rum4mo

Owner's manuals are boring or badly written normally, I think that after finding that I re-read that car's owner's manual and it was in it, same for 2002 VW Polo and my car. For some reason 2015 VW Polo have an exposed driver's door lock barrel, as does my 2011 Audi S4 - okay the S4 is old enough for that change not to have been included on it, but I bought a new cover - N/S and O/S covers front and rear are all the item, just that the driver's one is different as it from factory has the hole for the key and looks like something is missing, so over two years on I still have to cut a slot in that new cap and spray it in car's body colour. Did same for 2015 VW Polo and that looks to have been a waste of money because 2015 VW Polo have a very low profile handle, so no option to cover that lock barrel. My younger daughter's boyfriend's father has just bought a VW ID3 - that car has an exposed driver's key barrel, I don't quite get that, I thought covering them up but having a slot to remove them was progress!

quote:- batteries are very heavy to carry around best to use both your hands rather than the one plastic handle it'll probably come with. I agree, but, when I bought a new 95AHr Bosch from Costco, the clown in the tyre bay just grabbed one with one hand and swung it up onto the pay desk, then swung it again with one hand and one handle into my trolley - what an ar*e! Edit:- as for finding out how to secure a car that you have removed the battery from, yes everyone should get to know about that - I only blundered across it in the interwebnet thing, and put it to use a few months later when I removed the battery form my daughter's 2009 Ibiza I was babysitting.

As far as I know, I have not tried it, but logic tells me it should be correct, if the cabin fan is not running, the AC ie the chiller can not run, the logic behind that is, if the chiller runs gas through the evaporator and there is no air flowing across the evaporator then its temperature will drop quickly and it will freeze any moisture that is in the air plenum and so it will get choked to air passing across it. In normal operation, there is a possibility that the evaporator could end up up freezing, but there is a temperature probe close to its surface to protect it from doing that, but that needs an air flow to stop it freezing.

You should be able to fully lock up any car that has remote or even only central locking when no battery is fitted. At least on Audis, VWs and SEATs, every side door without a key locking barrel, has a small rubber bung on the "rear" face of the door frame, not small rubber bung probably had a padlock outline on it and maybe a rectangular indent. The plan for when there is no battery power on the car is:- open each side door, remove that bung, fit the end of the ignition key into the manual locking part that gets exposed when you remove the bung, then give it a 1/4 or 1/2 turn one way - it will only go one way, do this gently as very little force is needed, refit the bung and close that door - it should now be locked and can be reopened from the inside in the usual way as dead locking has not been used. Repeat that for the other 2 doors if it a 5 door, then use the key to lock the driver's door. The rear hatch probably like other cars of this age, can not be opened from the outside so that end is secure and if you need to open it when the battery is out, there is usually a slot on the hatch's inner trim panel to slide a key in and release that opening. Edit:- Stop/Start in itself will not cause any issues when trying to revive that battery, but if you feel the need to buy another battery make sure it is an EFB or AGM version to keep things going as intended.

When some of us, it sounds like, were out buying our first proper car tools, it seemed that all the quality brands only sold bi-hex sockets, unless I'm mistaken, now everyone sells hex sockets as they might be slightly less convenient when in poor access areas, but they trade that in for better grip on fasteners and the later designs even more than just plain hex.

@nta16, hey come on, give yourself a pat on the back, these links do do what you expected!

Metric tools only, at Classic Motor Show, bother, is that called progress? I handed over all my and my father's AF and Whitworth/BSW spanners to my mate when it looked like he was going all GB for his classics, unfortunately that only lasted one car, an A40,then he stuck with SAAB so these tools are collecting rust now. I still have my father's Bedford Tools Imperial socket set though, the case for that set was big enough to accept a full set of Britool metric sockets, with the odd Draper Expert thrown in. Toolstation sell or used to sell Facom Expert very cheaply, I could not work out if this was just Facom getting into a cheaper section of the market, I bought a couple of 17mm Hex sockets for use with telescopic wheel wrenches in the boots of our cars, they seem well enough made, but very cheap! My father also had a Crescent brand small adjustable spanner - but that seems to have disappeared over time! Blue Spot, yes I heard about them, I bought a set of basic Draper spanners years ago, really just to have in the boot, they, I think, were made in India - the complete set consisted of one of each "size" of spanner, just that actual sizes had been swopped on a couple, so one size had big wall thickness and one had hardly any wall thickness! I think that I took them to work and allowed them to be nicked, serves some thieving b****d right!

That gauge/charging adaptor gets fitted to the low pressure side of the system, so you charging the system with the AC demanding max cooling aren't you? If so then you have a leak in the system. If the AC system has lost a lot of gas, you will need to demand cooling, which the system will not provide as the compressor will be left on minimum displacement, as you load in gas from your charging bottle, the system should get enables and start chilling the air - but if it is still reasonably leak proofed, a single small bottle of goodness knows what, will not return it to full capacity or maybe not even getting it running as a chiller as the pressure might still be too low due to lack of charge.

It should do, if not it will catch up soon, the app gets updated regularly as cars change etc and updates get sent out automatically to your copy of the app.

Bacho spanner made in Spain! What is the world coming to, I always assumed that all Bacho stuff was made in Sweden, talking about Bacho adjustables, I bought one of their chopped down or thin jaw versions, as a treat to myself - for holding onto the slim air vent body of the valve on our heated towel rails, they work a treat for that job, no more blinking complete valve unscrewing when I open the small vent screw - I had been looking for a reason to buy one of them as soon as I noticed them in Screwfix, we had lots of specially modified spanners at work, but normally they were just bog standard spanners, sockets etc that had been machined to suit, I bet that cost a lot more than buying the right tools!

It might just be a "time thing", ie if you have only just bought the car, Skoda UK might not have added that fact to the/their database, a friend bought a used VW T-Roc and it was about 14 days before he could create an account and add that VIN to his my Volkswagen account.

@nta16, I'm sorry if I hit a "weak" spot (ha ha!). It was always NOS Eldor coils that I aimed for on ebay for spares for my wife's previous 2002 Polo, after I had to use the first spare, I felt that the clock was almost running out for me being without the next spare spare, so gave up waiting for ebay to serve up the next NOS Eldor and grabbed a "used but still okay Beru coil that has been kicking about my toolbox for a while", well month later it was required, a month later ebay served up my next NOS Eldor, a week later wife said "car is running a bit rough" - I plugged in my diagnostic tool for laziness/efficiency and it pointed to the recently fitted Beru - that as far as I was concerned confirmed my thoughts about Beru coils that were manufactured in some "becoming modernised" Eastern European country! It always seemed to be the "move to the East" that plagued all these parts. NGK spark plug for the 1,2TSI 16V engine:- at the age of your car the factory fit would have been VW AG part number 04E 905 601 with no NGK reference number on them, just VW AG NGK on the insulator. the replacements I bought from a UK based sparkplug supplier as NGK were in fact NGK plugs packed in VW Group boxes with VW Group part number 04E 905 601 B on the box and on the plug body, the box also had the corresponding NGK part number/model printed below the VW Group part number and that is NGK PZKER7B8EGS. 22NM torque 16mm spark plug socket. Laser Tools sell a conveniently sized one, 245mm long 3/8" sqr drive with a magnet in it to hold the plug secure Laser Tools 3682. Edit:- one thing about that Laser Tools spark plug long socket is, many places list it as being 14mm, but the Laser Tools item with the part number 3682 is 16mm, I can't explain why still after many years, some places including Halfords which seem to be the cheapest, are describing it as being a 14mm socket! Get them to open the packaging up and check it with their dial callipers before paying for it! Another Edit:- Lucas, I think that the brothers that own ECP bought over that trading name and rent it out to anyone needing to apply some credibility to their cheap nasty Eastern way sourced rubbish.

@nta16I agree about the usefulness of being able to view parts listings, all good stuff, well after you have had reason to search for many parts in all areas and so trained yourself into how the catalogue was designed. My best extra feature I ended up with when buying my next laptop was touch screen, very handy when searching through parts listings! I used to buy the odd Ekta disc to keep me going, but now that these "nice" Russians seem to offer free access to some hooky genuine up to date VW Group catalogues, I've stopping buying these Ekta discs, goodness knows what nasties they are sending down the line though as is said, especially in computing, if it is free then you are the product, gulp! Edit:- probably not that you will end up using this, but when these engines were built, the factory fitted version "a" of these plugs, when I replaced my wife's 2015 Polo's plugs, the plugs I got were version "b" - I can look up if you are interested, and let you know if it was the VAG parts code that had changed or the NGK model number that had changed, but in my head, I think that one changing was reflected in the other - so if the current plugs have an "a" within their NGK model number they were probably not replaced and if they has a "b" in the NGK model number they have been. The coils, VW Group went through a very bad patch coil reliability wise but that was back in maybe 2004 > 2008,this I think was mainly due to VW's suppliers being encouraged maybe to include more local content and the desire to reduce costs to the factories, this meant coil manufacturers ended up moving East wards which was not good initially, my wife's 2002 old Polo had proper old European Eldor coils made in a proper old European country like Germany and only had 2 coils fail in its 13 years from new with us, her 2015 Polo has Eldor coils made in Turkey, which concerns me a bit as Turkey is well known for state sponsored "copy" factories, so there could be more than one "Eldor" factory although that should only affect anyone buying via ebay etc, the move East wards lead to some bad habits and high voltage insulation was a casualty - and so many VW Group cars had early coil failures between 2004 and 2008, in fact most people that bought new Audis with the 1.8T engine, spent a lot of their early days of ownership driving around in I think Sourers(sp?) things got that bad. Audi dealerships in Europe tended to grab a loan of older stock " so okay" coils from Skoda dealership car stocks, sad but true. I have always considered Beru to either have similar issues or were unreliable even when manufactured within "old" Europe, others might know different. That was just background chatter concerning VW Group coils, which from my personal experience, is in the past as things have been sorted out or at least improved.

@nta16, I've just checked up on the parts listing on IFI website (https://ifinterface.com/) and that long downward pointing pipe with the restrictor in it is called "water drainage hose" - so that will be its only function and not any cold air inlet as these cars don't seem to have any of that nowadays.

The smallish pipe that points down, I'd think is just a cold air feed, but I never noticed anything that controls when it is used, unlike cars from 2002ish. Why VW Group designed an air filter holder for 2002ish cars with the cover screws underneath, then changed it to just being a rectangular box that had the screws on the top round about 2009ish, then managed to invert it again for this model, sort of beggars belief. This air cleaner box is I seem to remember fastened to the engine by 3-off "pull off" fittings which are as in the case of the 2002ish cars, just rubber donuts that get pushed down onto vertical pillars that have a lip to retain the donuts forced down over them. Some people manage to pull the coils off the plugs using their hands, I played safe and bought an extractor tool that has an expanding screw that is passed down into the hole in the coil where the retaining screw passes through, then you expand the collet in that hole and pull up vertically. The "cam belt needs replacing" issue, this is not what VW AG say is what needs doing, so maybe search around the interweb for further info about that, I'd prefer not give advice on that one.

Yes I thought about that after I wrote that, plugs and air filter after 4 years anyway is what is recommended. NGK plugs and a MANN air filter which is what VW Group boxed items are. Getting the air filter box open, you need to remove the filter box first as all the screw heads are underneath. If you are going to replace the plugs, do it when you have that air pipe off as it makes life slightly easier.

Have you actually removed the air duct from the turbo and throttle body, if so, VW Group advise that the O-rings re never reused, certainly on my wife's 2015 Polo with the 110PS version of that engine, a spot of oil does end up traversing that plastic duct or air tube, but the upper surface of the TB looks okay other than needing a careful de-oiling using some very dry paper tissue - and doing the same to the plastic air pipe, I replaced both O-rings after the end of that pipe showed a gathering of oil mist, but it still comes back - maybe I applied a touch of clean engine oi to these new O-rings to stop them from scuffing when refitting that pipe - and that has had a negative effect on the sealing when under pressure from the turbo. I would expect that the best way to allow the car to "recal" that TB would be to use VCDS etc, but there used to be a general way of thinking that the car will perform that same function either by switching the ignition on and waiting for maybe 2 minutes, or it does that after the engine is stopped - on that engine, there are a few "full sweeps" of something going on after engine switch and that might even include a full sweep of the turbo waste system flap as well.

Oh yes that is where the oil is coming from for sure, but I'm a bit annoyed that it only started showing up on the outside of that plastic duct AFTER I had taken it off to make replacing the spark plugs easier.

One simple but maybe wasteful way to rule out or in, the aerial or its lead or aerial amplifier would be to buy a simple DAB screen aerial and plug it in instead of the car's one. I did this when I retro fitted a DAB radio to a car without DAB, the aerial I bought was from Halfords for easy access to, I did not plug in the 12V supply and just "hung" the aerial over the passenger's seat back, I am not in a good DAB reception area and that worked very well for me to prove this used DAB radio was working and I then got the CP removed and set about buying in a suitable Fakra cable and eventually a used DAB aerial amplifier..

My wife's August 2015 Polo 1.2TSI 110PS is now at 34K miles and always starts smoothly and continues like that while it warms up, same if garaged or not - though it might slightly stutter at initial start up if not been started until later in the day on a hot day when the over night temperature was lower than usual, but nothing to prompt me into trying to sort it out. Has anyone noticed a build up of oil mist ie wetness on the turbo output pipe where it attaches to the top of the TB? I took that pipe off to replace the plugs and just re-used the original O-ring seals, then read on the workshop manual that these seals need replaced after that pipe has been taken off, I had noticed a build up of oil mist at the TB entry point only after having taken that pipe off. So, I ordered in pair of new O-rings and fitted them, slightly oiling them to stop them getting scuffed while pushing the pipe back into place - but the same thing is happening, a know a small quantity of engine oil ends up being passed down this pipe, but that is expected.

The A3/B4 version claims to be 502 and 504 compliant so okay to use as long as you replace the oil and filter once a year or 15K kmts which ever the car reaches first. If leaving the oil in the car for longer then the Edge LL will be more suitable - seeing as you have mentioned using previously.

If the ECU or the Climatronic controller is not getting the correct response from the positional pot - ie feedback, it will always end up "hunting" as it tries to resolve the error in position.

What! Brexit was meant to be brilliant in every way - and yes I believe in the tooth fairy and Santa Clause! I wonder what the effect is when a company like Mytyres etc tended to have an office in UK as well as offices in other markets like France - Germany being home to them, I seemed to remember that their UK address was round about Oxford, but maybe that was only to give confidence to early users when they first set up. I have avoided buy in from mainland Europe a few times since Brexit as I had read about issues and maybe even read the details covering any/all purchases - mainly I've avoided buying that way to stop uncovering "not thought of" issues post Brexit.

Remember if considering buying a steel wheel from mytyres, check the price for supplying that wheel fitted with the tyre of your choice, that could made more sense than buying just the tyre and getting tyres in UK. I've used mytyres maybe 3 times, both for tyres and winter wheels fitted with tyres, no problems at all.

The trouble with going for a full sized 16" steel spare wheel is that it might be difficult to find one within the VW Group parts listing, all 16" wheels that fit the Fabia hub will be alloys I'd think, okay it will be possible to buy one from a proper wheel supplier after checking what rim width and offset is needed to make it the same as the other alloys.