J.R.

To be precise, are you saying that you can turn the wheel hub and brake rotor and the driveshaft does not turn? If so does the driveshaft retaining bolt rotate with the hub? Did you withdraw the driveshaft to allow the necessary downwards movement of the steering knuckle to disengage the strut?

Yours is a stop/start vehicle with a battery (mis)management module. It is working 100% as the manufacturers or should that be the legislators intended. You did not need to charge the battery to drive home.

A couple of years down the line from Covid and I am still in shock at the price of second hand vehicles especially here in France where there never was the same level of depreciation as the UK and people hold on to their new and second hand cars far longer due to the registration taxes. If the bubble does not burst and we don't get back to the days when the market was flooded with 3 or 4 year old cars with 25-35k miles per year selling for £3-4K then if my car gets written off I will have to pay 3 or 4 times the price I did for it 4 years ago to get a similar vehicle but 4 years older (than it was when I bought) with double the mileage, I would seriously consider fully comp insurance but for what I read about the even more dramatic cost of insurance repairs and rising premiums. Surely the madness has to stop and there will be a massive correction? The powertrain of EV's should last a lifetime compared to ICE vehicles if they moved to independant motors on each driven wheel.

Beause people lack the knowledge, intelligence or energy to ask themselves does this BS I have just read for the Nth time seem plausible. And in the case of so called "Canbus compatible" LED bulbs etc it is complete BS. It serves a purpose in scaring people into the hands of the garages though, my now ex UK neighbour I have known for 40 years, he and I always did our own work on our vehicles including fitting multiple towbars and never used garages, when he bought an Octavia 2 facelift (because he was so impressed with the reliability of my MK1) he paid a small fortune to have the towbar and electrics fitted saying that it was no longer a DIY job because all the electrics were Canbus. I was still driving my hyper reliable MK1 and had no knowledge of or contact with Canbus until I bought an Octavia 2, then I learned that it was simply a comms protocol between modules and had nothing to do with the rear lights, also to my surprise my MK1 had Canbus and I had never even been aware, I fitted my own towbar and electrics for around £100, a fraction of what my neighbour had paid, when I looked he had exactly the same set up with the same switching relay as I had, fear from the BS that he had been fed cost him big time.

Fuel lacking in defoaming agent, I can't tell you what filling station to use as I've only bought fuel in the UK a handfull of times in 2 years but back then my Octavia one was terrible for blowing back when filling, I adopted several strategies but it was always a very slow process and if I wanted to properly brim the tank I would finish the job at home with a 5l can. The first time I bought diesel in France I was shocked that it didn't happen until the very last of the fill, the fuel was not foaming like the (then) UK fuel. Times have changed I bought diesel after that in the UK that definitely did have defoaming additive, maybe most fuel companies add it most of the time but from your recent experiences there are exceptions.

No! The Police systems can go out of spec between calibrations but they will have been type approved calibrated and certified to be accurate and recalibrated no more than 6 or 12 months before in the worst case, anything else is not acceptable for evidential purposes.

I thought the EU6 engines with Add Poo were kinder to the DPF's and better tolerated shorter journeys, am I wrong?

Have an oil change straight away, then get accustomed to the smell of the fresh oil, keep a close eye on the dipstick level,if you start to smell diesel in the oil then its the first indication if it climbs then you have diesel entering the oil either from leaking injectors or constant DPF regeneration and will require diagnosis or action.

Not about me, I am not the one asking where to keep a hammer in the car. In my workshop wherever I am I am no more than 2 paces from a selection of hammers, much duplication going on, you can never have too many. I'm unlikely to ever need one to break out of the place in an emergency but you never know!!!

Front wheel alignment only? Had any work done recently which would involve dropping the front or rear subframes? Clutch, steering rack etc? A misaligned front or rear subframe (they have huge clearances around the fixing bolts for alignment) will cause the vehicle to crab and pull to one side yet the toe angles (so called wheel alignment) of both front and rear axles will remain correct and unchanged. Sadly many of the operators of the 4 wheel alignment rigs are lacking a proper understanding of the basic principles.

Car mats do not extend under the seat runners.

I dont think the last suggestion is very sensible, no way could you reach it while belted, even if you dont have a beer belly the steering wheel would prevent you from bending down to reach it, if you were in your canal or river scenario it would be underwater, OK you could probably feel it but it would likely interfere with the controls, in a roll over its likely to brain you! The latter I inflicted on a female passenger in a Suzuki SJ410 with a Mini flywheel puller set Worse still it was her vehicle

More like a sharp intake of breath from mechanics hoping for a payday. The AA man to his credit was not one of them but he started the ball rolling, he had no reason nor need to remove a dipstick and oil cap while the engine was running when called out to a discharged battery.

Replacement level fertility is the level of fertility at which a population exactly replaces itself from one generation to the next. As I said somewhat graphically to get over the point, that would only be true if mothers were euthanised after giving birth or before their offspring were allowed to procreate. There is something going on with all governments that peddle misinformation statistics like this and also the life expectancy statistics leading people to believe that the population wont increase if they have 2 children or that people are living longer than their parents generation, I believe its because Economic Growth relies on consumerism and increasing population regardless of the consequences.

If it dies not do it when you hit the same bump or pothole when not under full acceleration then its 100% an EDL intervention, perhaps unwarranted.

I understand that you are getting conflicting opinions, I am not there to see and smell the smoke but am of the same opinion as Breezy Pete, to put your mind at rest you could ask a trusted garage perhaps recommended by someone else and certainly not either of those quoting for big work, to do a compression test or better still a cylinder leakdown test, this will reveal if there are any piston/bore problems but with zero oil consumption I very much doubt it. These are tests that any decent garage would do before concluding an engine rebuild is required and to justify their quote.

Shame it only took me 10 years to work out that it was happening to be able to stop the problem of phantom drivers mirror movement, I was not even blind in one eye then, who can see both mirrors while adjusting the left one?

Either suspension oscillation that you are unaware of under power or possibly the impact throws the wheel speed sensor off momentarily. The first car I had with ABS was a 1987 Sierra XR4x4, one of the first road vehicles fitted with ABS, one particular downhill approach to a hairpin on (what I considered) my personal racetrack had a pothole before the turn in point, I would be braking to the max just beneath wheel lock up and ABS deployment threshold, as soon as the car hit the bump the ABS would cut in lengthening my braking distance. On a modern vehicle the wheel speed sensor is used for ABS, ESP, Traction Control and EDL functions as well as many other systems.

Jumping out and grinding in reverse but normal gear selection and clutch operation in forward gears does not sound like a clutch problem Pete although you probably mean "finish the job" in terms of giving the car back in working condition probably involving the gear selector cable adjustment or replacing the quadrant in its correct position. When I did my clutch I found that someone had been there before me, a few missing bolts, some loose ones and the quadrant flopping around wearing its splines.

That means a significant population rise unless the mothers of the newborns are terminated immediately, during their lifetime their offspring could produce another 16 children whilst still remaining beneath the "two per woman" that you quote which I hope is a misquote and means "of women that bear children" Even with many women remaining childless and starting their families much later in life the population increase is significantly higher than through immigration however the immigrants will also start families and they are likely to be of a culture where women have more children and younger just as the UK once was.

Yes it will smell of hydrocarbons, there will be combustion gases and oil fumes. White smoke and the other responses are very very very good news. Don't let any garage on the make frighten you into unnecessary work, if there continues to be no oil consumption you have nothing to worry about.

Lean in through open window, remove nothing key, open door, start car and drive away.

Difficult to see what colour it is from the video, can't smell it either 😄 Does the vehicle consume oil? Would you say the colour of the smoke is blue? Does it make blue smoke from the exhaust? Unless you can answer yes to all or most of them then what you are seeing is water vapour from condensation build up on short journeys, it is intended to be introduced into the combustion chamber under high vacuum conditions, removing the dipstick prevents that from happening and allows the vapour to escape. Try removing the oil cap while the engine is running, you might be able to see the colour of the vapour more easily that way, dont be alarmed by the huffing and chuffing, it will do that and its not a bad sign.

They all wheeze like a smoker when the oil filler cap or dipstick is removed, its the PCV system in operation and the dipstick or oil filler should not be removed with the engine running, the condensation will be from the short journeys, don't be led astray by people with a penchant for oil grades and dipstick levels.

If the belt snapped when the engine was running you will at the very least have a set of exhaust valves to replace before worrying about cam timing, assuming that is the case as I cant think of another belt napping scenario then you should remove th cylinder head to inspect for damage.