Gammyleg

Mines gone also. Good to know it's not just me.

Not sure which model you're looking at but my 1.6tdi is, as of this morning, 9 miles short of 150k. Bought it nearly 3 years ago with 80k on the clock. Still running very sweetly. All standard servicing carried out as required, cam belt & pump changed @ 80K. DSG DQ200 could do with a new clutch pack though.

The type of road surfacing seems to makes a big difference to where the road noise enters the car. With 'old school' HRA roads the noise seems to come in from everywhere, whereas when driving on new SMA surfacing it only seems to come from the tyres. Some sections of the new M20 smart motorway are almost silent, particularly what was the hard shoulder, which only had a thin overlay rather than a full reconstruction.

Do they work for noise reduction?

The Bomb link that I posted was an example, can't remember which product I used but I got it from Euro Car Parts and the cost was similar. Important that you do the drying of the air con system BEFORE you use the bomb or the pong will continue.

Quite a common problem. As mentioned by others, likely that the ventilation system has water in it that has gone stagnant over time. Most likely cause is not running the air con regularly enough. Some say have it running all the time, I probably run it about 70 -80% of the time, all year round. My fix ( gleaned from this very forum ) was to take it for a 20 -30 min run up the motorway, air con on, set temp to MAX and crack the windows open a bit, it will get very hot in the car. This should evaporate all the stagnant water from the system. Afterwards invest in an Air Con Bomb and follow instructions on the can. After a couple of weeks the perfume from the bomb should have disappeared and hopefully you ventilation will smell all good again. https://www.eurocarparts.com/p/go4-auto-go4-air-con-cleaner-150ml-552777691

Did it make much difference to wind noise / sound reduction?

Could be leaky/old shocks on the back. That's what my problem turned out to be.

I did the same. From what I can see the door has distorted slightly (heat?) which has lead to one of the pins not lining up with it's slot when closed.

Mine did this last year. I loosened the two torx bolts on the bonnet hinge and moved the bonnet forward about 1 mm and this fixed the problem. Hasn't come back again.

If the hub is heating the tyre, then the pressure would increase rather than reduce.

Might work, or thinking about it if you already have an inch to play with perhaps you could get your fingers in the gap an pull the window down

As you have access to some talented people, equipment and spray facilities, would you not consider cutting a hole in the outer skin of one of the front the doors to access the door lock mechanism? Some tidy welding and fettling plus a re-spray to put things right afterwards.

If my Mode button worked ( which it doesn't as the software has gone AWOL ), it would need an option of PLOD, for that is how I drive.😄

A service from a good independent would cost about £250, or less if you do it yourself. If your paying top dollar for the car then haggle for it. If its a steal I'd stump for it myself.

Can you see the bag when you open the header tank?

One not to be proud of.😄

The pre-requisites are easy enough to find, even with the UDS. The wiki page you kindly linked to unfortunately is CAN based and the steps listed cannot be followed.

Just why did the design of dipsticks change? They used to be so simple to read. Max - Min with a little cut out for each.

Same here. Never got past the first stage. Beginning to regret buying the VCDS, not much use without suitable instructions. Even Ross Tech mention UDS is sh1te.

This beginning video may be of help. There are a few others out there but you have to look long & hard to find them. Only two processes shown in this video though. I've seen others that show more but currently can't find them. I'm tempted to give it a go with my DQ200....

First thing I'd do is ditch the gel and buy a spare wheel. Looking a the endless stream of carcasses minus their sidewalls alongside the motorway, a tin of gel won't be getting you anywhere.

Varying stories on the forum about how easy / difficult it is to remove the bag. Mine came out easily enough in about a minute with a pair of long tweezers. Saves the cost of a new header tank. The bag is made of pretty heavy-duty plastic mesh. Mine is in perfect condition after 150k miles, so can't understand how they would ever split open. I guess some bags are better made than others. I'm tempted to re-install until I get the cooling system flushed out when I'll probably upgrade to the G12 evo coolant and ditch the bag entirely.

If you have CAN protocol then there's stacks of info available online, if you have UDS then you're stuffed.

I would say 500rpm at idle is too low.