J.R.

Is there not a rear subframe on the 2WD variant then? Less complication = good in my book.

Thermoplastic melts with heat, that is how it is moulded, what do you mean by less quality than needed? I appreciate that you are writing in a second language. The lowest melting of the range of plastics is that of polystyrene at 170°c, the plastics likely to be used on your bumper, grille and headlights will have melting temperatures around 230°c, more than twice that required to boil water in a plastic kettle. Your car was exposed to extreme temperatures, I'm shocked at how high they were from reflecting sunlight but it would have been at that order of temperature.

My sincere apologies, I usually write what an acronym is in brackets. NVH is a motor industry term for noise vibration and harshness. And yes I agree that sound is a good way to describe the noise component of NVH, the other components are felt by the other senses.

Its not the propagation but the damping of said sound, the mass plays a big part. Sound is not really the word to describe NVH but I am responding using your terms. Before I could drive I was working in a garage all weekends and was soaking up information like a baby, I looked closely at a Bentley from under the ramp and was shocked by how massive and heavy the suspension arms, steering, crossmembers etc were, far heavier than needed for the loads they would incur even on a heavy vehicle like that, it was done for NVH but in a crude way, there was not the knowledge of the science then, very much in the same way that my vintage machine tools and construction equipment are massively heavy, modern ones are much lighter but don't vibrate or chatter any more than the old, they feel robust to use though.

Good stinking!

Do you not have to be a UK resident to hire a car from a UK hire company or have I got that completely wrong? If so how did you overcome the obstacle? Asking for myself as it would be cheaper for me to do the same as and when I have (no choice but) to visit the UK, also it's a liability taking my own vehicle now I no longer have a house and more importantly a workshop there.

Did the vehicle crash up in the air like driving over a kerb? Did the steering jerk and try to pull the wheel out of your hands? I am trying to get a feel of the nature of the impact. In my experience the alloy wheels on later cars are the weak point rather like a fusible link, if the rim has survived the next thing to be damaged will be the steering track rod bending and/or the track rod end pivot shaft bending both putting the tracking out, is the steering wheel still central when driving straight? If you have dodged a bullet on the above then it could be that the vertical shock loading on the damper has dislodged the connector or damaged a control valve, I'm assuming that you have the DCC dampers. I would start with a wheel alignment check and reading of fault codes with VCDS or equivalent. You are wise to avoid the insurers this second time. Actually more recent experience of clipping a kerb with a rear wheel was a damaged ABS sensor which was intermittent to start with but became progressively worse, that caused warning lights and fault codes for many different systems, I hope its that in your case as its the cheapest and best outcome.

Price vs NVH reduction with perhaps unsprung weight being a consideration on sporting variants. Price trumps all but different brands will place different values on the other two factors. Is it not just a case of continued value engineering with the components getting cheaper during the production run?- It is probably not the case today but 20-25 years ago Skoda would be the first to get the newest engines and drivetrains as effectively guinea pigs, if unforeseen problems developed in service it would only taint the budget brand not those with a hard earned reputation for quality.

Normal behaviour for the battery management system that aims to maintain only an 80% SOC (state of charge) to allow regenerative charging when slowing down. You will get false readings unless the battery is disconnected from the vehicle even with the ignition turned off, I have a similar tester and found this the hard way, also you will not get correct readings unless you enter the batteries CCA capacity and also under what testing régime. 30% SOC sounds very different to 80% but it is voltage based, unless the battery is disconnected there will be a significant voltage drop from the Canbus nodes communicating with each other, this is visible as the big spark you get when connecting/disconnecting. The Webasto heater gives a much greater volt drop and I'm not surprised that a battery already at 80% SOC would drop to 11.3v although the alternator should easily overcome this, maybe the battery was above 80% and it was allowing it to discharge. If ever I am unfortunate enough to end up with a later vehicle the battery mismanagement system and stop/start will be disabled immediately.

You are correct, would you please enlighten me?

Well your vehicle does appear to be full-filling its function of transporting you from A - B aside from one single breakdown. Your best bet is to buy an older vehicle, I have no yearning for anything newer than my soon to be 10 year old Yeti, in fact I am considering changing it for an earlier one. Re the tyre pressure warning system, the 8 psi threshold sounds about right, you may not like it but it's not something you can specify, pretty much all indirect TPMS systems have similar thresholds, buying an older car will not change that. I'm afraid that is a consequence of having a contributor who is obsessed with telling virtually every person regardless of their problems to charge their batteries following their dreamed up detailed procedures, your vehicle has a battery management system that aims to maintain an 80% state of charge, if you manually fully charge the battery it will immediately discharge it back to 80% as soon as you drive the vehicle so you will have indeed have wasted your time. Not so when the vehicle is running and not so when the vehicle is switched off or locked as there is a timer on the courtesy light function, on my vehicle at least nowhere near long enough when I am loading the rear at night for a journey.

I did similar with the Yeti which has only one tiny badly positioned load light which even with an LED bulb does not light the areas needed. The LEDs in the strips are parallel connected so I cut one strip into 4 and placed them where needed (the side panels and the C pillars), the wires turn 90° through small holes drilled at the end of the strip through the side panels where the concealed wiring splices in to the existing useless light. It lights up the area very well and people struggling to empty their cars at the dump at twilight have complimented on how good mine is. The only drawback I found was the rear C pillar lights interfering with my rear mirror vision when carrying a long load at night needing the tailgate open, I get over this by closing the lock hook manually fooling the electronics into thinking the tailgate is closed.

The frequent references to "traction" in this topic are mostly in my view an incorrect choice of noun where "grip" or perhaps an even better noun (I'm losing my English) should be used. To me traction is the measure of the tyres ability to transmit motive force and hence can only be used to describe wheels on a driven axle and does not play a part in a front tyres steering ability unless the driver wheelspins which all modern vehicle stability systems counter. I guess what I am saying is using loss of traction when describing an undriven wheels inability to follow its 90° to axle forward trajectory is confusing and incorrect, but that is just me, what does it mean to you? I recall a triangle diagram with each corner representing traction, steering and braking (I think, it has been a long time) it may have been in the RAC MSA blue book, the dsitnce from each corner to the centroid being the force. If you increased one force moving the corner outward (imagine the triangle being string pulled taut around 3 moveable nails then the other corners would move inwards (angles becoming more obtuse) and the force be it traction, braking or steering reduced.

I understand your frustration about your car lacking things which the brochure indicates is standard equipment but what makes you think that an EU customer would have a different experience?

It was over 5 years ago, I think I just disconnected it and removed it from the installation list using VCDS to stop the no comms fault codes showing up.

Absolutely normal but will be exacerbated by new unbedded in friction material.

@b1ackb1rd Had you dropped the rear subframe? I know there is a lot of clearance on the fixings and if it is not correctly aligned then the vehicle will crab but 6° outside of limits of whatever parameter is a massive amount, can you recall what the parameter and readings were? I'm pleased that it was not scrapped, were the suspension arms significantly weakened?

My Ali-Express one did not work either, VCDS revealed that the ECU was not able to communicate with it, a generic OBDII reader does not interrogate the Canbus modules, all it can do is read and reset generic OBDII codes held in the main ECU, these are emissions or safety related eg EGR, ABS problems etc.

It can be done with VCDS, I would expect a dyno tuning outfit to have an equivalent diagnostic software so there is no justification or need to call out BS to a contributor.

Was that a Facelift Yeti or the earlier one with the Panda eye foglights? I find the standard halogen units in my 2015 facelift or MK2 Yeti superb but that was coming from a MK1 Octavia which had light scatter from high mileage clear lenses and then a MK2 Octavia with the pathetic projector units, during that time my eyesight diminished and I lost the sight in my left eye. The Yeti lights were a revelation but they were brand new units I bought for use in France, 4 years later they still seem very good despite my remaining eye seeing halos around any light source after cataract surgery with a multi-focal lens implant. Are the post 2015 Yeti lights far better than the earlier ones? I ask because I am considering changing to an earlier vehicle, if the headlights are poor then its a deal breaker for me.

Probably spent their childhood playing video games rather than experiencing the natural world.

Should it actually be doing what (you believe it should) it does when not grounded, I note that it does actually move when grounded, have you tried running the vehicle with it fitted?

That was somewhat condescending especially as I had edited to say that I understood after watching the video you kindly linked to. I do not need to do a Google search to understand lighting a fire using a magnifying glass, I was once a child and understood that the curved glass of a fragment of a milk bottle would act as one.

How does building glazing magnify the sun? I'm not doubting it as our cars don't usually melt even in the height of summer let alone November. Reflection I can understand its the magnification I am struggling with. Editted, I watched the video, I had not used the phrase "magnifying glass" as I did not think that any architect with half a brain cell would design a building with parabolic mirrored glazing. They should install solar panels there! Undeniably a result of Climate Change 😁