rum4mo

The car she chose to buy was a SEAT Leon Cupra, so back in 2019 there was no other option, just DSG or nothing. Edit:- that batch of 4 Panasonic CR2025 Lithium batteries has "made in Indonesia" on them, I'm not sure where any previous Panasonic key fob batteries that I've bought declare where they were manufactured. Frankly, from my way of think, I was shocked to find that that youngish modern person, had actually bought double the number of key fob batteries that she should have seeing as they don't "improve" with age! I thought that "just in time" was the way to do things.

@nta16 maybe Dinitrol?

With cars that have fuzzy(funky?) logic in the DSG, the plan tends to be each regular driver has their own key. I’d think after getting caught out like this, from a retired test engineer’s point of view, removing the battery from your only other available key fob when about to use the car or later, would not be the smartest plan. I’ve seen “experts” taking working kit apart to fixing failed kit - with “job stopped” happening. I’m just generalising here!

Okay, so I keep banging on about “you should only fit Panasonic batteries to your VAG key fobs”, well my older daughter reported having trouble after replacing the battery on her SEAT Leon Cupra (non KESSY) key fob - now it doesn’t work, so she had to use the other key fon. I said just to leave it and I’d try to work out what the problem was. With old battery fitted when you press any of the buttons you get a “good solid” flash from the key’s LED but the battery voltage is down to 2.9V. With the new again Panasonic CR2025, battery voltage 3.3V, pressing the buttons all you get is a short flicker! I’d think that this new Panasonic battery is faulty, probably ended up with high internal resistance. I’m just reporting this here in case someone else ends up in this situation, so before replacing a key fob battery, check what the LED’s response to a key press is, then compare that to what you now have with the new battery. I’m assuming here that some people do actually replace their key battery BEFORE it has failed.

Bother on the airflow thing!

As far as air quantity coming out of the dash vents, with “auto” systems running in auto mode, the decision as to where the air is getting directed is controlled by the Climatronic etc controller. To prove that it is possible to get more air out of these vents you could try moving away from auto mode by selecting one of the options on the dedicated buttons.

Triumph Herald, our next door neighbour has one that sees the light of day as often as my old Audi S4, but judging by the time between leaving and going back into the garage it is only going “once round the block”.

Yes, also the tensioner, it seems like the bit VW Group supply is just the new belt, so there is no kits available from VW Group as this task is not a regular service item. So, as well as getting the belt changed, you should also be making sure that your garage is "creating" a kit to do that job, ie add in a tensioner. When I got the cambelt changed on my wife's 2015 VW Polo 1.2TSI at a proper VAG Indie, the parts listed included a tensioner as a line item. We tend to expect maybe 15 years out of a car, so I considered that at the 10 years and 55K miles point, now was the time to pay to get that job done to avoid worrying about "what if" or "if only I had". The guy that takes the money said, as I left, "that will be you for another 5 years"!

I think that the general improvement in dispensed fuels has rendered the "in line and replaceable" petrol filters redundant.

The part number for the complete indicator strip is 654 949 102. So, maybe stuff that into google etc and see if you can work out if the missing part is actually part of the complete strip - or not. I couldn't find any other individual part. I've had to replace bits of the RHS mirror on my wife's 2015 VW Polo - so another car that has that "tell tale" or "repeater" arrangement, but I can't remember exactly what that area is part of, though I'd probably think that it is part of the indicator strip. These mirrors are very easy to work on - as I discovered when I needed to rebuild one after it got "swiped" by a careless driver going the other way overtaking a bicycle on my side of the road while I was there! Edit:- BTW, it was an oldish Corsa and its mirror got detached and swung round and smashed the front door window, that wakened up that careless driver!

This reminds me to suggest that anyone that is interested in their cars, should, at service time or just before it, measure and record the ride height at all 4 wheels BEFORE the car has been lifted up. I replaced all 4 springs on my wife's 2015 VW Polo 1.2TSI using, against my better judgement, aftermarket branded springs, in my case Lesjofors, the ride height at the front remained the same within 5mm, the ride height at the rear dropped by 10 or 15mm - on checking up on the online Lesjofors catalogue I discovered that they don't provide a rear spring for that model of car, so I had accidentally bought the 3 door GT version, which makes my wife's Polo sit almost "flat" - which looks better! If I ever own a VRS, I'd only ever fit or get fitted genuine VW Group springs, aftermarket only provide maybe a selection/option of 6 front springs whereas VW Group will be offering more like 10 options - so when buying from a VW Group outlet you will get sold the exact correct rating/length of spring as it had when leaving the factory. It's always useful to have had a look at the original springs if they were still on the car when you bought it, and record the colour banding/strips on them. Maybe all "could have/should have" done in your case, but others could take some of this onboard.

Out of interest, which scan tool did you use to "code in" your new battery? It might be relevant.

The "one bolt getting blocked by the engine" is only relevant for one engine type - and it is not the EA211 versions from my experience, that did concern me when before I started working on these lower TCAs.

You have nothing to lose by clearing that fault, if it returns it will get logged again anyway - and repeat until your warranty is LIVE - why not. It might just turn out to be a "ghost" fault or a fuel pressure sensor fault - there will be one on the high pressure fuel rail.

The lower track control arm rear bushes can easily end up tearing as well as de-bonding due to potholes and maybe speed bumps. My wife's August 2015 VW Polo 1.2TSI ended up with a single torn rear mounting bush before it was 3 years old - VW replaced that under warranty, when I found that the other side's rear mounting was tearing a year or so ago, I just replaced the bonded mountings on both sides - because I had the tools to do that and the arms were still otherwise okay, the original bonded mounting that I removed was obviously torn, the already replaced one was badly deformed, ie the centre steel sleeve had separated from the rubber material and had deformed the rubber so that there was now an elliptical hole in the centre.

I "retired" the EFB battery in my wife's 2015 VW Polo yesterday, really it was not (yet) causing me any big problems, but, as I have a 12V DC digital voltmeter thing plugged into the 12V DC Power socket, I could see that it was taking a very long journey before the indicated voltage was dropping down from 14.89V, so, as I had prepared for an early failure back in maybe late 2022, I considered that I'd be very silly if I waited until I had a problem with the original 59Ah EFB, and going by the chatter on many VW Group owners forums, it sounded a lot like that original EFB was slightly undersized and also not going to last much beyond the 7 year mark. So a few years ago, I bought a 70Ah AGM battery and have kept it "topped up" every 3 months while it was waiting to get used. For that car, annoyingly, I also needed to replace the battery tray and the thermal blanket, so now everything has been fitted to the car along with coding the battery management system to suit that change. I have never ever been in the situation where I felt that the battery capacity was really a bit low for that car and the way that we use it, so based on that experience, I'm sure that I've just wasted the extra money buying the next size up battery, tray and thermal blanket. Changing from EFB to AGM was also, for me unnecessary, but it has now been done! That was just my experiences nothing more.

I think that it was my wife's previous car, a 2002 VW Polo bought new, that forced me to buy a set of Laser Tools "headlight remover kit" they are just long bent bits of stiff metal which resembles banding with a thin strip of plastic behind it - the plastic is there to protect the paintwork. That worked perfectly when needing to remove the rear light clusters to replace either the indicator bulbs or brake/rear light bulbs. Lengths of cable was an issue with that car, and from memory on her current car a 2015 VW Polo - but in over 10 years, I've only ever removed its rear light clusters once, really just to make sure that I had confirmed the bulb types used and to make sure that if I need to change a bulb, I have already opened these clusters up. Maybe I should dig out that Laser Tools kit and have a look, just to make sure that "all is good" though most of the lights are LED and the bulbs are now proper "long life" - or is that just "high price".

Draper Expert 24173 might work for you at the inboard jacking points - if these 4 points will support your car without causing any body damage - I'm mentioning that as years ago VW Passat owners found out about the Audi TT jacking point protectors - and used them on the B5 etc Passat, but some of these areas of the body could not take that load without distorting. It was later said that at least on early cars, these 4 points were only meant to be strong enough to support a lightly loaded body during initial assembly. Times have moved on and I'm that on some Audi/VW like Golf R etc, and on same age SEAT Leon Cupra, jacking adaptors can get fitted after removing covers, so that was why I was suggesting that you look into similar set up for equivalent Audi and VW models to your car - as a creative way of getting round this issue. Okay a lot of home diy service work can be done if you just use ramps, but for lots of jobs you need to get wheels off. Edit:- idealy you would need to confirm from checking an official workshop manual, if there were 4 inboard jacking/supporting points on your car.

Okay, well these seriously pricy JackPoint jack stands are quite clever - I can't say why there are not many similar jack stands available to us in UK. Anyway, they are designed in 2 parts, the top part/platform/table top, is placed on a suitable trolley jack, I have 2 similar trolley jacks, so I jack up one side at a time using these 2 trolley jacks with the jack stands on the top of the jacks, then when at the correct height, slip the bases or tables that are the lower part of the jack stands under the jacked up top part/platform/table top, then lower the 2 trolley jacks back down - so the top is located securely on the base of each jack stand - then do the same for the other side. That leaves the wheels off the ground. What I'd think that you would do if you can get suitable jacking pads for all these 4 body jacking points that hopefully you can find is, jack up under them and place your axle stand, maybe with a suitable protective notched block on each, under the strengthen sill jacking points.

I think that maybe you now need to find a seller of pads/blocks to fit in each of the 4 lifting points - and that will work for you. Typically these strong points were for moving the body around in the assembly plants. My wife's 2002 VW Polo ended up with me fitting Audi TT jacking pads to the 4 lifting points - I couldn't remove them quickly before changing that car for a new 2015 VW Polo, so I bought another set of 4. My 2011 Audi S4, yes, I was a lot concerned when I first got it home and looked under it, for that one, I used the internet and scatter cashed on a set of 4 JackPoint jack stands and they work very well, even on our younger daughter's 2019 SEAT Leon Cupra, my wife's 2015 VW Polo 1.2TSI and our younger daughter's 2019 SEAT Arona Ex, though for the last 2 cars, I needed to make up blocks as these 2 cars are higher off the ground to start with. Typically, there will be commonality between your car and some other VW Group products, and maybe one of the "poly bush" providers provides a suitable jacking pad kit that can even be left on the car. Edit:- just to make it clear, my solution that I bought for the 2011 Audi S4 does not involve jacking through plastic covers, it jacks and supports on the 4 sill strong sections, ie where you use the emergency jack. That was an expensive option, but it has worked very well for me over the passed 12 years.

One small but maybe significant point to make wrt the calliper manufacturer, yes TRW and ATE and Mando manufacture the brake callipers, but a "friction specialist" on another forum tends to say that calliper manufacturers typically don't manufacture friction materials, so don't follow these names for "best pads". For example the original and replacement OEM front brake pads for my wife's 2015 Polo 1.2TSI 110PS, are obviously VW Group/TRW/Jurid - so are Jurid parts, but in this case, I'd doubt if Jurid are the manufacturers of the actual friction material though. I didn't remember to check that fact on the new pads.

Maybe not the same issue with this age of Skoda Fabia, but, I've found on some at least an older VW Polo, that the rear light cluster bulb contacts were now being made from steel that is galvanised to resist corrosion, and these steel contacts are very strong and so can end up distorting the lead(?) solder blob on the ends of the bulbs - that ends up creating a poor/intermittent/lost contact - that I resolved the first time by just replacing the bulb, next time I reflowed the solder on the original bulb and refitted it. Just another example of "progress" (cheapness) creating a problem down the line.

My wife's August 2015 VW Polo 1.2TSI 110PS 6MT, still has its original factory fitted Exide EFB, current mileage 55,000miles, things still seem to be okay, but I'll probably swop it for the Bosch AGM one that I bought "some time ago", hopefully before things turn bad!

The noise from the engine area might just be the throttle body "sweeping" as in having been prompted to perform a "self cal" to establish its end stop voltages for reference, if not that one maybe the turbo. Normally that takes place after initially switching off the engine - so your car might be thinking that this fault is prompting a similar action. Checking the battery voltage would be a good thing to do, initially and while pushing that stalk forward. Many VW Group cars of this "size" and age have had stalk failure - by "many" I mean more than normally expected and experienced in earlier versions/marks of these cars.

I think that that will be as good as it gets, been that way for a while, a bit annoying needing to get the dip stick to a bright light to be able to find out what the level is.