J.R.

There but for the grace of god go I! You are not the only one who has succeeded with great determination to pump diesel into a filler neck sized for the petrol nozzle!

The driveshaft should be be refitted to the hub before the strut is located into the steering knuckle, the reverse of how you disassembled. I don't remove the driveshaft for strut removal, if I cannot get enough downward movement I may remove the nut and slide it back slightly but always leave it in place. It sounds like you have removed the drop link, are you raising the car on one side only? If so the torsion on the anti-roll bar will prevent you from lowering the hub as far as it can go, I always raise the entire front end.

Extraction of the Pag oil amongst the refrigerant gas very hit or miss, the majority will remain in the pump and could only be removed by removing and upending the pump. When I have evacuated systems there has been just a tiny mist and smear of PAG oil. 11g out is probably OK but they would have no way of knowing how much remains in the compressor they may have erred on the side of safety. There are also set weights to be added for a regas, for a regas with new pump, for a regas with new condensor etc, maybe the chart shows 39g. I have no means of measuring or weighing oil extracted, I never add oil with a regas unless its after repairing a leak which shows traces of oil, normal system losses are through the walls of the flexible hoses and its the gas that leaks and not oil (molecular size versus permeability).

I agree but the part regarding injectors, fuel lines etc is from fueling a diesel engine with petrol where the high pressure fuel pump lunches itself and sends swarf around the system, the OP need not worry about this as diesel has lubricity that petrol lacks. Indeed, perhaps the OP can expand on how he overcame that protection.

Hairs shed from long haired usually female drivers plus dust etc became would up in the clockspring due to inadequate sealing.

Certainly on the first variants premature failure was usually the result of ingress of long hairs becoming knotted up inside.

Setting aside the friction of the threads it would be interesting to see strain gauge tests of bolts tightened to equal torque with plain washers under the heads against axial roller bearings. Then testing with dry threads and bolt/washer interface against lubricated. No doubt there is something on Youtube

I meant older still, the late 90's early 2000's was the sweet spot, trouble is finding one now will likely mean a high mileage perhaps neglected example and there will naturally be age related reliability problems.

Your vehicle is 9 years old you cannot expect reliability, if you want reliability as crazy as it sounds buy something older!

Your neighbour must be so relieved to have gained 0.1 volt after his battery was charged for 7 hours.

its 14.5 miles longer than needed to recharge a discharged battery. It will need the equivalent of VCDS.

If you can DIY it does not cost much other than time, I paid €300 including delivery from Spain for a clutch, DMF and concentric slave cylinder. If you can't DIY then pretty much everything on a modern vehicle in a modern garage costs an arm and a leg.

Slave cylinder, yes its entraining (is that a word in English?) air. It's not working properly, even if you bleed the air (very easy) the problem will repeat and will become more frequent, at the end I was having to bleed my clutch every 15 minutes during urban driving, when at cruising speed (no clutch use) whenever I came to a junction, off ramp or roundabout I had to frantically look around for somewhere to exit up a kerb or whatever to not block the traffic if it failed again, once I was stuck in the toll booth of a péage!

It does. I never realised in all my years of ownership because it was so reliable, not the case with subsequent models.

My neighbour - "Salut J.R. Can I borrow your bagnole?" Me - Non! Va t'en and find someone elses battery to satisfy your perversion!

A match made in heaven! I have always been really really tempted by the Roomster, the packaging would suit me very well, the old school tech exactly what I want, unfortunately the 4WD of my Yeti whilst not something I was seeking I would not now want to give up. I hope you get it Pete.

Can you explain what you mean by that please? They work just fine, no bulb errors. The only thing to be aware of is that they increase the standby power consumption as they are not ignition switched (so as to work with parking lights) which will reduce the standby autonomy of the battery, modern ones take far less current than the old school ones but its not negligible. I dont understand what he is suggesting.

I've had no problems in 50k miles. Enfin...................... the clutch hydraulics failed very soon after, it was vibration from the DMF that finished them off, before the engine wheezed above 3k RPM and it was always better to change up, after the remap it pulls like a train to nearly 5k RPM, before there was no DMF noise, after at high revs it sounded like the death knock of a Tractor pulling engine before it explodes, I thought it was the remap and it gave me the half crown threepenny bit each time I heard it but when I replaced the clutch and DMF silence returned even at 5k RPM. You are right about the 108/110hp and 140hp engines, mine retains the smaller turbo which is the reason that it has such a huge power band, the small turbo spins up at much lower revs than the 170hp variant. I doubt that mine really does deliver 184hp but if you look at the rolling road videos from Celtic Tuning that what they got, also the standard unmapped engine was giving more than the manufacturers claimed output. 6 speed gearbox more than string enough, its protected by a peak torque limiter AKA clutch bleed block which makes the clutch slip if you dump the clutch or do a lightning quick upshift, those with little sensory connection to their vehicles will soon burn out their clutches if they are unaware of it, it can be overcome by drilling out the internals of the bleed block, I've left mine as the factory intended. I drive for economy and rarely use the power but it's very reassuring when I need it, definitely money well spent. The standard brakes without glazing and using decent pad materials are more than good enough for the extra power, I often tow double or triple the towing limit without incident.

The lines don't vibrate, it is pressure pulsations passing up through the fluid, they are caused by the harmonic vibrations in the crankshaft fluttering the crankshaft back and forwards against the main bearing thrust washers which oscillates the concentric slave cylinder piston back and forth, it happens on the 4 cylinder diesel engines but is more apparent on the 3 cylinder petrol engines. The pressure pulsations pass back through the fluid to the master cylinder pushrod and hence to the clutch pedal where the driver can feel them, the hydraulic damper attenuates these fluctuations, the membrane and spring are well sized for the diesel engines but I speculate they are using the same ones on the petrol engines or have perhaps not fitted them at all to save money. If you look at an on line parts diagram you will see them if they are fitted as standard equipment, you could also check the part number to see what other engines they are fitted to.

The carrier bolts do not need to be removed to replace brake pads.

Figure 5 in the link has finally resolved my long held enigma of what the round units are in my clutch line that from outward appearance appear to do nothing but create a 90° elbow in the pipe run, now I know what their function is. None of the on line parts diagrams gave them a name which describes their real function. VAG probably need to have units for the 3 cylinder engines with different membrane and spring ratings, I bet they are using the same ones across the range.

At Calais you have the choice of the longer Western route A16 via Abbeville and Le Mans to miss Paris or the A1 via Paris, there isn't really a viable Eastern route to avoid Paris unless travelling to the East or South East. Arriving at Dieppe no choice but the Western route, at Dunkerque the Eastern route is more direct.

I bet the selfish will park on them as they do wherever they park regardless of how wide the road and how narrow the footpath.

Yes but you will likely find that your strut tubes are the smaller 50mm diameter and not compatible with the 55mm diameter steering knuckles and will need adaptors.

I have the same vehicle with the smaller brakes and know what you mean, the brakes are adequate but lack feel and don't inspire confidence. I bought a second hand big brake kit from a Golf GTi only to find that my suspension struts are a smaller diameter than the steering knuckle. The vehicle has since been remapped to an alleged 184 hp and the standard brakes actually work better when they have been worked harder! The main problem is glazing, changing to Ferodo Eco Friction pads has given a lot more feel and braking response, the rears make a surprising difference and do more work than we think.