rum4mo

My wife's car is an August reg'd Polo 1.2TSI, so I have that "treat" coming my way in a few months! I did buy a small rack type tool to open up these large strong clips, it works very well for that job which was I think, I've intended target job - it is also very handle for releasing heater hoses on B8 Audis and no doubt in other cars/places. Getting the spark plug electrodes in exactly the correct orientation, ha ha, must need special tools!

A very very small point on the way the rear wiper works on VW Group cars, if the front wipers are left in auto and being asked to work, then when you select reverse the rear wiper will operate, and its operation is always fixed period intermittent. If you have got lot of Auto qualifications and practical knowledge then the best you can hope for is that you have proactively addressed any areas that are liable to cause problems when out and about. Years ago I used to carry a lot of loads, but now I only have a Carista dongle in each of our cars, a torch and something to check for 12V DC and OV, oh and a set of bulbs with where necessary laminated details of "how to get to" any tricky ones - although both cars have mostly LED and/or HID plus I've actually made sure that I can get to every bulb in each car and have the extra tools to do that. Including a quick rocker change is what an old uncle of mine used to build into going out with the family for a picnic in his HB Viva, for me, a quick do what you can, then call the AA life must go on!

Maybe kept and used near and/or in the sea or connected with it, my mate almost bought a SAAB 96 when they were still on sale, beautiful condition - except for inside the boot, the owner spent most of his spare time diving in the sea, and it looked like the boot was where all his kit was stored. Again, walk on by it.

I'm sure that I came across that sort of value on my daughter's 2019 SEAT Leon Cupra, but in the event, I considered that it only needed new rear pads and the discs would be okay for use with these 2nd set of pads at a low mileage, so I didn't need to take the rear carrier bolts out. Edit:- from memory, I would have been buying new bolts to replace the rear carrier mounting bolts if I had had to remove them as in my mind, tightening to these torques, then + an angle setting justifies doing that - as well as maybe the bolt head would have suffered from corrosion, so maybe not so easy to get off next time - that is all. Actually as you mentioned it, that 2019 SEAT Leon Cupra rear carrier bolts were also 90Nm +90deg, and the front carrier bolts were 200Nm with new bolts required on re-assembly.

I've just added a bit on to my last posting.

You initially torque the bolts up using a suitable torque wrench, then using something like a breaker bar, rotate ie turn these bolts through the additional angle, it can be helpful to mark the 0 degrees reference point on the bolt head and adjacent metalwork, then mark the "+Y degrees" on the adjacent metalwork, so that you can check when you have reached the defined/mandated extra angle. Edit:- I have come across in the past, for a common bolt torque setting on a 2009 SEAT Ibiza was defined/mandated as being X Nm and no additional angular - but the same bolt (same part number) securing the same assembly was defined/mandated as being Y Nm and additional Z degrees, on 2015 VW Polo, obviously the Polo's "Y Nm" was a lot lower than the Ibiza's "X Nm" - a seriously lower value, in fact in that case, I contacted Haynes publishing to ask if these two different values and conditions for torquing were correct and they did confirm that they were, which for big multi marque company using common parts, did seem a bit strange.

There will or could be different advice for different versions of these brakes, your "info" shows a 2014 Oct VRS MK3, I was referring to a 2015 VW Polo where the carrier to hub are M10 bolts with recommended torque of 30Nm + 30deg according to erWin - and not 90Nm + 90deg according to Haynes. For info, the front carrier bolts which are M12 are torqued to 124Nm and can be reused. I'd think that the "do not reuse" advice for the M8 calliper mounting bolts for the rear brakes is due to the fact that they come with blue Loctite coating on them so once fitted should not be reused (unless cleaned up and new blue Loctite applied to them - well that is what I do). I seem to have maybe 3 torque wrenches to cover the range of torque settings, plus a torque screwdriver for other small screws/bolts.

I'm think/guess, that if you remove the high level brake light assembly and prove that it looks okay and then test it to prove it is still working, then the cable break is as said earlier, probably at a point where the cable gets flexed/bent every time the hatch is opened - and that means somewhere at/on or close to the length of cabling that is located within the rubber protective boot that the cabling passes through between the car body and the hatch. If you are very lucky, you will find it by manipulating the protective boot - ie squeezing it with your fingers, and that will reveal an anomaly - if not then it should be close to that area just within the hatch or just within the car body. While the high level brake light assembly is out of the car, check to make sure which side, ie 12V or 0V is missing by having someone press the brake pedal while the ignition is on - noting that the brake lights will also be on at this time. If you have not got a DVM then you will have problems moving forward in this task.

Same here originally back in maybe 2001.

I'm not convinced that it is out of the ordinary noise wise.

The trouble at times can be that while a company does have the factory supply contract for one of their product ranges, it does not follow that other or all their product ranges are also factory supplies. Fuchs do tend to win/hold the supply contract for engine oils to VW Group factories, but do they also have the contract for supplying DSG fluids? The last line in the image shown above reads "Engine Oils".

It might just be the way that they capture cars for their used cars side line, horrible situation to be in!

I think that is a VW Group weakness, as it is not a safety critical part, I'd think that MOT would ignore it - at least until it has or is nearly broken at one point. I seem to remember thinking that that part looked very rusty "for its age/mileage" on my wife's August 2015 VW Polo 1.2TSI 110PS almost 43K miles, and so either coated the lower surface with something or plan to do that this year, ideally I'd remove it and de-rust it and repaint - or replace as that part should not cost too much, and work on that new part as mentioned below. I think that if it really worries you, just buy a new one, strip the feeble paint off it and start from scratch repainting it, any/all black painted "underbody" parts really don't stay looking good for long unfortunately. The joining sleeve on the exhaust near there also ends up rusting by year 8 or so - or at least the clamps do, though it looks like your car has the later version/design of joining sleeve, which might mean that it will resist corrosion for longer, my wife's 2015 VW Polo will probably need the clamps on its older style joining sleeve replacing this summer. It is just a stiffening brace. Edit:- sorry it appeared in "BOLD", I've resolved that now!

I think that you are just getting range(from home) anxiety, which is fair enough, the drop off in "start/start" might just be down to winter temperatures and so using more lights/heaters, NC500 in March, brave person, I waited until May/June. I hope that there are plenty Langoustines in Applecross - if you like that sort of thing, I'm well overdue my meal of them fresh out of the sea! I have an exwork mate who is going to France in July, so he felt the urge to get rid of his 3 year old 4K miles Ford Focus and get a new Ford Kuga - now that is proper range(away from home) anxiety - PCP had run out though, and he'll have a 1.5 engine instead of a 1.0 engine for the long run down UK and through France.

I agree with the above, also, my wife's August 2015 VW Polo 1.2TSI 110PS has done 42K miles and its pads have got a long way to go before they need replacing, though the rear discs on her car are a bit nastier looking than your rear ones. So, if your friendly VAG Indie is saying that about the discs, it is a pity that you are not in a position to measure the outer pads friction material thickness. Being a scatter-cash when it comes to tools, I treated myself to a tool from Laser Tools that lets you measure the friction material depth/thickness while the (alloy) wheels are still on the car - okay I can measure them easily enough using other means once I've removed them to clean thing up - but that tool is handy for making a quick check on our daughter's cars and any other friends that are too shy to work on their cars or take them to garages! As I sort of implied, that sort of tool is handy for filling in spare spaces in tool cabinets, and checking brake pads through the spokes in alloy wheeled car - and even checking pads that I have removed from the car, now that I have bought it!

It could be interesting or useful to know if the cam belt had ended up getting contaminated with engine oil - or not, maybe ask to see the removed parts or request that they get returned to you. I think the the best that you will get by complaining officially to Skoda UK who are the importers of these cars into UK, will be a derisory offer which with the conditions it comes with will leave you further out of pocket than you will end up just leaving things to get sorted as you have begun - or most likely a sad letter saying that they are sorry that you have feel hard done to and am sure that you will find your next Skoda car exceeds your expectations, getting that crap would hurt! But officially complaining to Skoda might be therapeutic, at least for a moment or so.

I just wonder if any of this is due to the lack of "good tooling" when that cam belt was replaced back in 2020, ie it seems like new kit has become available to make sure that the cams are correctly, or more accurately positioned when working on the cambelt area? Or. There were a very small number of instances where the inlet cam variable timing pulley had ended up with its bolts holding that assembly together slackening off and so oil escaping onto the belt etc and so these early pulleys needed replacing, but that was only I think. an issue with a small number of very early EA211 1.2TSI 16V engines. I'm sure that I have checked the assembly part number on the inlet pulley on my wife's 2015 Polo 1.2TSI and its DOB of the engine is 07/05/15 - s/n CJZD498523 , that is info from the label on the engine, is your engine earlier or later than that?

Other VAG marques don't do things that way, so just Skoda within VAG marques, they also keep the 12V DC socket live at all times, again not something that Audi. VW or SEAT do. That was just a casual comment not a criticism of either way of "doing things".

If you are worried about the cam belt, just make sure that you get it replaced by a workshop that has invested in the correct new tool kit for accurate timing of the cam shafts - I'd doubt if a non VAG specific workshop would have bother to spend money on that, though I'd think that VAG Indies will have.

Ah, I agree that the carrier pad contact areas can easily be cleaned with the carrier still on the car - I clean the Polo brakes every year at wheel changing time, but, this time, as I had decided to properly scrub up the outer surface of the callipers and their carriers, I did feel the need to remove them completely and give them a coat of high temperature paint - the front carriers were already off as I was replacing both front hubs/bearings.

Audi use wheel bolts with captive free running washers on alloys, same length as all the other VW Group cars that use M14 wheel bolts, fortunately at least VW and SEAT use same plain bolts for all wheel types, ie steel or alloy.

Yes, luckily for me I was introduced to wheel locator studs when I bought my VW Passat in 2000, after finding that in the tool kit area, I bought one for my wife's 2002 Polo and older daughter's Ibza - which have been moved onto their next cars, my next car came with one, and I passed one to our younger daughter to have in the Arona as it might come in handy if they are smart enough to "waste" money on equipping that Arona with a steel spare wheel and jack etc - younger people don't tend to "waste" money on things that they might not need it seems! Edit:- the other "treat" that VW had for at least some Passat owners was, there was no hole in the front hubs to fit a disc retaining screw, so if anyone did not work out why they had included a plastic wheel locating pin in the tool kit, they could have quite a bit of "fun" stopping the wheel rotating the free to rotate disc while desperately trying to get the first wheel bolt in!

She has a telescopic wheel wrench fitted with a good hex socket in place of the double ended sloppy one that tends to come with these telescopic wheel wrenches, as well as having AA membership, which hopefully she would use if her partner was not either in the car or contactable - or even contact me! I can still remember the "useful" wheel wrench that was included in LR tool rolls - the handle tended to fold under the weight of your feet, that was before the screw jack might or might not stop lifting the LR up and instead chose to send the second stage section down into the ground, charming, what BMC/BL could do to a reasonable product! Edit:- no worries about wheel bolt torques, I tend to be the last person to tighten then up using a torque wrench set at 120Nm, now the wheel bolts on our younger daughter's Arona - that is an unknown, so hopefully she or her hubby would ring the AA - and not try their luck with the leak sealing gunk!

I'm sorry to hear about this, my old Passat broke a front spring while we were travelling down to my sister's funeral from Scotland, it happened near Oxford while we were in there collecting my younger daughter on our way to near MK, not good at any time, but even worse when you are driving to a close relative's funeral! It is good that you have reported this with the correct agency DVSA, you will get a letter/email saying that they know about this and have discussed it with VW Group, and as it is not a safety related issue, they can not take this further - or maybe these reports are adding up and they will now start to take action, time will tell.

I think that the ability to store the removed wheel, unless fully deflated will still be an issue for too many cars - then is the sad tale about the BMW Z3 passenger who had to hold onto a damaged wheel that had been removed from that car - and it "exploded" and killed him/her - just adding that last bit as being a very good reason to fully deflate any damaged wheel/tyre. Edit:- I have informed my daughter that as she chose non OE alloys for winter use, that I have placed a set of 5 standard VW Group bolts that must be used instead of the bolts presently fitted to the alloys, if she needs to use the steel spare wheel. I even painted these 5 "spare" bolts yellow - just because I thought that might help and make it easier to find any if they dropped while changing a wheel.