J.R.

It is not, its the slave cylinder, they suggest replacing the master cylinder because it sounds like a more palatable option for the owner and they get paid for 2 jobs and not one, it will also get them out of their hair for while because the system will have been bled. I'm not saying dont replace the master cylinder first (I did and the old one was full of magnetic schmoo), just dont think you have dodged the bullet.

Only with the wind chill factor if you stick your willy out the window at high speed!

Each time you pull the pedal back you draw more air into the system meaning less time before it happens again, I realise you dont have any choice but the system should be bled ASAP, the only resolution is gearbox out and replace slave cylinder, then sell the car because the new one wont be any better unless you find the holy grail like I did of a new old stock original pattern one piece aluminium slave cylinder.

Your friendly mechanic is bulls**tting you, I guarantee you he will never have even seen the inside of the sealed plastic VAG master cylinder as you need to make a special tool to dismantle it or angle grind it apart, inside there is one single static O ring fixed in the outer body that the plastic piston is pushed through, no other parts, its simply a bicycle pump with a fixed seal, O rings cannot "flip over" and if you managed to do so they would work just as well. The problem is air being drawn into the joint between the two parts of the plastic concentric slave cylinder without creating any fluid loss, this gives the dealers the ideal get out to say that it is not covered under warranty.

I agree there should be free play but not of the magnitude stated (12-25mm) unless that was measured at the pedal which is incorrect. You say "I stop adjusting the cable when there is enough space for it to touch the bearing. " The adjustment should be made to leave some clearance before the release bearing contacts the pressure plate, 5mm measured at the clutch arm cable end would be a rough and ready figure.

The key thing is the after evaporator temperature, 5.7°c with an outside air temp of 40°c is excellent, putting the fan on high increased it to 25°c confirming your thoughts that the system does not have enough power to cope with the refrigeration demand on full blower setting. That could indicate a low refrigerant charge but I think that your pressure is correct, the stupid VAG/VCDS set up reports absolute pressure and not gauge pressure so you can deduct 1 bar/15psi from your figures, the figures that you have read on Youtube are almost certainly for an ambient temperature of 20°c. R134a static system pressure (guage pressure not absolute pressure) will rise from 70psi at 20°c to 130psi at 40°c, the high side pressure when system running with an ambient temperature of 40°c will be between 180 and 225psi, that is a figure to cover all vehicles and the variable output VAG type with the modulating valve will be lower than this unless under maximum load, my gauge measurements at 20°c vehicle idling at standstill show the high side pressure rising to 150psi at which point the fans cut in and it drops to 100psi, this falls within the range given on the R134a tables of 100-150psi at 20°c. Are the fans running correctly on your vehicle? Your system will never have enough power to cool your car right down when idling with 40°c ambient temperature, if you look at the figures the air coming out of the vents has dropped by over 25°c at the lower fan setting, aside from the sticking flap mixing hot air to the left vents I say your system is working perfectly, it was designed for average European temperatures probably biased towards the cooler countries. If you want maximum cooling on maximum fan speed you need to drive the car at speed. Most of us have gradually worked these things out, we know high fan speeds at standstill create less cooling, when my car has stood in the sun I leave the windows open initially, use the AC on min temp and fan speed 1, once moving I will switch up to fan speed 2 and close the windows, when the interior temp has dropped enough I will switch to recirculation mode and put the fan on the highest setting. I think you are expecting too much of your system and have a problem with the blending flap for the left hand side.

Not a chance in hell for the other guy buying an 8 year old car from auction.

Adjusting the tracking, if it is actually out, will not remedy the vehicle pulling to one side, or was he referring to the vehicle veering to one side under braking? In either case I would not give much credence to much that he says, ask around for recommendations of another place for a second opinion.

German.

Sounds like the front doors could be opened but not the rear, combination of the anti-hijack function and child locks perhaps?

😁😁😁 Plastic trim "pry" tools, it will come off a lot easier now its lost its virginity! I would go with the silicone, its only a tell tale for the driver to show it is working, I doubt that any of us look at it while indicating when driving. As its at the bottom I would leave a weep hole and if the missing part is not too big maybe not do anything at all.

My ex UK Yeti has had to be insured as an "Active" or whatever weird name they used for the models sold into the French market, the DRIRE registered it as such because they did not have "Outdoor" on their database, the insurers dont either so its insured as an Active and thats what the Carte Grise says it is. A couple of problems with that, the Active (or whatever it is) has a higher puissance fiscale, the horsepower tax, which is related to real horses power and not the engine power which meant it cost me more in registration fees, the model also has a 5 speed and not 6 speed gearbox, these things would bite me in the butt if it were written off but as I have TPO insurance I let sleeping dogs lie. 31° outside, AC on inside, no beer as I'm teetotal.

I was paying around €100 TPO, they kept gradually putting it up, increasing it for a change of vehicle (MK1 to MK2 Octavia) even though it was a lower group then the company said they would no longer insure me due to a "strategic change of direction" and I found that a broker, a paid intermediary was 25% cheaper than my last renewal and insuring through the same company!!! - Go figure. I am still with them on the Yeti, still the basic TPO cover and limited mileage and its crept towards the €200 mark now, if I could get fully comp cover for what you are paying I would do so, I will check around again at renewal time. £385 does not sound so shocking given what I have read about people policies shooting up at renewal time, oh wait, that was for TPFT cover, something must have been amiss for the system to not offer Fully Comp, perhaps the system knew there had been no record of you being insured in the UK for 20 years, maybe thats the level of cover and price you would be offered when returning with the Spanish proof of NCB? The key part is probably the not offering fully comp cover.

A déséquilibrage (whatever that is in English) detector. It might have triggered if all 4 tyres continued their equal deflation, there is no other road speed indication to compare the wheel speeds to and the TPMS system has to cope with more than a 10psi variation when tyres are inflated to the laden settings. Who knows? Yes looking at what I wrote they were contradictory statements. The truth is out there somewhere!

And all these years I have not taken a holiday because I thought it was against the law! Joking aside, connecting and setting in motion an automated AC recharge unit does not require an F gas qualification, that is their USP, the operator does not manipulate the refrigerant gas at any time. Removal of the recovery cylinder from the unit for recycling does even though it is no more complicated than changing a Calor gas bottle on a caravan.

I replaced my AC condensor not because corrosion (its alloy so immune from road spray) but from being punctured by the frontal impact that wrote the vehicle off. A new OE Nissens one was £30 something and took maybe an hour to fit, so £1k sounds about right for a main stealer 🤪 A piece of gravel at the right trajectory is enough to penetrate the condensor, your leak is from the seal with the dryer capsule and a common fault.

But they are carrying chilled air and not refrigerant gas which permeates the hoses unless they cost 4 figures a pop like they have to use in places like BOC, I first learned of it from a friend who worked there, he said one O ring of the superduper stuff cost more than an entire vehicle AC system. I'm sure you are right, there are lots of vibrations and harmonics at play when a vehicle is travelling at highway speeds compared to a fridge or outside AC unit although both of those sit on rubber isolation mounts and move relative to the fixed pipework, different frequencies and amplitudes though and not to forget if the driver decides that his Tesla is the General Lee - yeehahh 😛 Absolutely, its what I have done to date but the performance is a little down, the guage readings not quite right, when my scales finally arrive I am going to do it properly meaning sacrificing the gas that is already in there. My neighbour installs domestic AC and heat pumps, properly trained and qualified as France insists but also very practical like myself, he has taught me a lot, when we commissioned my home AC 2 weeks ago in theory we should have added 60g of refrigerant for the 3m over the nominal 7m pipe length but as he said without evacuating the system and weighing the gas how did I know it contained what they claimed, he works on the pre-charge being good for 10m and goes by his experienced ear and the sound of the pump to decide if it is over or under the optimum charge for the pipe(s) length I'm sure a mechanic with experience of regassing systems would be able to work the same way, when I used to have Freon regasses by Fred in a sheds they all worked that way, these days however its an automated money making machine in a Fast-Fit centre, they just connect it up and leave it to do its stuff, most of them have no clue on how the system actually works or the first principals.

Thanks, I would have been heartened if they had taken as long as that to do the jobs really well and check out everything they could.

Wise man, now that you have ensured their future compliance by taking their virginity replacing them would be a backward step.

No was not aware, every one that I have installed used PIR or combined PIR/Microwave for detection but that was 20 years ago. With the spaced out queues post Covid people frequently end up standing just inside the doors internal sensor, happened to me not 20 minutes ago at the Pharmacie, you only need to shift your shoulders whilst standing still to give a false opening signal, definitely not Radar when that happens. But hey, if you guarantee 100% they are radar what do I know! I see Geze use them now, they were my manufacturer of choice.

What did you see them do to take 2 hours?

100% guaranteed that we are exposed to radar on automatic shop doors 🤯 What were you buying, WMD's? My mother died of cancer at the same age and in pretty much the same manner as her mother before her but it was either not diagnosed or recorded as such in those days.

My (not) retirement present to myself was a Bosch drywall screwdriver and bandolier feed (called a mitrailleuse = machine gun in French). I havn't done any drywalling yet but an unfinished unjointed section now has hundreds of screws in one of the uprights, takes me back to my childhood when my carpenter father fixed a piece of wood on the side of one of his workbench legs and said that I was allowed to bang nails in there and nowhere else. Well into his retirement he was cutting wood by hand and coming across the infant JR's hidden nails punched under the surface 😒

I carry a hardpoint Jacksaw, a hacksaw and a bowsaw under the variofloor for such occasions amongst a multitude of other "just on case" stuff. I understand the desire to take something portable and battery powered along when you know you will need something, my stuff is for when I come across something worthwhile at salvage yards etc. I take a 2 stroke Italian 350mm cut of saw whenever I go to the steel stockholders, their cutting charge gives me the s***s 😒 and also if you want say 3m they will charge you for 3.1m yet set the saw to exactly 3.0m so you end up undersize by half the sawblade width and paying more than you would for a stock 6m length and cutting it yourself.

Good point! I hadn't taken in your comment, only their response. On my car I have to go through a couple of menus to read the oil temperature, otherwise it is unseen although I might be able to change the parameters so that it can be displayed. Does the ECU show a dashboard warning if (what it believes is) the oil temperature is too high like it does with the coolant temp?