rum4mo

Good, it will be interesting to see what these Monroe springs look like when compared to what you have fitted.

Yes, the spring looks canted over in both pictures, I've forgotten what the underside of the top bearing looks like on that version of strut, ie how it centralises the top coil of the spring wrt the damper axis. Edit:- from memory the lower face of the top bearing has a reduced diameter that fits inside the top coil, maybe the lower coil has a bit missing, just a guess, if you look up a spring supplier's website there will be a diagram of how these springs are shaped especially at both ends and how the end of the top coil "sits" relative the the same part on the bottom coil - which should be located within the damper lower spring seat and maybe even a separate guide lug.

As you took everything off both sides, did you not check and compare the springs, especially the top and bottom coils, if you had it might have saved you some problems later on. You might have a broken spring.

So that confirms you have ATE front callipers which were fitted to 288mm discs, even with reg number ECP site normally hands out too many options - well that is what I've normally found, though if you phoned them or went into a branch, I think that their database can easily find the one and only correct option for you, though prices tend to be website only prices unless you push hard at front desk. Edit:- SEAT did tend to make Ibizas with that engine with 256mm front discs, probably to save a bit of money!

If you are sure that you have 288mm front discs, then you should have ATE or Teves front callipers which will have a vertical anti rattle spring wire. The A in ATE is for Alfred, Alfred Teves. Edit:- if you have 256mm front discs , then you have callipers with FS111 cast into their outer face and no visible anti rattle spring(from memory) and still maybe ATE the only other calliper supplier at this point in time of production was Lucas > TRW.

Sorry I missed answering that question properly, I'd be considering mid to end of October as by that time the temperature will rarely get warm enough to move these winter tyres out of their temperature range, if it ever does in UK excepting "mid Summer"! My plan is to never let my Summer alloys end up being driven when there is salt on the road, though I think that the Summer wheels on my wife's Polo just might have been out after salt had been laid down last week by the national roads (Bear Scotland) for some reason! A practise run?

I have always considered that the reality is, once you have been hit with heavy snow it is game over, quality winter tyres work well in the wet and cold as well as with ice and snow, ie they are NOT "just" snow tyres. I always end up being lead with changing weather and plan to get the wheels changed over and summer wheels washed dried and stored away before the weather is too cold to do that job as soon as swopping tyres. It is not only the far North that gets hit with low temperatures and snow in winter, elevation is also important and living and moving about near or at sea level will mean not be bothered with persistently low temperature and snow accumulations.

If in doubt, before testing these batteries, in my families cars, I tend to use a smart charger overnight, then remove in the morning, then wait as long as possible up to 6 hours before testing the battery, which I do at every service, really just to try to get the battery into the same charge state each time before testing if you don't do that to your own battery then you will find a random set of results, ie not so good this year, a lot better next year - which could be confusing and not helpful. Always connect the battery tester across the battery posts, using any points or even remote "jumping posts" will give you very poor reading.

I'd expect, if you find that it is low fluid that is stopping it working, you have a problem, these systems don't "use" fluid - I've always used VW Group fluid to the correct spec, but there will be others out there that match that spec. So people say any fluid is okay. Is there not fluid spec info cast into the green cap - I've forgotten. Have you checked that battery to make sure it is healthy enough and charged enough and that the charging system is doing its job?

I'd expect that some insurance companies would only give discounts if you have professionally fitted dashcam., and by a supplier of their choosing and probably one that comes with a support contract.

Maybe a set of winter wheels with winter tyres for winter use if you have storage space, the need for winter type of tyres will remain for many years to come in certain areas of the country, better to do that than end up having an issue that has forced you into using winter tyres in winter, places like Mytyres.co.uk and others can supply wheels with tyres as a package at an acceptable price, then buy 2 new summer tyres just before you change back to summer wheels and tyres, I've been doing that for many years on both cars. Edit:- we live in Southern Scotland and I'll admit I only started using winter tyres after conditions forced it on first my wife, then me a few years later.

Is this the coolant level low warning that he is getting, and if so, when he is getting it, has he checked what the current coolant level is? If the current coolant level is always correct, ie between Min and Max, then it could be the sensor in the header tank that is faulty.

I think that maybe you are lucky that your Skoda dealership is handing out this warning, okay it will mainly be to generate revenue for the workshop, but on the other hand, years ago, when cambelts were a newish thing, a neighbour who admitted to knowing nothing about cars - and his local Ford agent knew this, bought a Ford Escort 1.3L with the CVH new from that local Ford agent and always used them for servicing, during maybe year 5 the cambelt or bits "went" and trashed the engine, when he went into that Ford agent to arrange for repairs, all he got was "yes that can happen, it should have been replaced at 4 years" - that was the last car he ever bought from that friendly local small Ford agent, I reckon that they had let him down very badly, similar advice to what you got given should have been handed out to him at the correct time.

I fitted this to the front of my 2011 Audi S4, and as I did not want to revisit this area, ie remove the bumper in the future, I used Araldite bonding adhesive, bought from Halfords and ignored buying or using any stick on pads. I also "scatter cashed" on a kit to punch the holes in the bumper and this kit also had mandrels and clamps to accurately locate and hold these sensor mountings while the bonding adhesive cured - it all worked out well, I'm sure that you already know that there will be X at the correct points on the inner face of the bumper. By buying the correct hole punching tool, you achieve the same quality of finish as at the factory this is due to the fact that you punch the hole in from the outer surface and in doing so it rolls in some of the painted surface and so kind of lines the hole.

On this IOS14 subject, but off topic:- there are reports of IOS14 seriously reducing battery "use", ie being wasteful - has anyone found this to be true? So far I've only moved an iPad Mini up to IOS14 and left iPhone SE on IOS13 for now - maybe just a lot of interwebnet "false news".

Oh bother, if you ordered it in new from your local Skoda dealership, they will normally take it back and charge a handling charge and order in the correct one. I know this because I got my local VW parts place to order me in a pair of TREs for my wife's 2002 Polo back in 2006/7 - they trusted me as I normally just handed them part numbers as opposed to asking for a "y" for a 2002 Polo, unfortunately, I had picked the section in the parts listing for Polo without power steering - I never made that mistake again, lesson learned!

I'd not convinced that erWin will answer all your questions, why not go into your nearest Skoda dealer's parts dept and ask for prices for both these part numbers and a quick "what is the difference?" question, that should fix things.

I don't know about Skodas, but Audi and VW and SEAT are quite a bit "light" on what they include on these "build data" stickers, you can get more info on "CAR DATA" printout from a dealership, but even that does not and probably can not cover every area of the car.

So in a month or so's time it should end up getting into the next issue.

You should not have to remove the drive shaft on the LHS as that is the side that the gearbox is on and that shaft is shorter and so does not limit the downwards movement of the lower wishbone so much, ie the strut should be out of the hub carrier before the downward movement of the lower wishbone gets limited. Something to make life a bit easier in the future if you think that you might revisit this area is, a tool to expand the hub carrier strut "socket", messing around with small chisels/re-shaped hex keys etc just made expanding the hub carrier "socket" a messy job, before I did the second side, I made sure that I had bought a hub (carrier) expander tool.

Any cars with sports suspension probably get away without removing the RHS drive shaft as the springs will be shorter. A car with a BXW engine would normally have normal suspension. Though I don't mind being wrong as that would mean when I need to work on the front suspension of my wife's 2015 Polo 1.2TSI 110PS, I would need to bother about doing that part of the job, from memory, I probably just dived in and removed the RHS drive shaft from the late 2009 Ibiza with the BXW because I needed to do that on my wife's old 2002 Polo with the BBY engine. I'd think that if you had and used very slim/compact/expensive spring compressors, you could shorten the spring enough before taking the strut off and out of the hub carrier. I seem to remember that the (factory fitted) top nut is just a "crushed" nut, so a bit of repeat crushing it would turn it back into a lock nut again.

Hum, very annoying being encouraged to replace a rear box just because the outer skin is holed, the original rear box would have probably lasted longer than this new one, I had to resort to buying a couple of SS bands to keep the outer skin "okay" on my wife's Polo when it was 12 years 100k miles old, did the same with older daughter's late 2009 Ibiza when it was only 9 years 50k miles - then she sold it. I've heard of these top mounts "going", though at 16 years the originals have had a good life, sometimes the valves inside the basically under used rear dampers start to get a bit slow to open so that can cause a bit of knocking. At the beginning of your last posting it began to sound that this "garage" was in fact a fast fit place trying to get you to replace anything that they stocked!

Sorry I can't help with Skoda PR codes, or the "not pretreated", but the "not pretreated" bit sounds a lot like being to do with the area that the bonding glue contacts. As you say, all these online parts listing will be "borrowed" from the VW Group Ekta resource, some are updated to include newer models quicker than others and some come with higher risk of naughty extras.

Maybe make sure that you are prepared to remove the RHS drive shaft nut as that side's lower arm can not usually get forced down far enough to get the strut out of its socket in the hub carrier, sometimes the locking element breaks when you remove this nut, and sometimes it doesn't, so safer to buy in a new nut for that.

I think that in this case, it is just personal preference, maybe like you, I did not like the look of the old bolt due to the "grippy bits" being flattened down a lot and the risk that fitting a socket on the end of these bolts in a few more years time might not be too easy, maybe worse for the rear calliper carriers as they have an internal ie female maybe spline arrangement in the bolt heads.