J.R.

Glad to hear that! I have made a variofloor and filled every cc of volume with "essential" junk which must go some way to reducing the noise, with the rear seats removed or tilted forwards the loading height is about 4" above the carpet & useless piece of plastic above the fuel tank which is where the noise must be getting through so I could effectively fill the 4" gap under the seats with sound insulation as long as it does not get in the way of the seat release a slide mechanisms, I am going to fill the void initially with blankets or something to see if it makes a difference and will then create something permanent out of extruded foam, its a job I need to do anyway to create a sleeping platform. If I can silence the noise I might be able to forget about it!

This kiddy should do the business! The shaft & eye are 40mm diameter forged steel yet according to the tare plate the gross weight of the loaded trailer is equal to the unladen weight of 499kg Its because they are made to a price and over 500kg needs not only brakes but also a carte grise (registration) and seperate insurance, the suspension & tyres etc are all good for 2 tonnes as they know exactly how they will really be used.

To explain I had travelled 100 miles to a Paris suburb to buy a 45 year old site trailer the same as one I already have, or so I thought, it had stood bogged down on a site since 2003 so I took along 3 good wheels & all the spares I could think of, what I didnt know was that the eye on the drawbar was a larger cross section than my existing one that tows fine with the coupling towball that you can see in the picture and it would no enter into the jaw far enough to get the pin in place. To return with a proper NATO type jaw coupling would have meant an additional 300 miles and at least a weeks wait, the guy had a small angle grinder and one disc only so I set to work to the eye, the towbar bolts & even had to put a flat on the pin (its being scrapped anyway now I have the proper Nato jaw coupling), it was tight but it did follow the car when I did some lock to lock turns so I set off home. I hadn't however tried reversing Stopped at a Lidl for refreshments and tried to reverse and could see that it did not want to go so managed to do a U turn, I stopped just before the autoroute to tighten all the wheel nuts again, check the trailer board etc and saw the damage that I had caused, i took the photo then in case it was no longer attached when I got back My hydraulic press for straightening the bracket is in the UK so I got it back pretty much straight by doing exactly the same thing but reversing in the other direction I will in time weld some stiffeners between the two plates that buckled, I have to remove it anyway to weld up all the bolted joints that were shaken loose, the bolts that hold the extension plate to the crossbeam have almost as much clearance as the chassis rails and had already worked loose once.

Tighten those bolts through the chassis rail to death and then tighten them to double death after towing a heavy trailer. Why? - They are great big clearance holes and the U shaped swan neck or in my case flange fit towbar creates a large turning moment to the cross bar which would be really rigid if the towball mounting flange was welded directly to it (but would require an very accurate and visible bumper cut) this is accentuated if its a close coupled 4 wheel trailer with a heavy load. In a very short time the brackets will be rotating up & down in the chassis rails & you will be able to grip the towball and lift it up & down, the only way to overcome the clearance it to tighten the bolts so much that the washers deform & the cupped part goes into the clearance hole and pulls up tight to the threaded bracket. The washers they supply are not as thick as would normally be expected so I think they intend them to become cupped to stop the movement. Then the side bolts may come loose and also on a flange fit like mine the bolts where the U shaped extension plates bolt to the centre of the bar, I usually end up having to weld the lot solid but I do push the limits a bit when towing as this photo of the recent disaster shows

I found this video on one of the links, look carefully at the light pattern from the foglights, its clear that when manouevring forwards they have a role to play and could add to safety however when reversing the cut off line is ahead of the vehicle, they show what the vehicle has passed and not what the front extremities are going towards. And from the drivers seat unless you are a giraffe with your head out of the panoramic roof you could not even see the rear of the light pattern! The video proves conclusively that the function of actuating them when reversing is a chocolate teapot and is a potential danger to other road users, on the other had it shows the value of their use in forward motion in some circumstances. All the more odd that the chocolate teapot function was enabled at the factory but I had to program in the cornering function with VCDS. I should add that I did try several reversing scenarios last night and could not see that the foglights gave me any more visibility, looking at the video I now know why.

What is the distinction between a "fail" and an "automatic fail"?

I always reverse onto my driveway from a main road, I will look at disabling the feature in VCDS, given that there seem to be hundreds or weirdly named options (probably bad translations) wherever I look does anyone know what the option is called and what module needs coding? I guess the BCM.

Look inside the chassis leg from the end with a torch, you will soon see the holes if they are where they should be.

Gotcha, its for reversing on full lock so as to illuminate the swing of the front end. I spend most of my time looking backwards when I am reversing, I guess it might have some value if the car has cameras everywhere and the driver is looking at a split screen.

I would never have noticed this but I was checking my headlight alignment by driving back & forth towards the garage door after having set them to the wall across the road using a laser level to project the ground level from my drive. Anway I had set the lights correctly but was seeing a bright band beneath the dipped beam pattern, at first I thought it was the DRL's but it was the foglights, then I realised that they were switching on when reverse gear was selected, normally I would be looking behind. I cannot for the life of me work out why it should do this or how it could be a safety measure to vehicles approaching from the front. Just to confirm it only does it when the main or dipped beam headlights are on, reverse is selected and the engine running, they dont come on under any other circumstances except that I programmed VCDS so that te relevant one would come on as a cornering aid light, perhaps its this that has brought the anomoly. any idea why it should do this? - give yours a try!! Vehicle is the 2015 Yeti as shown in my profile.

I have specific vision problems and the medications that I have to take every day make glare from headlights, brakelights etc much worse to the extent that if I am stuck behind someone with their foot on the brake & powerfull LED brake lights especially the high level ones I have to close my left eye and shade the right one with my hand. The worst is on a Eurotunnel crossing where you have to be right up to the bumper of the car in front, some muppets are on and off their brake pedal throughout the whole crossing, its OK if I can recline the seat to sleep but when I am loaded I cannot.

Well I for one am glad that you asked the question and worked out and posted the plausible answer even though I dont have hill assist, its just a shame that you had to experience that there is sometimes a price to be paid from certain contributors whose contribution is often the same.

That is excellent! Here in France diesel is still quite a bit cheaper than petrol but nowhere near the gap it once was, we all know the end game. I believe in the UK petrol is now cheaper than diesel, is that so? If so what are the relevant prices or if you prefer, how many mpg would a diesel Yeti need to return to have the same fuel costs per mile as AWfabias 1.2 petrol @ 42.2 mpg? An update on mine, after cleaning the clogged up throttle valve & the inlet manifold where I could reach it my economy has increased significantly, on my control journey to & from the running club that I do 3 times a week always under the exact same traffic conditions (no traffic ) and driving in the same economy manner I am getting I think 15% or more better economy, I did many miles of offroad driving yesterday, never getting out of 2nd gear which returned 37 mpg which also seemed very good but I have no comparison, the last time I did offroading was 1990. Today was a tank refill so I have reset the 2 average fuel counters & will know better what the overall increase is at the next refill & will keep the long term counter going until it resets itself, it had recorded 2600 miles so it must have a higher reset limit than earlier cars. Be interesting to see if there is the same difference between measured & indicated MPG.

I had an Esterel folding caravan until a few years ago, I regret selling it now, that was superbly designed & could sleep 4 adults in 6m2. One thing that struck me about it which is so different to modern caravans was the obsession with keeping the weight to a minimum, the cupboard doors & table were a honeycomb construction of formica over corrugated paper stiffening, the storage cupboards & shelves etc were thin plywood & wood frames, none of it would last 10 minutes against modern children but in their day they did not get damaged, to have a holiday was such a priveledge, to own your own caravan something really to cherish.

An interesting conversion Jars, if you have any more pictures I would like to see them. What are the dimensions of the mattress? I am guessing that it is a reduced length & wont suit the Dutch! Once you start adding comfort features and luxuries the vehicles fast become large & heavy, I am a great fan of the split screen & bay window VW campers and also the tiny Romahome conversions on the Citroen C5 etc, all of these are also very practical vehicles for double use as a tradesman/builders van & dont have parked in secure storage all their life. A pop-top VW conversion could sleep 2 adults, 2 teenagers (or adults at a push) and a young child at the rear above the engine but have a footprint no larger than a Volvo Estate, the split screen with the twin opening doors was the best packaging wise because the cooker & sink were often mounted on them giving you an outside kitchen or a sheltered awning if opened & locked at 90° Tha bay window model not having the front bulkhead had the advantage of being able to pass from the rear seats to the front seats.

A 5 watt halogen sidelight bulb gives on average 189 lumens which equates to 15 candlepower or 15 candles, hardly "not much brighter".

Over 25 years ago around 1995 I learned that the then current emissions standards required that a vehicle should be able to do 100000kms or 60000 miles without any maintenance not even oils & filters and still remain within emissions limits, the results were long life platinum pointed spark plugs, long life engine oils and massively increased air filter elements, I'm sure you will recall the first car you had with these and other changes. Until then I had been changing filters regularly but then I started inspecting and for the last 15 years having an MPG readout and being obsessive I know exactly when an air filter needs changing and what it looks like when it does, of course it depends on the conditions but I did 100K miles before changing the air filter (I had brushed it off & shaken/tapped it to dislodge larger particles at each inspection) on my Octavia and the new one did not increase the MPG which had never dropped. Cabin filters blocked much more frequently and you would know from the poor fan output. Interestingly the manufacturers never needed to increase the capacity of the oil filters, detergent fuels having been introduced a long time before.

Synchroniser cone worn and through the crunching the engagement spurs on the gear and/or the collar are damaged. Sorry but I have long forgotten the correct technical terms. By all means adjust the cable linkage as it may possibly not yet be terminal.

With this thread in mind I looked down at my gearknow while driving in the dark last night and realised that the tiny LED lights do indeed (just) illuminate the gearlever, that is if any of the markings remain. Like the OP I would have assumed that if they were not embossed then they would be printed on the rear of a clear plastic. Its probably daylight that has degraded the printed legend and it is on the inside, that or the clear plastic has become cloudy, the photo looks exactly like a cataract on an eye.

They are protecting the diesel cooler & pipework etc and the comb you describe I think is the heatsink, I have never seen the point in them and nearly jacked up on one that was covering the chassis rail, they could be for NVH perhaps? Marketing, I think its bumper inserts & a slightly higher stance, probably some other unnecessary stuff as well.

Metal or plastic? Its not the engine undertray that you are speaking of is it? I have a 4x4 Yeti Outdoor and it does not have any additional protection other than the chocolate teapot silver plastic bumper inserts.

That would be my threshold point as well Graham. Its nice to actually be able to watch the oil temp during times of high load, never been able to do that on previous Skodas. I would think that the oil-water intercooler would keep it below the threshold & that the cooling system would generate an alarm before the oil was at risk of degrading. Assuming the sump level was not too low that is.

You asked for suggestions. How about trying the shooting for a while before spending thousands on all the gear and especially changing your vehicle, I'm sure people will give you a lift across the rough terrain initially and that will be the opportunity to view their choice of vehicle and if it suits. How do you even know that you are going to enjoy the sport or the company? Or is it a business networking/falling in with the boss thing?

Not annoying at all. The rear of my Yeti is a dust magnet but it doesn't affect the camera that is part of the number plate light, under certain wet conditions, towing a trailer on a motorway etc the camera has become dirty and the image a little smeared, I always reverse into my driveway so can see when it has happened & will get out straight away before my short term memory loss forgets, all I do is wipe my finger over it as I walk past to my dwelling, the finger is not even dirty enough to bother washing. I really dont think a washer jet would remove traffic film anyway, it might dislodge a spider though.

There is no possibility of overboosting causing a head gasket problem because as soon as the boost pressure sensor shows boost beyond that which is commanded the engine ECU goes into limp mode. There is also I believe a blow off valve, I could hear & feel the burp at the point my engine would go into limp mode. I took my car up to 325000 miles before scrapping it due to electronic problems, it would never have fallen to bits, it was still working perfectly on the original turbo, I did 2, possibly 3 Lidl oven cleaner treatments during that time. During that same 12 year period my chauffeur friend who sold me the vehicle paid out for 3 replacement turbos on the Touran he replaced my car with, IIRC around £1500 each time plus loss of business etc when it could have cost £3 and a little time. You pays your money you takes your choice, I have more faith in the longevity of the factory fitted parts with occasional cleaning than an aftermarket turbo most of which are made in China, look at the website Maxspeedingrods, they are very cheap but after buying equally cheap rear brake calipers & aircon pumps from them I know there is a price to pay for much cheapness in both these cases it was just an inconvenience, little money lost and no big deal, no way would I take that risk with turbo failure.