rum4mo

You can remove the top plastic cover, it is only held on with 2 screws I seem to remember, it might seem like it is being tricky to extract the cover but it is very possible to get out of the way completely. Two things to look at when that cover is off, is the condition of the belt surface and edges - obviously, and look around for any signs of oil leakage which would indicate that the inlet valves variable timing pulley bolts were slackening off - that should not be an issue now but was an issue with the early batch of engines and lead to a change of design or supplier of that pulley.

@Peskyparttimers, sorry to heat about your problem, I'm afraid that I'd be "quite" annoyed if that ever happens to any cars I or my family and friends drive! Magnetic stainless steel, from an engineering point of view, maybe it is a good thing that these bolts are exhibiting some ferro magnetism as that probably leads to this stainless steel alloy being stronger than most non-ferro magnetic stainless steel alloys - which is why these cap head bolts are marked 8.8 as they will have similar strength to high tensile steel bolts of that size. I had not noticed that they were magnetic until you mentioned it and I went out and checked the set of new bolts that I have bought but not used yet. Other A2 and A4 bolts, screws and nuts I have are certainly not exhibiting any ferro magnetic tendencies. I would hope that some government standards department would show some interest in this problem and take VW Group's approach to it not to be good enough, but how to make initial contact to the correct department, the service history of any vehicles involved does not sound like being relevant in this sort of problem as these bolts tend to be out of view and out of easy reach - so the only in service fix for this would be to replace these bolts and even the seals on a general recall program and mark up the service pack either physically or digitally, it sounds like VW Group through its engine builder Skoda, do know about this problem and the engine plant time frame that this error could have taken place, and so serial numbers of engines, both 1.2TSI and 1.4TSI involved. I have not worked out VW Group intended the locking of these bolts to work, I just guessed that the seals in the injectors would in essence provide enough damping to be enough - they must have tested all this out and so far it seems like engines built out with this problem period in production are not having any problems with these bolts. How much did you remove from that engine to get to these bolts and the fuel rail, I had considered splitting the water cooled section away from the inlet assembly, but maybe that makes no sense? ( I still plan to replace these bolts one at a time with the fuel rail depressurised, really just to prove that that engine in my wife's car does not end up with this fuel leakage)

I think that as in most aspects of life, you pay your money and/or take your chances. One thing that I would think that you should consider is, "how long do you plan to keep this car in years as it seems that the average annual mileage is quite low?" - it seems like you might see 6 years as an acceptable change period with your average mileage in mind, if so, if you plan to move this car on before its 12th birthday, then why not just get it replaced within the next 8 months. In my case, "mid life" of ownership of the 2015 Polo will be mid 2022, so I'll probably get the belt changed then.

@J.R., in respect to my reply, yes not much chance of shiny V pulleys or sides of belt, but in this case something is causing an initial squeaking, and it could be the tensioner roller bearing or the alternator bearing, though at that age and mileage, I would not have expected it to be that. So to OP, in your position, the first thing that I would do if you handy with working on cars, is to remove that belt one morning before running it, spin the tensioner roller and the other "free to move" pulleys". Edit:- then start it up with the belt off to see if there is any noises. The only thing that should be wrong with a micro groove drive belt at that age is that it has been deluged with salty water from road spray and the salt has glazed it enough to cause that, I've had that happen but it normally eventually vanishes as the salt wears off the belt's inner surface.

Humm, I'm old enough to remember when Ford and possibly other car makers, tended to fit quite a few sort of similar master cylinders to the braking system, the only way to get the correct size of seals was to read off the info on the plastic tag fitted to each master cylinder!

I'm guessing that that was an indicative quote based on what you (remotely) told them what was wrong, at the end of the day that exhaust needs fixing if you are to keep on using that car, so you don't have many other options open to you. They might have included replacing the next section of exhaust as that is usually cheaper than spending a lot of time and gas on welding in bits to close it up correctly.

This sounds a lot like it has been caused by "progress/evolution" and unfortunately that can mean "good/better due to much cheapness". Any idea who is the manufacturer that VW Group have sourced that hydraulic cylinder from, I'd guess it is that OEM supplier's design that has changed and is causing this as VW Group will normally just be buying what is available ie a "hydraulic clutch control mechanism". Years ago, I read about something similar happening with the clutch on B8 Audi S4 with 6MT and there was a (performance related) company in USA that bought in new master and slave cylinders and replaced lots of the plastic innards with alloy parts to address a few issues including this - the Audi S4 and similar powered Golfs etc also have these "delay/damping" fluid return restrictors which it seems lots of people just love to get rid of, for me, so far so good.

Can you check the condition of your battery, normally an auxiliary belt squeaking for a short period, in cold weather after a cold start is down to the extra loading on it due to the battery being needing recharging - which in turn could be due to lots of short journeys or lack of use, and that might be killing the battery which has become very "charge needy". Other than that, I've only ever had a squeaking auxiliary belt if I had been a bit over zealous with a hose pointed into the engine bay - I can't remember the last time that happened.

Are they available in such a small size for that job, I'd doubt it - but I could be wrong.

The best plan is to get the car up in the air and take a few accurate measurements, like the pipe OD at both ends of where the flexi is fitted and the length of the actual flexi section of that "flexi section" as it will have a flexi part and tails, even measure the OD of the flexi itself. There are a couple or more versions or qualities of flexi sections depending on where in an exhaust they are located, the one nearest the cat needs to be the higher quality due to the temperatures. Hopefully things have moved from when I got a flexi replaced on a 2002 Polo back in 2005 or 2006, the first flexi my expert exhaust fabricator fitted was the next size or more up in diameter and the next size or more down in length of the actual flexi part - that was a total failure that I had to pay to get sorted out because I am not an exhaust specialist and so must have been wrong and there was no reason why that repair left that car with a serious exhaust resonance on the overrun and the exhaust touching the underbody when reversing up a steep driveway probably due to it now not having enough flexibility. I recovered the situation by asking for someone on this forum to measure their original flexi section, then I bought the correct flexi repair section from Senioraftermarket and got that expert exhaust fabricator to fit it. Experts are not always good at doing things!

I've just remembered that the last front calliper bleed valve that I had trouble with, I used a smallish Draper clamp on bench vise, that worked quite well, I managed to get a really good grip on the bleed valve and freeing that valve up by rocking/rotating the vise CW<>CCW it freed up without snapping off. That method might sound a bit crazy, but it did work for me.

Anyone considering making up 2 washers or tubing to serve as end stops, would be carefully measuring up and marking both sides, then removing the 2 mounting brackets and sliding the ARB across one side - and then the other and so giving themselves plenty room to weld these new parts in place without causing any damage. It just needs some creative thinking - or just source a new later version ARB, I'd think the first option would be easier in your geographical location. Another way round this is to source 2 split shaft collars and fit them to serve as end stops, that was someone else's idea in another section of this forum - not mine.

There should be 4 roughly triangular indentations on the sills denoting where to use the factory jack - which is used at the 4 strong points on the sills.

Depending on what sort of workshop you have locally, I've heard that some one handy with fabricating things, could very easily make, maybe out of very large washers, a couple of metal "stops" and weld them onto exactly the correct points on that now faulty ARB to sort of bring it up to the spec of the later versions - that is, if you know that the plastic stops have split and are the reason why that ARB is being allowed to "walk" from side to side. Maybe even fitting the "D" mounting bushes intended for the later versions without plastic stops, would mean that the ARB is gripped tightly enough to stop it moving from side to side - but VW Group did change from plastic to welded steel stops so I'd be copying what they did.

Back in maybe New Year 2006, I needed to replace a front spring on my wife's 2002 Polo, and I prepared by fabricating a couple of wooden blocks with slots - and an M14 maybe cap head bolt fitted into a hole drill and countersunk into these bolts - to provide some means of these blocks staying in place on top of the axle stands. That took very little effort and worked very well, just remember that there are only 4 "strong points" provided on the sills.

Thread revival, sorry but I didn't want to open a new thread on CTEK! I bought a CTEK MXS 5.0 Test and Charge back in 2014 or 2015, and connected it up to my severely under used 2011 Audi S4, and trusted it, maybe checking the voltage while it was at various stages in the program "now and again". All was good I think, until maybe 9 months ago, I went into the garage to use my wife's car, a 2015 VW Polo 1.2TSI, and I noticed that this charger, still connected to my car, was indicating a fault condition. I power cycled it and thought no more about it. A few weeks later I checked the charging voltage and it was 12.6V! I power cycled it again and checked the charging voltage at each or most of the program stages, it was always 12.6V. I tried lots of combinations of button pressing while power cycling to try to prompt it back into correct program charging voltage values - and failed, so I fitted my CTEK charger/support unit to it to get and keep that battery fully charged. I found another new MSX 5.0 charger on line and bought it and fitted it to this car and it worked okay. Eventually by power cycling while holding down the mode button, the first MSX 5.0 Test and Charge reverted back to working as designed, and due to lockdown, started using this first one on my wife's Polo. Prompted by people commenting on having a plug in 12V DVM I bought one and immediately got differing results when driving both cars, then discovered that the first CTEK MSX 5.0 is back to defaulting to a constant and safe 12.6V - which is a lot safer than it either flattening the battery or overcharging it I suppose, power cycling that one sorted it out again, then I checked the newer one connected to under used other car, it is charging at 12.7V, I power cycled it and it started charging okay, although when at its 14.7V section of charging program, it charges at 13.6V. So my advice is to trusting CTEK charger users is, check the charging voltage maybe once a week to make sure that they are working as intended, I can't see me getting any redress from CTEK as I think I bought that second one from probably a not approved CTEK seller - and the first one is well out of its 5 years warranty.

I'm surprised that there is no "metal on metal" noises as that ARB is being allowed to walk across and you can see where it has been contacting the aluminium console.

I got the size of the front pipes wrong on my 2000 VW Passat 4Motion, I can't say how/why, so needed to buy in a second pair, though I did end up using one of first wrong size on my daughter's old late 2009 Ibiza - or at least used the clamps as on both cars it was only the clamps that had failed due to corrosion. I still think that in your case a trip to an exhaust place will be the way to sort this out, I don't mind being wrong though. From your pictures I got the impression that the last time that exhaust was worked on, your mechanic only released one of these clamps on that joining sleeve, which to me seems like being a strange thing to do, but maybe prompted by the condition of the next section of exhaust - ie he thought getting that other clamp loose would render that section unusable. Again I hope that I'm wrong.

DVM is just a voltmeter, but one with a digital display instead of an moving needle(coil) analogue display. I've been down that path, ie buying what should be quality rechargeable AA and AAA batteries, but gave up on that idea except for a pepper grinder that was a bit greedy on batteries - "luckily" that device seems to have reached the end of its life, so my stock of AAA rechargeables can be binned. My old MIL was a sucker for buying cheap alkaline batteries only to be repeatedly disappointed, we have Costco membership so I tend to buy Duracell when the price is right or online if necessary, the unit price ends up very low. I deliberately avoided a much more expensive head torch with built in rechargaable cells as I would always be an infrequent user of that head torch, it would suit a frequent user though, which they are aimed at. I really really have a lot of infrequent use or emergency use battery powered devices, and I just keep on top of making sure that their batteries are still within date if not used - that works for me. I liked the principal of using rechargeables but the reality over a few years changed my mind.

@froggy8, how did it all go in the end, job done?

Head torches, yes can be very handy, I had a cheapish one with a strip of LEDs, that was okay for up in the attics and away from the single light sources, but within the last year I pushed the boat out and spent about £30 on one from Screwfix, it uses I think, 3 AA or AAA batteries and I prefer that as it gives has a single COB and its output on high output is very impressive. Being a single use battery one, if I end up using it on high output for a long time, I can just grab a new set of batteries - so instant return to full power. For things I only use now and again, I don't like internal re-chargeable batteries as they lose capacity when abused, ie not kept recharged. I also have a set of these 1/4+3/8+1/2 square drive adaptors for when I feel lazy! As you get older your eyes need lots more light, the only issue I have with LED head torches is, when you are working on a car in a garage for a long time, it is not always obvious that it is the batteries that are running down and not my eyes getting tired! A quick check with a DVM lets you know though! Ring, I think sell LED inspection lights that have built in batteries and have fast chargers and maybe have a name like "break" as they can be fully recharged within a normal teabreak.

I think at least in Europe, "JCB" is just the default manufacturer, ie Skoda did not recode with the actual battery that the car was to be fitted with, VW also don't seem to always change the manufacturer in the BMS settings - and yes 11111111111 is also just the default for serial number. I'm not sure what the Yuasa code is, but their vendor should be able to tell you, though again I'm not sure if it is critical, could be wrong there though.

Maybe some coding has changed with the battery being disconnected, it should not have, but I've read about people finding the odd change in things after a battery has been disconnected. A bit of sniffing around with VCDS would prove if stop/start is still coded in.

I have been caught out once by the inflated ebay prices, but in all fairness to myself, the item or kit that I bought, I did not know that in my case VW ever supplied them, so I dived in when I saw what I was looking for on ebay, so it cost a bit more, but at least I found that that kit existed and bought and fitted it.

The only issue I'd think with fitting a pair of split collars would be, if they have such a large OD, does make them in danger of contacting anything nearby, like the steering rod bellows, if not then why worry about them being overkill as long as they perform the task as well or better than the original crappy plastic "held on with paint" stops. Edit:- the original ones would be bearing up against the side lugs of the mounting rubbers - and so would that type. Just make sure that the ARB is centred well enough.