rum4mo

I'd think that it is quite possible to feel/hear the micro switch switching or changing state.

Too late now, but I'd hope that if you buy a Duracell replacement battery or 2 in a pack, from a supermarket which is one of the easiest places probably as they have long trading hours and a car park, that would fix this for the time being. VW Group have at least for the past 20 years only ever fitted Panasonic and tend to buy them from online traders and to date have not ended up buying copies or duds, normally the smart traders show an actual picture of the batteries mounted on cardboard pack and so show you the expiry date. I replaced the batteries for my wife's August 2015 VW Polo when the car was 6 years old, it just made sense to me to do that before they gave trouble - that car just has normal remote central locking, ie no KESSY. Something crazy about that car's front door door locks, normally for a car with central locking mechanically(using the key) on either front door will give you global unlocking as well as global locking and though in each case only give you a very short "alarm inhibit period" - so game over as far as climbing across the car before getting the ignition key in the lock. I'm assuming that there is no lock barrel on the driver's side front door - is that true or does it not work for some other reason? Trying to find an easy way to disable any factory fitted car alarm without digging deep is never going to be a possibility just because it is part of a security system. The easiest way round it is to unplug the alarm horn box AND unbolt it and soundproof it somewhere, but it resides under the front splash guard, so involves doing things like removing wiper arms. I was not trying to destroy you, but sometimes you need to able to stand back and sort out the root cause of problems - and in this case that was only ever going to be making the effort to buy and fit new batteries to these keys.

Well if I was messing up other people's life, like having my car alarm going off because I needed to replace the fob battery, CR2025 I'd think, I would have got out earlier the next day to when it first happened and bought batteries before heading into work, it can be easy to do the right thing.

It must be very time consuming buying a couple of fob batteries???

Quite a few owners of VCDS are listed on a "VCDS map" and if emailed might be willing to help you for some beer tokens, if they live nearby and you are willing to travel to them after changing batteries over, also maybe ask for any Carista owners near you to assist, only the technology change and a random serial number change is needed, I don't think that there exists a "Carista map" anywhere yet. Have you investigated buying Carista for continued use, I seem to think that while "battery reg'ng" is an extra cost activity, you would only need to pay for a month's "full" use of Carista and then drop back down to only being able to use it to check for faults, and back up again to "full " use as and when you needed to. Edit:- watch out though if you feel the need to move up a battery size as that will probably require you to buy a new battery tray and thermal insulator - I have done that for a 2015 Polo, but have not fitted anything yet!

Really as @UrbanPanzerhas said, I've been there done that, ie got a "proper" exhaust fabricator to repair the same thing on a 2002 Polo 1.4 16V Petrol engine exhaust, he charged quite a bit for gas and labour - and fitted the wrong size of flexi repair section, this part in that position will normally need to be welded in and the repair section will need to be of the correct grade for that point in the exhaust. I ended up asking someone on this forum to give me the exact measurements of their original flexi on the same engine/exhaust. When I had to get this work done, there was still no aftermarket versions of that exhaust section so it was VW Group or nothing and at that time and probably because of lack off any other options, the VW Group offering was VERY expensive, so I still saved some money even after needing to get it replaced twice, the second time I sourced the flexi repair section. So, if you are not going down the aftermarket complete exhaust section route, maybe put out a shout for someone on this forum to give you same measurements of their original exhaust flexi - required info is:- exhaust outer bore diameter at that point, complete flexi section length including tails to the welding points on the exhaust and the length of the fexi part only of that section. The "grade" you should be looking for is the higher temperature version and double skinned. I sourced mine from senioraftermarket I found what I needed on their website - they supply exhaust manufacturers with this sort of stuff - though there will be others doing the same thing, just make sure that you don't buy single skinned lower temperature versions for further along exhaust systems. Finally, my repairer just came up with the excuse that his mobile sales van-man did not, on that day, have a good selection of parts, so essentially, as he had the car in and probably had chopped up the exhaust, he bodged it - some expert! Edit:- looking at UrbanPanzer's second link, the term "ILOK" seems familiar - you just need the correct dimensions, even getting the rough overall diameter of the flexi part might help along with all the other sizes I mentioned, the original but wrong/unsuitable repair section fitted to that Polo, caused nasty resonances and part of the exhaust was hitting under the body while reversing up our steep driveway, that repair section was too big a diameter even at the points where the existing exhaust entered it, and the flexi section was far too short when compared with what it was on the original exhaust - so despite what my specialist exhaust builder said - these points did make a big difference!! Another Edit:- oh well, Senioraftermarket.co.uk seems to have vanished, you will need to use another source to get access to a catalogue, sorry!

As this question has been asked, I'll add in a bit more just in case you need/want to replace/upgrade that radio in the future. Quite a lot of the assembles or components as they are referred to, have CP which is Component Protection, what this means is that if you started breaking into cars and stealing any of these protected components, you would have difficulty using them or making money out of them as long as the owners had reported the theft and in theory they get placed on a VW Group banned register. So if you want/need to replace or upgrade one of these protected components, you can just buy a used one online as long as you trust where it came from, ie a written off car or from an owner, what happens next is, you book your car in o get CP removed from that "new" component, the VW Group Indie or VW Group dealership, check that component on that marque's "mothership" and if it is not listed as stolen, it will get returned to being a "virgin" unit and assigned to your car - and all will be well - but remember that the previous component can now not just get swopped back in as it is no longer assigned to that car, it would need returning to a "virgin" state and then assigning to that car. This is all just for information and does not change anything that @AGFalco wrote in the previous posting. I have managed to upgrade a radio from a non DAB one to a DAB one in my own car and the re-assigning of a used one from a scrappy went very well via my local proper VW Group Indie who has the correct VW Group tools and licences.

The trouble should be that this AC workshop/dealership site does not cover any VW Group marque cars, I've forgotten which if any car marque it was badged up for - ot it could have just been their "used car supermarket" workshop.

It tends to be a sales side of AC that caused most issues to customers, my daughter bought a pre reg Leon Cupra at a very good price and sold her previous Ibiza privately and so far has not had any trouble with AC other than accidentally when using their SEAT area on their website, accepted their advice to take her under warranty Cupra into a closer workshop - now that is not good advice for a car still under warranty as that year 2 service will never end up on the SEAT digital service record system - that sort of advice is shocking to their customers, too late now though!

I have always removed the cable from each side, by just using a screwdriver as a lever, same to refit them afterwards but clean up the ball end of the cable and where it fits into and apply some grease. Also I ease the rigid brake line up out of its clip on the rear beam, doing that and removing the cable will give you more freedom of movement to get the calliper out and cleaned up etc. I like making things easy, you will do a better job probably if you can move the calliper around a bit more, these rear callipers only have a rigid hydraulic pipe on them at that area so the less you need to force bend these pipes the batter. Are you replacing the rear discs - they tend to get nasty and rusty quickly, if so maybe consider buying new calliper carrier bolts. It has been a very long time since I have needed to replace rear discs on a Polo (same bits as Fabia) 12 years at least, so I've forgotten if you need to remove the rear calliper carriers to get enough room to fit new discs. I'll be doing that job maybe this coming summer! I tend to clean up the old calliper to carrier bolts and apply blue Loctite to the threads every time I service the rear brakes - the new pads will come with new bolts that are already coated with blue Loctite paste. For maybe a bit of overkill or smartness, consider buying and fitting external handbrake lever return springs, the ones from the original VW Sharan are the ones that I have always used.

It was only (fault) warning lights that I was referring to, the "cross through the symbol on the dash" is only a user status indicator for auto Stop/Start availability.

I'm not sure that you know that disconnecting that battery monitor lead will definitely inhibit the auto Stop/Start, but it will also log a fault in that the battery management system - although not force any warning lights on. The fault logged will be battery monitor disconnected - if I remember correctly. So maybe reconnect that lead and clear any logged faults before handing it in for them to check.

It could well be that that 1.4TDI engine does not have a cambelt that is expected to last for a very long time, the EA211 engine family of 1.0TSI, 1.2TSI and 1,4TSI do claim to have a cambelt that is not a service item in normal use, so you have been maybe been wise to stick with the 5 year XK,000 mile advice.

I sort of picked up that for the intended user, de-skilling this job was a priority, so I'd agree with @FabiaGonzales that that sort of charger would make life easy /safe enough.

I'm surprised that the front hub ball joint/swivel(s) had started to fail at such a relatively young car if so and along with wheels bearings failing in early life does not sound like that should be happening yet. Which engine does your car have? Edit:- ah sorry, no swivel failure only damaged during removal for wheel bearing replacement.

I bought a pack of 4 or 5 of these stick on ones over a year ago, they do surface now and again but so far I've not actually fitted any of them, I keep putting that job off until I've modified or reformed them using a heat source so that they can be pushed under the trim and still apply enough force on the screen to grip parking tickets, but maybe I've moved away from using parking tickets and paying online instead! Though a few places we park still work by physical ticketing, so maybe I'll get this sorted out!!

Auto Windscreens, hum, yes they can be tricky to deal with, they were my "go to" insurance repairer for my old VW Passat 4Motion to fill in a chip, my older daughter used them to fill in a chip on her old Ibiza, when I got them to repeat that repair as the original repair had started to become visible again after a few years and their paperwork for the first repair said it was covered for life - but when they were challenged their answer was "yes, but we have changed all our business management systems so we now have no record of that repair" - and I was showing them the original repair paperwork. As I said, can be a horrible area of a car to get worked on - unless you find a proper repairer that uses correct OEM parts - but in an emergency these "fast fit" companies can and do save the day. Pilkington probably don't sell direct to the public especially as far as the normal auto glass screens are concerned, so why would you expect to be able to contact them directly, I wouldn't.

I thought that these "Skoda only" ticket clips were fixed to the car's windscreen pillar steel section with a small self tapping screw, so maybe you will need to buy a new one remove the trim and swop them over, now and again I think about buying one of these clips for my cars, but I'd be trying to get away with forcing it in under the trim instead of risking damaging the trim piece. I'd hate having to have a windscreen replaced!

Oh you were very brave to get Farmers to do that work, I would have trusted that job to one of the local VW Group Indies, which would probably involve a bit more travelling, AVW for instance in the future, though there are a few other garages that like to work on Germanic cars.

Having worked my entire life in avionics companies, well only one but it passed through a few owners(!), I have amassed lots of bits/lengths of heat shrink of many types, but am always willing to buy and have ready to try if and when the time comes - maybe more on my mate's classic SAABs than our VW Group cars, so far I've ever had to alter new cabling to get the lengths right. Edit:- well maybe the odd brake pad wear cable needed sorting out!

The dome nut, at least on my wife's 2015 VW Polo is painted body colour, so I have removed some of the paint at 2 points and covered it with Vaseline to stop it rusting and hoping that that layer of Vaseline will "heal" after I remove the charger crock clip - though I have plans to retro fit a "service -VE" in place of that dome nut, only issue is, I think that the dome nut is an M6 or M8 and the "service -VE" post which is plated to stop corrosion is either M6 or M5 or M4 - nothing that can not be sorted out with suitable sized drill and tap!

I've never spotted that Halfords stuff before, I suppose that I could add that to my kits of bits for repairing car wiring! That could even have been a factory repair I suppose, commoning up earths does tend to get sloppy in VW Group world - okay until you add water/moisture.

Any update on this, was this a VW Group dealership or a VW Group Indie or general garage that you took it to, and what was the price to repair it?

That is shocking, that sort of way of joining wires just can not work for long where there is moisture around. Have you ever heard of "atom tubing" or some similar name to describe a heat shrinkable sleeve, it is loaded or at least its inner surface is coated with a sealer that flows when the sleeving is shrunk using a small heat gun, and that is good for sealing the copper conductor. Edit:- maybe even "adhesive lined" heat shrink tubing, like this sort of stuff:- DWA-4.8/1.6 Adhesive Lined Heat Shrink (hilltop-products.co.uk)

Not having a MK3 Fabia, but a same age VW Polo, the bonnet release handle arc of operation on most if not all newer cars tends to get blocked by the door when it is shut or not open enough - this will be a safety feature I'd think. It has been said that in most VW Group cars that have the bonnet release action blocked when the door is closed, that you can get brutal with the handle and it flex outwards and so be able to be opened with the door closed, just how lucky you need to be to do that and avoid wrecking the bonnet release handle I can't say, so maybe best avoided! So the other plan might be to just start the engine and reverse out of that garage, open the passenger door and then open the bonnet, I've never worked out why Skoda and SEAT locate the bonnet release on the LHS or maybe even just on the normal passenger side, while Audi and VW have that bonnet release on the RHS or maybe just driver's side. Just another thing, it is always a good plan to connect a smart charger +VE lead to the battery +VE terminal, and the -VE smart charger lead to either the chassis point beside the battery or the cylinder head area.