J.R.

Try my suggestion of disconnecting the canbus wiring from the motor. I have no recollection of writing the posting!!!!

In general my experience of cheap OBDII readers have been that they will say no fault codes when VCDS shows up pages of them, they should however display a code if the MIL indicator is lit, mine has yet to show a single fault code & I suspect that its faulty. He sounds like a genuine seller & probably believes what a mechanic told him all that time ago. I would try a cheap reader scan or find someone with VCDS if that does not work to have piece of mind, whatever the fault was/is it does not seem to have affected the vehicle.

Sorry, cant help you, for me a car is a means of locomotion from A-B, I dont make or take phone calls while driving and have a 2004 non smartphone which rarely travels with me and would not communicate with the radio.

A mechanic would have just thrown the old ones back in (probably not in the same bores) or fitted new ones, perhaps had a wiggle to make sure that they all had some clearance & then started & revved the nuts off the engine.

And not too little either or there is a risk of burning out a valve/seat when the engine is hot especially on a pushrod engine, once you are sorted I would follow my procedure one more time with the engine hot to be sure. I also have a strong suspicion that the written procedure has an error and it should read anti-clockwise, I cannot see the logic for how it is under any circumstances.

MinkyMike. That means they were fully compressed, trying to start an engine with no valve clearances and the valves held open slightly is suicidal, follow my procedure, it will be rattly for a while & then the noise will go as they pump up.

That makes complete sense to me. Using that procedure on new lifters is asking for bent pushrods at best, burnt out valves & seats at worst, its just as well that the engine has not started. I would follow lines 1 & 2 in the procedure, ignore 3 and then carry out 4 in an anti-clockwise direction

The little box just before the air filter is to prevent the engine sucking up floodwater and bending conrods. I stopped before fording a flooded road and thought I would be clever and remove the top cover (which frequently comes adrift) only to find on close examination that Skoda had been "simply clever" & I did not need to remove it, - I did anyway just to be sure. The main reason is to draw the coolest air possible, there is very little restriction and everything especially the filter is oversized, the air will be compressed and cooled before combustion so any hypothetical induction losses are more than covered by the increased charge density.

One thing is for sure, I have had many parts from China and been surprised to see the VAG markings & part numbers & they have always been superb quality, something like the overhead console spectacles cubby with its damped hinged drop down lid, lofted curves, locating clips etc would be the last thing in the world that you would tool up for to make a pattern part, even from the original moulds & OE production line there will be those with slight distortion that will stick & not open with a touch, those are the sort of parts I would expect to see finding homes via the parallel market. Given that everything has been 100% spot on then I think you are right although they will have been through a different distribution channel. They could be unsold stock or consignments that were refused if packaging damaged, samples checked failed QC etc.

Could you please describe or post a link to the procedure that you are following to set the tappet clearances? I have a feeling the answer to the problem may come from that. I have never experienced hydraulic lifters with a pushrod & rocker arm system with tappet adjustment so it would be illuminating to me. Plenty of experience of old school tappet setting even on sidevalve engines and also OHC and DOHC with rockers & tappet adjustment or bucket followers & shims.

Trim removal, remove screw on dogbone handle and yank like you are tearing your way out of a cardboard prison. Doing it cautiously is when the moulded standoffs can break rather than the clips release. They get easier once they lose their cherry.

Smart thinking

Its purely speculation regarding the wiper motor, and thinking back I'm not sure if there are extra wires to it, because if it took the signals from the lock microswitch it would also send out the lock/unlock pulses. The easy way is to trace the wires back from the lock and/or count how many cables are in the wiper motor connector, it would need only 4 for its own function, there would be another 4 or more for the lock and they would of course lead to it. The lock is the prime suspect.

The boot closed & locked microswitch is in the boot lock mechanism, there are actually two positions, the tailgate can be unlocked, say by the remote and then opened, in one position I think the light comes on and in the other the maxidot display, something like that, its too cold & dark to go out & check. Did you retain the lock and rear wiper motor from the new tailgate or refit your old ones? If they are the ones that came with the second hand tailgate then there may be a microswitch problem with the lock, and as a very long shot I wonder if the microswitch is cabled back to the nearest canbus node which is the rear wiper motor and from there the tailgate open signal is sent to the body/comfort control module which operates the courtesy lights & the maxidot display of open doors etc? Its possible that the wiper motor canbus node has a different revision number or has different coding.

Were the bump stops changed when the shock absorbers were replaced? The top sleeve dropping down & being free to bounce up & down can make the same noise as you describe. My MK2 Octavia had new shock absorbers fitted by a garage for the previous owner, not only did they not replace the bump stops but they left one of the sleeves out completely. Always worth checking the work that was done when a related problem occurs soon afterwards. Apologies if you have already done so.

Good man, I knew that there was a way that I had inadvertently locked my keys in the car in the past, they were left on the passenger seat so it was that, later on the door closed microswitch failed on the drivers door and it there was a risk of the same happening, something like that, its all a bit hazy but you have reminded me of it. I am housesitting down the south next week, I must hide the spare key in the chassis tomorrow, a taxi ride back to collect it and back down again will cost more than £40

You dont even need to have it coded, just simply a key cut to open the door and turn on the ignition, that should allow the boot to be opened by the handle. I invested in a second cloned key but its not much use to me at home in my keysafe, I am loathe to hide it on the vehicle. I also like to leave my keys on/in the vehicle when I go running which is a big risk, at present they are put behind the fuel filler flap but one day the wrong person will be looking the right way. I have a solution in mind but need to wait till I get back to the UK, I am going to buy a cheap flat metal key cut to match my ignition key, no immobiliser chip, I will fabricate a discreet pocket for it behind the fuel filler flap or another hiding place, my spare coded key will be properly hidden in a really hard to find place in the vehicle. If ever I lose my keys or lock them in the boot I will use the non coded key to get in the vehicle then I can locate the spare key or get my keys from the boot. When i am running I will have to find a way to lock the keys in the car out of view in the center console, failing that I can lock them in the boot, either way nobody will see me looking furtive putting something behind the fuel filler flap. To the OP, you said that you can see the keys, you need to get a small airbag (window fitters use them) slide that into the side of the tailgate and inflate it to create a gap, then with a hook fashioned from a straightened coathanger wire get hold of the keys and manipulate them into position, with a second stiffer wire or rod you can then press the remote central locking button to unlock the doors, that is what a breakdown service operator would do.

That is my confinement project for tomorrow on the Yeti It will also protect the aircon condensor from stone damage It will stay on until such time as I notice the water or oil temps rising in summer or the cooling fans working more than usual (which is never at all!). It will probable be the aircon that causes me to remove it.

I am assuming that your camera is mounted in either the tailgate release handle or the number plate light, in either case it will be right beside the rear wiper so even if you had run the power and ground cables through the loom bellows all you need to do is cut them off long enough to splice into the power & ground wires going into the wiper motor, the canbus node is inside on the PCB. In fact from memory I was in the same situation and I simply unconnected the camera power lead from the extension cable and it was long enough to reach to the wiper motor, just needed the connector cutting off & the cables spliced in.

People seem to have very imaginative ideas about what the canbus communication system does like monitoring bulbs etc. It is a communication protocole between modules which reduces the need for multiple cables between switched & individual components. In the case in point when you actuate the column stalk for the rear wiper its sends a low voltage minimal current signal to the body/comfort control module located as close to the controls it interfaces with as practical, the BCM/CCM in turn sends a signal via the two wire canbus network to the corresponding module/node in the rear wiper which will then actuate the relay to power the motor at the required speed and duration. The power for the motor and the canbus node is the large conductor that I referred to and is the most practical point for you to power your reversing camera from. It is the cable that powers the motor and its canbus node, it is not controlled by canbus, it will be live all the time your ignition is on engine running or otherwise. Most nodes have multiple outputs but as each are only working part of the time only one suitably sized supply cable is required rather then every item having a seperate conductor running to the control switch on the dashboard.

They are designed to last a lot longer than that and the majority do, the MTBF is probably several hundred thousand miles. Just like the human body there will be some that fail before the average life expectancy, of those a large proportion very early on usually a manufacturing fault and then randomly, some will be misuse or incorrect servicing. They do design them so that every gearbox will last a minimum amount of time but that is dependant on manufacturing consistency and how it is treated & maintained in service, they cannot design it so that it will always give a warning of when it will fail as you were asking for earlier, in certain areas of wearing parts it could be possible, brake pad wear indicators for instance. Notwithstanding the above they can get it wrong where there are common early failures, recalls etc. The aim is to have a vehicle where nothing breaks within the warranty period and to design the parts to have a long life without increasing the manufacturing cost and there are always trade offs to be made there. It could even be a failed capacitor on a control board costing less than 1p but until or unless there are loads of failures and the aftermarket proposes a repair solution on an exchange basis we will never get to know those sort of details from the manufacturers.

That is exactly what Skoda did from the turn of this century and it gained them market share and many loyal customers, having got them then they changed strategy to exploit them and the reputation that they had built up. The winners (or the least losers) are people like me that buy second hand and attend to the faults that caused the vehicle to be sold cheaply, the faults that could so easily have been resolved with a little common sense instead of playing parts bingo with the customers money and/or fobbing them off, keeping the car for ages doing work & never resolving the issue & damaging their reputation and the customer loyalty that they once worked hard for in the process.

Connect directly to the large power cable to the rear wiper, job done, - simples! And it is right beside the camera, with the earth its 2 less cables to run through the tight grommet to the hinge panel.

You can reduce your losses by selling the old ones on Ebay You can write that they are believed to be in good servicable condition because they passed the MOT 8 months ago when Garage X sold the vehicle to you.

Unlikely, once the engine has fired once the compression ignition cycle is self sustaining, they are needed to start and also play a part in reducing emissions in the first minute or two.