rum4mo

The "one bolt getting blocked by the engine" is only relevant for one engine type - and it is not the EA211 versions from my experience, that did concern me when before I started working on these lower TCAs.

You have nothing to lose by clearing that fault, if it returns it will get logged again anyway - and repeat until your warranty is LIVE - why not. It might just turn out to be a "ghost" fault or a fuel pressure sensor fault - there will be one on the high pressure fuel rail.

The lower track control arm rear bushes can easily end up tearing as well as de-bonding due to potholes and maybe speed bumps. My wife's August 2015 VW Polo 1.2TSI ended up with a single torn rear mounting bush before it was 3 years old - VW replaced that under warranty, when I found that the other side's rear mounting was tearing a year or so ago, I just replaced the bonded mountings on both sides - because I had the tools to do that and the arms were still otherwise okay, the original bonded mounting that I removed was obviously torn, the already replaced one was badly deformed, ie the centre steel sleeve had separated from the rubber material and had deformed the rubber so that there was now an elliptical hole in the centre.

I "retired" the EFB battery in my wife's 2015 VW Polo yesterday, really it was not (yet) causing me any big problems, but, as I have a 12V DC digital voltmeter thing plugged into the 12V DC Power socket, I could see that it was taking a very long journey before the indicated voltage was dropping down from 14.89V, so, as I had prepared for an early failure back in maybe late 2022, I considered that I'd be very silly if I waited until I had a problem with the original 59Ah EFB, and going by the chatter on many VW Group owners forums, it sounded a lot like that original EFB was slightly undersized and also not going to last much beyond the 7 year mark. So a few years ago, I bought a 70Ah AGM battery and have kept it "topped up" every 3 months while it was waiting to get used. For that car, annoyingly, I also needed to replace the battery tray and the thermal blanket, so now everything has been fitted to the car along with coding the battery management system to suit that change. I have never ever been in the situation where I felt that the battery capacity was really a bit low for that car and the way that we use it, so based on that experience, I'm sure that I've just wasted the extra money buying the next size up battery, tray and thermal blanket. Changing from EFB to AGM was also, for me unnecessary, but it has now been done! That was just my experiences nothing more.

I think that it was my wife's previous car, a 2002 VW Polo bought new, that forced me to buy a set of Laser Tools "headlight remover kit" they are just long bent bits of stiff metal which resembles banding with a thin strip of plastic behind it - the plastic is there to protect the paintwork. That worked perfectly when needing to remove the rear light clusters to replace either the indicator bulbs or brake/rear light bulbs. Lengths of cable was an issue with that car, and from memory on her current car a 2015 VW Polo - but in over 10 years, I've only ever removed its rear light clusters once, really just to make sure that I had confirmed the bulb types used and to make sure that if I need to change a bulb, I have already opened these clusters up. Maybe I should dig out that Laser Tools kit and have a look, just to make sure that "all is good" though most of the lights are LED and the bulbs are now proper "long life" - or is that just "high price".

Draper Expert 24173 might work for you at the inboard jacking points - if these 4 points will support your car without causing any body damage - I'm mentioning that as years ago VW Passat owners found out about the Audi TT jacking point protectors - and used them on the B5 etc Passat, but some of these areas of the body could not take that load without distorting. It was later said that at least on early cars, these 4 points were only meant to be strong enough to support a lightly loaded body during initial assembly. Times have moved on and I'm that on some Audi/VW like Golf R etc, and on same age SEAT Leon Cupra, jacking adaptors can get fitted after removing covers, so that was why I was suggesting that you look into similar set up for equivalent Audi and VW models to your car - as a creative way of getting round this issue. Okay a lot of home diy service work can be done if you just use ramps, but for lots of jobs you need to get wheels off. Edit:- idealy you would need to confirm from checking an official workshop manual, if there were 4 inboard jacking/supporting points on your car.

Okay, well these seriously pricy JackPoint jack stands are quite clever - I can't say why there are not many similar jack stands available to us in UK. Anyway, they are designed in 2 parts, the top part/platform/table top, is placed on a suitable trolley jack, I have 2 similar trolley jacks, so I jack up one side at a time using these 2 trolley jacks with the jack stands on the top of the jacks, then when at the correct height, slip the bases or tables that are the lower part of the jack stands under the jacked up top part/platform/table top, then lower the 2 trolley jacks back down - so the top is located securely on the base of each jack stand - then do the same for the other side. That leaves the wheels off the ground. What I'd think that you would do if you can get suitable jacking pads for all these 4 body jacking points that hopefully you can find is, jack up under them and place your axle stand, maybe with a suitable protective notched block on each, under the strengthen sill jacking points.

I think that maybe you now need to find a seller of pads/blocks to fit in each of the 4 lifting points - and that will work for you. Typically these strong points were for moving the body around in the assembly plants. My wife's 2002 VW Polo ended up with me fitting Audi TT jacking pads to the 4 lifting points - I couldn't remove them quickly before changing that car for a new 2015 VW Polo, so I bought another set of 4. My 2011 Audi S4, yes, I was a lot concerned when I first got it home and looked under it, for that one, I used the internet and scatter cashed on a set of 4 JackPoint jack stands and they work very well, even on our younger daughter's 2019 SEAT Leon Cupra, my wife's 2015 VW Polo 1.2TSI and our younger daughter's 2019 SEAT Arona Ex, though for the last 2 cars, I needed to make up blocks as these 2 cars are higher off the ground to start with. Typically, there will be commonality between your car and some other VW Group products, and maybe one of the "poly bush" providers provides a suitable jacking pad kit that can even be left on the car. Edit:- just to make it clear, my solution that I bought for the 2011 Audi S4 does not involve jacking through plastic covers, it jacks and supports on the 4 sill strong sections, ie where you use the emergency jack. That was an expensive option, but it has worked very well for me over the passed 12 years.

One small but maybe significant point to make wrt the calliper manufacturer, yes TRW and ATE and Mando manufacture the brake callipers, but a "friction specialist" on another forum tends to say that calliper manufacturers typically don't manufacture friction materials, so don't follow these names for "best pads". For example the original and replacement OEM front brake pads for my wife's 2015 Polo 1.2TSI 110PS, are obviously VW Group/TRW/Jurid - so are Jurid parts, but in this case, I'd doubt if Jurid are the manufacturers of the actual friction material though. I didn't remember to check that fact on the new pads.

Maybe not the same issue with this age of Skoda Fabia, but, I've found on some at least an older VW Polo, that the rear light cluster bulb contacts were now being made from steel that is galvanised to resist corrosion, and these steel contacts are very strong and so can end up distorting the lead(?) solder blob on the ends of the bulbs - that ends up creating a poor/intermittent/lost contact - that I resolved the first time by just replacing the bulb, next time I reflowed the solder on the original bulb and refitted it. Just another example of "progress" (cheapness) creating a problem down the line.

My wife's August 2015 VW Polo 1.2TSI 110PS 6MT, still has its original factory fitted Exide EFB, current mileage 55,000miles, things still seem to be okay, but I'll probably swop it for the Bosch AGM one that I bought "some time ago", hopefully before things turn bad!

The noise from the engine area might just be the throttle body "sweeping" as in having been prompted to perform a "self cal" to establish its end stop voltages for reference, if not that one maybe the turbo. Normally that takes place after initially switching off the engine - so your car might be thinking that this fault is prompting a similar action. Checking the battery voltage would be a good thing to do, initially and while pushing that stalk forward. Many VW Group cars of this "size" and age have had stalk failure - by "many" I mean more than normally expected and experienced in earlier versions/marks of these cars.

I think that that will be as good as it gets, been that way for a while, a bit annoying needing to get the dip stick to a bright light to be able to find out what the level is.

I understand why you don’t want full wheel covers, but, typically black steel wheels have only been given a quick thin cover of paint and will start to look nasty very quickly in winter - if they had been stripped back and repainted “properly” they might survive better. I just bought a used set that didn’t look too bad for my wife’s 2002 VW Polo, actually bought a set of used Golf ones and cut off the “inner” locking elements leaving just the bits out at the rim to keep them on, that worked for the remaining 8 years that she had that car. Next time round with a new 2015 VW Polo 1.2TSI 110PS, I just bought a set of slightly used 15” VW Polo alloys from eBay in Germany, 10 years on, they should get refurbished after this winter, but still looking almost okay.

No, that is the way they are built.

There is "Stainless Creations" in Falkirk, who could repair/replace a section for you. I was in this situation back in 2007 when the flexible joint started to leak on my wife's 2002 Polo 1.4, I got that exhaust place to replace the flexi joint.

The bolts as far as I know, ie from their part numbers, have never been revised probably as they were not the root cause of their failure - it was recorded as being down to incorrect tightening on initial engine assembly that provoked these in service bolt failures. Everyone working on that failure should know to replace all the fuel rail bolts because if one has failed then the others will already have been stressed, correctly tightening new bolts should, it seems "put that problem to bed" - as well as replacing the injector seals.

Oh, so it has a strong smell of petrol, is that from under the bonnet or the exhaust? It can smell a bit from the exhaust if the engine has just been cold started, if smelling of petrol from under the bonnet, then that could be leakage from the high pressure fuel rail due to some of the fixing bolts slackening off.

I'd think that in general, it is wise to replace the aux belt so that it does not fail in use, having a engine driven belt breaking up in a confided space can/could cause a lot of collateral damage - I'm just trying to read between you the OP's lines here. So far, unless it has started to look like it was cracking badly, I've just replaced "good enough looking" aux belts on our cars at 50,000miles or 10 years - whichever turned up first.

Yes you now need to upgrade your VCDS, I traded my old VAG COM and then VCDS Hex+Can back into the original seller (Gendan), but if you are brave, you might get a lot more money for it if you sell it on to someone. I think that it was when my daughter bought a 2019 car that thought that it was time to upgrade. Purchase options are a bit limiting though, I went for the "10 VIN" package and that has worked well enough for me over the past 6 years, there is a "3 VIN" package as well I think.

Sorry, it looks like that was wrong there, there never were bolts securing these brackets/boxes/enclosures, always pop rivets, on the later versions the diagram shows a captive threaded stud sticking out of the top of the siren assembly, that is what the self locking nut is used to secure to the bracket/box/enclosure. Edit:- so maybe there is just enough space to get the siren assembly out after you remove the self locking nut that is on the top of the bracket/box/enclosure.

I'd think that you will need to remove the air filter assembly to help you to dig deeper, the throttle body is what the RHS big plastic charge pipe is connected to low down at the front near the radiator. I've never tried to find out where exactly the brake servo vacuum source is - yet. Edit:- something makes me think that the long stiff/hard small sized plastic pipe is the one, as it has a pressure sensor - which you can see on your picture "near" the battery.

Going by a parts listing on the internet, there is a metal "bracket" which looks more like a metal box, it used to be secured to the car's body using 2 bolts but from 2015, these 2 bolts were replaced by 2 pop rivets - probably for security purposes. There is also a self locking lock on probably the top of this box, so maybe that nut secures the siren assembly to this box. Hopefully that helps a bit to letting you work out how to separate and/or remove the siren assembly, though it does sound like you'd need to drill out the 2 pop rivets and remove the complete siren and bracket/box.

I’ve just got the cam belt and tensioner replaced - and a new “fan belt” fitted to my wife’s August 2015 BW Polo 1.2TSI 110PS 6MT that cost me roughly £550 in labour. I only did that as I had considered that 10 years was an okay time to replace these parts. The guy at the desk said “that’s it for the next 5 years” - that was at a VAG Indie workshop, I said that it will be a lot later than 5 years before I get the cam belt kit replaced next! The car seems absolutely fine after that work, though it does now smell of “older lady’s perfume” as some cleaning/beautifying stuff was sprayed over all the black plastics! So I’ll need to clean that junk off!

I'm not sure that many places do offer just carrying out a front wheels toe check/correction, even KwikFit seems to have a Hunter bench, this sort of annoyed me maybe 6 years ago when I replaced the front suspension and some other parts on my older daughter's SEAT Ibiza 1.4 SC, it came as shock to find that I was hit for roughly £65 and ended up with a print out for the front and rear camber and toe, and some nonsense figures for the front castor - which I put down to KwikFit not following the instruction from the bench to turn the steering side to side. Moving forward 6 years, I replaced all the front suspension on my old 2011 Audi S4, so handed it into a proper German Car Specialist Indie for an alignment check/adjust, it also has a Hunter bench but I think that they know how to use it, got a before and after print out of front and rear camber and toe, but all the castor rough data was "*" and on the chart, castor was greyed out. Anyone know why that was? Before handing my wife's 2015 VW Polo 1.2TSI in for a tracking check, as the steering wheel is slightly out since I worked on the front suspension last year, I'll be making a few phone calls to check up on local pricing, there is a Black Circles approved workshop 12 miles away and again it is a Hunter bench that they use.