J.R.

Go into measuring blocks under the Heating & AC controller in VCDS & it will show you the pressure in the high side of the system, if it has some then a recharge will probably get it up & running, if none then there will have been a leak. Beware, I think that VCDS shows absolute & not guage pressure (hopefully someone will confirm) so 1bar would be zero pressure. - Confirmed by Rosstech link. I have just been out checking mine, seems like the slow leak I had has healed up or I screwed up on the initial charge and the 2 subseqent recharges. Buying an AC manifold test set (£30ish) is a good investment and will tell you a lot of whats going on internally, VCDS will tell you lots of whats going on extarnally, temperatures, flap positions, shut off codes, PWM current delivered to N280 modulating valve etc, with both you have the full picture, some study needed regarding high & low side pressures, ambient temps etc. https://forums.ross-tech.com/showthread.php?633-Tis%92-the-HVAC-Season

He referred to it as an option so I assumed it was a factory fitment on the assembly line. In which case the loom specified for the car will have had the cabling included (perhaps they all do anyway) there is no connection to inputs for steering angle & parking sensors, they are all canbus data signals to the head unit already in place. Does the OE fitment have a washer for the camera lens? In my experience they might on a good day dislodge a spider but to remove the road dirt that obscures the image requires a wipe with a cloth. My cameras came with all cables & connectors etc.

£542 for a reversing camera 😯😯 The last 2 I have fitted have been ones integrated into the OE boot handle or number plate lights and have cost less than £10 including delivery from China. You can see where they make their money on new cars.

Precisely, not the solution the OP is looking for but something to prevent it recurring.

I would remove the connector to the instrument binnacle and clean the contacts with electrical contact cleaner, also check them all visually, if no change then I would dismantle the binnacle and check the soldered joints on the PCB from the connector. Early vehicles had problems with dry joints and cracking, it does sound like an earth path problem but with LED idiot lights its less likely.

Leaving the headlights on and ignoring the alarm the car will switch to sidelights anyway but they will remain on till the battery goes flat, no need to guess how I know 🙁 It makes sense as a safety measure if you leave the vehicle illuminated at a breakdown or whatever. OTOH leave a door or the tailgate open or the map reading lights on and the internal lights will indeed switch off after a delay to protect the battery

Have you recently fitted an HDI conversion to the headlights?

I fitted one on my Octavia 2 and it didn't trigger a warning, either that circuit was not monitored or it was because it had 2 number plate lights and the other still had an incandescent bulb. The camera that I fitted to the Yeti uses the existing bulb & bulbholder, was cheaper and of course no problems.

ABS block, next time it happens leave the engine running, jack up & see if the wheel is still dragging, if so crack open the bleed nipple, beware the fluid will be hot, if it spurts out and the wheel releases then it will be the ABS block. During your drive did the ABS or any of the stability or traction control systems cut in at all even momentarily? If you gave it some around a roundabout for instance you probably would not see the light come on momentarily or even feel the effects so subtle are the systems and we dont tend to look at the instrument binnacle in those situations, any of them could have actuated the valve that stops or slows down the release of that individual brake.

Check yours by all means but mine wont pick up the revs until it detects the wheels turning. It got an emissions test exemption on the UK MOT for that very reason. Have others had their cars with this dumb feature emission tested at MOT?

Yes, your electromagnetic clutch has made a bid for freedom, the guy who regassed should have seen that. They are reasonably cheap to replace, 13 years ago here in France a new one from VAG was €220, pattern parts will be much cheaper now. The challenge is to hold the shaft still to remove the nut which retains the broken centre of the clutch plate, I tried doing it here with my emergency toolkit as my proper tools were in my UK workshop and had to resort to chiselling off the nut and in doing so bent the shaft (its very thin) then had to suffer 10 years without aircon as those were my years living on savings while renovating the hôtel. After 10 years the scrapyards were full of MK1's and I got a complete pump and clutch etc for £30, the system was dry as a bone but worked perfectly with a recharge. If you are carefull you will be able to replace the clutch (it comes as the whole pulley assembly) and retain the recharge that you have just paid for, the system should then work.

If the shear plates are intact, if the central hub nut is tight and the shaft is turning, if the low side pressure is correct for the ambient temperature and if the high side does not rise when the N280 valve is commanded (double checked by hotwiring) then its likely to be that or an internal compressor failure. I got fed up with throwing costly recharges at mine when the last purchases N280 appeared to work on the testbench but still no aircon when fitted that I bit the bullet and bought a cheap Chinese pump, not so cheap when it failed after 3 months with the hub splines stripping 😞 I was determined to find the internal fault on the old one so I stripped at and everything looked in pristine condition, went to reassemble it (really tricky, you need to be an octopus) and it self destructed throwing all the precision ultra clean parts all over my dirty workshop floor and I only found about 80% of them, boy was I pi55ed off! Lucky that I did not throw it all away as I was able to use the hub to resurrect the first Chinese one and keep it as a spare.

Anything can be done if you have DIY skills, if you can find a Superb Variofloor I guarantee that the side supporting rails can easily be fabricated, on the Yeti some people have simply used blocks of wood with chipboard above. I would never live without a variofloor, after first having one 15 years ago it quickly got filled with (now) "essential" breakdown and survival equipment, My MK2 Octavia did not have one but it was so simple to modify a MK1 variofloor (laods available for peanuts in breakers) by modifying the side rails to give the correct height. With my current Yeti I did exactly the same thing using a MK1 variofloor again using 2 out of the 3 sections and making the side supports. All 3 vehicles had exactly the same internal width, the Superb no doubt will be larger.

I have an OBD dongle thing for an app called Torquepro or something, it found a generic fault code on an 18 year old Clio, also bought a reader from Eurocarparts on ebay although didn't know it was them or would have avoided. to date it has never retrieved a code from any vehicle, that and the torquepro one have never found a single code on my Skodas even though using VCDS is like fault code city. I keep them both in the vain hope that they might one day find something usefull on someone elses vehicle but for myself I will stick with VCDS for VAG vehicles and buy the equivalent if ever I change allegiance to another make of car.

It will be gearing, a tall first gear is a nightmare for laden hill starts, also all the modern VAG vehicles will not rev above 2500 RPM until the vehicle is in motion, there is a massive torque limitation going on to prevent the over-revving and even without a trailer or caravan I can feel that there will be a big problem when I do tow one. Actually the above might be 3000 rpm, I'm not going to start the engine to find out, also I dont know if it applies to petrol engines.

You will need the part number on your compressor and the manufacturers name. I would advise you to test its function first using AC guages and a hotwired connector because to replace it involves losing all the regfrigerant and paying for a recharge, you might find a garage who will vacuum down & recycle the refigerant for free if you pay them for the subsequent recharge but in effect you are buying back your own refrigerant. Its better to know that the valve is faulty, mine was but so also was the new one that I bought but it cost me the price of a yet another recharge to find that out 😞 My offer still stands.

The bigger the front wheel the better the resistance to pitch when braking, the heavier and lower the battery pack is the more it will counteract the riders C of G being above the front axle. I'm sure they are very stable to ride but when braking the drivers weight will no longer be on the rear foot and its the position of his C of G that will be the critical factor. For most of my life I have had nightmares where I am riding a bike and go over the handlebars when the front brake snatches, sometimes I am driving a car and the same thing happens!! A shrink would probably tell me what it reveals, I think its simply because I did go flying over a few times as a kid.

I took my MK1 Octavia up to 500000 kms with one cambelt change, no pulleys, tensioners or waterpump, just the belt, it cost £8 so I was £3 out of pocket

I would get the cam timing (torsion value) checked on VCDS, be especially wary if the result is zero indicating that it is spot on, it probably means that its outside of measurable limits, if its at zero then check it when the engine is revved to 3 or 4K rpm, the belt stretch should bring up a -ve reading which will probably be a +ve one because VCDS gets most things backwards. If they just replaced the belt without setting up the torsion value using the vernier pulley adjustment it will most likely be out, if out far enough it could cause your problem, as the problem started after the belt change its a strong possibility. I bet most garages never do it. Editted, 3 mechanics checking the timing and being impressed, was that with VCDS or similar? If so then it points to the false zero syndrome (its almost impossible to set it fine enough to get the zero degree desired value), get one of them to check that it varies when revved.

For some unfathomable reason the ECU has to detect a cranking speed over a certain threshold when the engine is hot but not cold when as you know it will start in 1/4 revolution barely cranking. Battery & starter condition also the crank sensor can all conspire against the ECU believing the engine is rotating fast enough, attention to one or all of them usually cures the problem but there is a software upgrade I believe to remove the stupid feature otherwise you will need to fit a N/C momentary pushbutton in the CTS line to fool the engine that its cold, although it will probably need a shunt resistor across the contacts to avoid fault codes. It really is a stupid feature and I cannot see the logic behind it. Editted, if you muck around with shunt resistor values till you find one that does the trick you could make a slick and undetectable system using a relay triggered by the solenoid feed when cranking.

That sounds really well thought out Phil and I reckon they will soon find their place and be welcomed on the urban roads. In an emergency stop could you brake as quick on one of those as you could on a bicycle? And if so would you not be flipped over the handlebar? Or do they have pitch sensors as well that reduce the braking force or bias it to the rear?

How do you start a bog fire with an electric scooter? Restricting them to 25 kph is a good idea but it should be 20kph which is more representative of the max average speed of the majority of urban cyclists. OK they will get overtaken by fitter cyclists and on downhill sections but their overall journey time will not be any longer than if they were to cycle and were moderately fit. What is the restricted maximum speed of road legal E-bikes?

The braking must be really compromised on those, I cant see them having anywhere near the retardation of a bicycle before sending the rider over the handlebars. Those of you who unlike me ride push bikes from this century will be able to tell me if those small disc brakes would be up to the job. Do they have front & rear brakes? A girl was behind me on one at some traffic lights in town but due to only being able to see her head & shoulders in the rear view mirror (no helmet) I thought she was on a bicycle until she kept up with me stuck to my rear bumper like any French road user to what seemed like 30mph, it totally freaked me out and I was really concerned if I had to brake suddenly as we were in dense traffic.

How I miss that engine, best economy and longevity by a million miles, and I took it to nearly half of that with just one cambelt change. I really like your diagnostic method and will remember it for the future, cant work out what would be making the squeak other than perhaps a breakdown of or contamination to the surface finish of one of the idler or toothed pulleys. It definitely will not be the water pump impellor or any of the bearings as putting water on the belt would not change that. I also think it will be the tensioner pulley or an idler pulley if there is one (cant recall) because a tiny bit of water on the outside of the belt stopped the noise immediately so it has to be something that bears on the outside of the belt. On mine the covers had not been correctly located by someone before me, is it possible that one of them is contacting the outside of the belt, that would be a strong suspect, try removing the top one completely and then pushing and pulling the lower one if it still makes the noise.

How did they know which one was yours?