rum4mo

I had reservations on moving from a simple bought new 1.4 16V 2002 VW Polo to a new 2015 1.2TSI 16V VW Polo - for my wife, though it has become the most used family car due to its quick/easy enough way it gets around and excellent fuel economy. Currently, or at least back in mid 2015 there was no simple alternative engine choice so it "had" to be moving forward onto running a smaller but turbo charged petrol engine for our envisaged usage - 32K miles and 5 years and also 3 months later - so far so good and I plan on keeping it until it is 10/12 years old as we don't use cars as status symbols!

I always thought that any failure detected on the ABS would inhibit its operation for safety reasons, leaving you with normal braking without any ABS intervention.

There are places that can perform tests on the ABS block controller including connecting it to loads, but that would mean taking the car off the road for a few days probably. I can sympathise with you, back in the darker days when these Bosch ABS controller had not much in the way of self checking, I had a slightly used 1991 VX Cav GSI 2000 16V 4X4, and while under used car warranty it switched on its ABS light, I booked it in, "front near side sensor faulty", paid my part of the repair supposedly cheaper than "doing it the other way"??? - this was the VX main dealer and seller of this car. Drove 4 yards, ABS light back on, turned round and demanded they sort it next day, handed it it next day, "replaced front off side sensor", same thing, the next day "replaced both rear sensors" - I asked if they could diagnose this system and they absolutely, and I asked if they had been road testing after repair again "absolutely". The weekend arrived and I unplugged the ABS controller and carried out impedance testing both down the cable and into the ABS controller and also spun each wheel in turn and measured the low voltage output from each sensor, everything pointed to a failed ABS controller ie a failed single channel, so back I went with this info only to be told that they had the diagnostic tools and were fit to use them, the car came back that evening "replaced both front sensors, road tested by workshop foreman and passed", same thing after roughly 400 yards, a bit more than just annoying as this was happening in deepest winter where ABS is quite handy to have! After contacting the service manager, I got a phone call from the service desk to say that they were ordering in a new ABS controller and and would contact me when it arrived, a few days later they did make contact, I drove round to the workshop, and waited as I knew where the controller was located, under the passenger side door sill trim, and that was that all sorted after a total of 6 wheel sensor replacements then the expensive ABS controller, I was only ever charged for the single ABS sensor replacement also luckily I worked only a 100 or so yards from that VX dealership! So, 2 years later, the ABS light came on again, this time as it was out of warranty, I handed it in to a proper Bosch workshop, they reported that VX would not have been able to extract any fault codes from that version of Bosch ABS controller, so had just been guessing, also, each time they had removed a sensor they had binned it and its PTFE sleeve so every ABS sensor fitted after that without a PTFE sleeve was a time bomb as its aluminium sleeve/body reacted with the cast steel hub housings and the salts generated forced the ABS sensor casing to implode sort off and short out the windings - nice! I had reason to re-visit that dealership after it moved sites and ended up chatting to the same service manager who assured me that nothing like that could ever have happened, it must be nice to live in a magic world where you can only do good things.

I think that this engine is an E211 family along with the 1.2TSI 16V, it seems that there have been a few, maybe 9 members of this forum, that have had a bolt sheared its head, these bolts, 4 of them, secure the high pressure fuel rail to the cylinder head, and it has been reported that Skoda, who's factories build at least all the 1.2TSI 16V versions, found that they need to amend the equipment or process used to torque up these bolts at initial assembly and that your engine, if also built in the same Skoda factory, would have been built within the time period where Skoda expected to see some failures occur, but they never carried out an official recall, just a workshop action plan for when failures occurred, nice eh? Typically it is the bolt nearest the RHS of the rail that fails due to not being tightened up correctly, that allows high pressure fuel to escape from the now loose injector for cylinder one - these bolts secure the high pressure fuel rail to the engine and that is how the injectors are clamped in position and sealed in normal service.. The official fix is a kit of seals, bolts, and it seems a new high pressure fuel rail. Now, if this pans out to be what has happened to your engine, which seems strange that it has taken so long for this to happen, then Skoda should either up in full, or you should offer to get help to make them pay up in full (court action and/or public shaming). If something happened to cause this then please come back and tell us about it. Edit:- this is the Fabia MK3 topic I was referring to

Will the power control/switching not still be getting controlled by the BCM, so maybe it also needs some coding changed? Edit:- though if it actually gets its power while ODIS is running test function, then maybe I'm wrong as the wiring sounds like it is all there.

Ah, sorry I just misinterpreted the recall description, I jumped to the conclusion that it was a fuel leak to the outside world, as in a fuel rail<>injector issue!

Injector leaks on 1.0TSI engines recall, well some of them, dearie me, I wonder what the root cause of that will turn out to be!

1.0TSI has sodium filled valves, my old 1991 Vauxhall GSI 2000 16V 4X4 (same as Opel Vectra) had sodium filled valves! So what pressure does the 1.2TSI 16V EA211 direct injection fuel rail run at?

That is good, so they will have logged your failure - and paid for it. I hope that Skoda understand that by doing that they can't just walk away from this type of failure, maybe forward your and their correspondence to MOT so that they know that this is going on in case someone is not so lucky in the future and gets toasted.

Hi, are you meaning fitting hydraulic struts to support the bonnet, ie the front "door" that covers the engine - or what else?

This has been reported many times in the past, but at that time I was typically finding this talked about on VW Passat B5 forums or similar aged VW Golf/Jetta, as I was never affected by this with any car, I can't say much more, but certainly it is not unheard of!

For wiring, I bought:- From Vehicle Wiring Products LTD – 30meter reel of slate coloured thinwalled 16/020 multi strand wire, and 30meter reel of slate coloured thinwalled 32/020 multi strand wire. This company have/had an online presence. Now, the two different gauges of wire were bought just to match that used by Kufatec, some wires are either single signal wires or single +12V or 0V wires, but some others are distribution wires going eventually to points where they are branched off to individual sensors, for instance, for the section connecting the bumper to the system, each sensor has a signal output, a +12V and a 0V wire, so with a system using 3 sensors, a total of 5 wires, a 4 sensor system will have 6 wires - I just measured they conductors after cutting them to see which gauge of wire best suited each one. Cable wrapping tape, some years ago, while looking for something on ebay, I "bumped" into a seller selling "cable wrapping tape as used by M-B and BMW etc, it looked okay so I bought it - and finally found a use for it, the description might include "fabric" as these tapes do include a synthetic fabric for strength. The tape I bought is branded "tesa" made by tesa AG in Hamburg Germany and is 20mm wide. Edit:- like this for instance - https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/TESA-19mm-x-15m-TAPE-PET-FLEECE-ADHESIVE-CLOTH-FABRIC-WIRING-LOOM-HARNESS/293355420680?epid=6031187042&_trkparms=ispr%3D1&hash=item444d587c08:g:ukQAAOSwPw5eFaKi&amdata=enc%3AAQAFAAACcBaobrjLl8XobRIiIML1V4Imu%2Fn%2BzU5L90Z278x5ickkvjzWOStkxwnlDuxSI1PVVvdpvErcxbaoB54US1mCsMR1hVsB9hRM%2BvDsZplCaLXQ6XyIKqYqZ9qpbf1IvceKhVfG8gLBrGEgCy8uGB5geoqHguMEKUYJbfmM4bLol69KJP8Z4b%2FX8zEhydL9qYZuNrL55bxo%2FaRiQCw%2F82BVWf%2FPESSfXAFG61kz4fDx99yEKGWLFnB%2F1tO6K6B8zgxFuu89bybQlRZcJYW3e9uD9KeffQnl7W2LsmkRwFYSQaiQEmhpmurPx%2Fg7ordvCxvfuntPKpcsDbKpTwk7OWQh89XbwWle3%2BKzhlWMIUMYBQWySPGgyMa%2FfKdWJgto1C4IecurR7s7HwTQoYYSZCoA03v7bnhcve%2FbRjlKb%2FV9ZSOel%2FMrYUpC9euzkBiYN62iT0XU2RStu5tvZOlMhmgYU%2BRFeg5PGxJ7iWsVSi8Bx2cNvKA4MeWjP3oITo%2BKxEwwYoJqMASguN8****lQI%2BbvecJa47NaYElgauNjPgnd%2B5ZU9RL19ufU5I%2BXU6zBg8t2LGUqjnmVxDxbH9E4cFgZKeUSImHbrbgg16IwEOk2wfHG7HbIzGvfyqFEzPJl8K6Bsc9DyJQTKCW6qbFqifNcMCC37rE3ap%2BXu8QQinHwzRSgFhaqHiI6tD%2FngXZFoi6jx1vGfiTEGSXScneYxEFPt7iBa2v7Nzx6gSWDds6rG8Sec%2FdjpSnsdVpWKKgHWcfc0cZ%2F5xkqrckYmMqOSVQFuBu32FSWPdlc5oCXlhqZlQ6vsOYzPiEQlN9Z8s93L8I%2FQ%3D%3D|cksum%3A293355420680cf4b38e3e336437d979b91840103255c|ampid%3APL_CLK|clp%3A2334524 I was wrong, my tape is 19mm not 20mm!

I think that sometimes Kufatec etc cabling is LHD specific and that it can cause "length" issues at times when applied to RHD cars, certainly I seem to remember that when I retro fitted front PDS to my 2011 Audi S4, I'm sure that I searched the online world for advice and past experience from people that actually did this job, and ended up running the cables down the RHS where Audi used the LHS. One thing that I'll say for these cable kits is, at least you are starting off with a set of correct connectors and correct wiring schedule, anything else like length is a bonus in my mind, so I bought reels of the same gauge car wiring and extended mine where necessary, although in my case, it was only on the bumper that the length was too short, easily sorted out with the correct materials + tools + ability - though maybe slightly disappointing! Edit:- just remember to stagger the splicing points in the cable to avoid ending up with a single large "bunch", materials like wire + cable wrapping tape + heat shrink tubing are needed, I'd suggest making up a wiring schedule of the cabling first before chopping it up, Kufatec wiring tends to have extremely small numbering printed along its lengths.

Thanks, that is useful information and explains why this can be an issue for owners of earlier with cars having earlier engines. Now if I could work out what exactly is the setup with regards to the air inlet cold plate, I could get on with splitting the intercooler from the cold plate and maybe get enough room to replace these bolts one at a time. So it sounds a lot like VW Group ended up discovering that there was a production problem that could end up with engines being fitted to new cars and these engines not having correctly torqued HP fuel rail fixings that could leave owners with high pressure petrol spraying out the front of the engine - and nothing was put in place to recover this potentially dangerous situation, just leave it until bolts failed and fit a kit of parts at the customer's expense, not best practise. Edit:- a roughly similar issue with the Audi 3.0TSFI engines resulted in a worldwide recall - eventually, UK as usual was extremely slow to hand out recall notices, maybe a year or so behind ROW, maybe some thing will happen here with this issue eventually.

Oh, I did not consider that, so game over for getting Carista to help you, time to locate someone that has VCDS. To begin with, why not ask your local Skoda dealership parts dept to provide you with a printout of "CAR DATA" for your car, that will let you know what options that car had when it left the factory - though if you got your car scanned by a fully compliant, for that age of car, scan tool, it would also let you know if parking system was fitted and what the stored fault codes were if any. The first action you can take care off maybe quicker that you can get that car scanned.

Have you not checked to see if you can reach them by just removing any lower rear bumper cover screws, depending on how much pain you are willing to live with and/or the size and strength of your grip, that might work. The best plan must always be to remove the bumper cover completely making sure that you can rest/support it at the correct height until you have been able to remove all the sensor connectors and any cable support clips or cable ties. Edit:- Carista should have been able to talk to the rear parking system - if it was a factory fit option or retro fitted using same as factory fit wiring, controller and sensors etc. There will be a few fault code options, if you are lucky it will identify a single faulty sensor or its wiring, or maybe none working due to a common 0V or +12V wiring issue or - - - - .

Exactly, you need someone that has a proper fully VW Group compliant scan tool that can connect to all the car's smart controllers to check if there are fault codes stored in the parking module - and what these faults codes say the problem is that caused these fault codes to get logged.

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.