flat shelf that had lost their pressure had deformed & gone really flat at the bottom but returned to shape as soon as inflated. Tyres are stored vertically in racks at tyre fitters and part worn tyre shops. I have just realised that the original unused 1987 spare wheel from the above vehicle has been stored vertically for 34 years and it still is fully inflated and no flat spot.

If the Haldex oil change was done recently then I would be fairly confident that they made a mistake and drained the diff oil by mistake, easily done, I have done it myself with another Briskodian watchng over me (was blind in one eye following an operation), many other examples on the internet. With the above knowledge and in the absence of you saying that the noise is comng from the front I would respectfully say that the garage is incorrect to be suggesting problems at the front end, was it them who did the Haldex oil change by any chance? I would get all 4 wheels off the ground and inspect the rear diff carefully, look at the 2 drain plugs and you may well see traces that the wrong one has been undone, drain a little diff oil (if there is any inside) it should be like new fluid from a sealed container, rotate the propshaft while listening to the diff with the coupling engaged via VCDS or rotate the wheels, have someone stop one wheel and then the other while you are turning the propshaft or the other wheel. Do the same at the front if the rear seems OK, remove the propshaft if you are still in doubt. Dont mention my suspicions to the garage until you or someone else has investigated. Have they by any chance retained the vehicle while you decide?

More detail or a photograph is necessary. How will people know what to inspect, why and where from the above description? I have just realised its your first posting on the forum, a belated apology and welcome!

Does it make any difference if you are reversing in a straight line or turning? If the differential is undamaged it should not make any difference if the Haldx coupling is engaged or disengaged. It does sound disturbing, try to have someone look at each rear wheel for signs of snatch or wind up when reversing especially if it is worse on a curved trajectory. Have you by any chance paid a garage to change the Haldex fluid recently before this manifested? Are the grinding noises from the front or rear? Disconnecting the propshaft will prove definitively if its a front or rear transmission problem, I had a similar problem with the rear diff on a Suzuki Jeep, in order to be able to get to work that week I removed the propshaft and drove with FWD only with the 4WD lever engaged on the transfer box.