LesCM19

Red clip crumbled away and pressing into one of the revealed holes with a little electrical screwdriver did it. All sorted.

Whats the trick to getting the plug off with the red clip?

Managed to make a good enough connection and get ourselves home. Will see about a new plug or just a spade connector.

I just broke down with this exact issue. Happy to wait for Green Flag to come and look at it until the wait went from 15 to 90 minutes, then I started stuffing the bare wire end in but so far to no avail 😭

5W30 it has that VW 505 code. It's never used much oil, sounds as sweet and is as nippy as ever.

Did the usual commute... No light so hopefully it was a dirty filter, which it certainly was.

Doing a change today. Is a thicker oil an option for higher mileage engines anyway? 120k on the clock. Are 'modern engines' picky about oil type?

Switch changed, not much improvement. Noticed light never comes on doing 65-70mph on A1 or main roads but does if revs drop below 2000 like taking a roundabout or side road. Blocked oil filter maybe time for a change, not sure when I did it TBH.

For what it costs, going to replace it. Lucas part.

Seems clean.

Initially came on pulling into the works car park. This was after driving through a village and prior to that, several miles of motorway. Got it again once more on way home stopping at a roundabout. Levels maybe 3/4 to1/2 so topped it up at home. Next day same again in the car park (there is a steep ramp 🤔) and a few times on the way home but not on motorway, just rural & suburban conditions. Loud bleeps, rapid flash and resets after say 30 seconds. Engine sweet at all times. Regular garages not available, thinking of chuck some parts at it.

Well, the car certainly likes those NGK ZFR6T-11G plugs. It also likes the middle plug not being hand tight with brown soot escaping anymore, judging by the coil on that cylinder (replaced). Will whip that one out again in the near future, clean the recess & plug seat for good measure but so far so happy.

101905617C comes up as what they gave me, NGK ZFR6T-11G according to various websites, so I guess I'll go with that.

I assume the car spares shop has incorrectly sold me some NGK ZFR6T-11G 5960 plugs which appear to be for the 1.4 according to the Haynes manual. The old ones that I changed previously and kept are ZFR5P-G. What my real question is, what effect does the gap have, in other words if it's 0.75mm instead of 0.8mm will it advance the timing and thus 'help' a high mileage engine? I notice the original plugs I took out a couple of years ago are more like 0.9mm gap.

I've put the old droplink back on until I can find Nylocs to replace the nuts that came with the new ones that keep coming undone, even with another nut on top. Not normal M8 threads that's for sure.

Regarding fitting a new droplink, why does it say in the Haynes manual to only tighten the bolts with the car on the ground?

Whatever the local tyre garage did while I was at work this morning lasted all of 2 miles which begs the question "what did they actually do that made it go away and why didn't it last?" Yes they did the droplink up to (presumably) the correct torque but that's all. Anyway, for the sake of £17 of their labour (15 minutes) I do feel a bit vindicated now in terms of my own mechanical 'skills'.

Well, after popping a new drop link on the n/s and putting the calipers temporarily back together with the old "bolts" I wasn't surprised during a test drive when a new metal on metal knocking developed after a mile or so, more noticeable at slower speeds and hardly at all when cornering. A bit like when the exhaust was contacting the subframe but more tinny and not through the floor, more like top of the wing from inside. "That'll be the rubber sleeve I damaged letting the metal bush touch the caliper" or so I thought, with the noise coming up through the strut however it's still there after fitting the new pin kit. Sounds like a floppy shock and there does seem to be more movement in the spring on that side when I grope around with the car being bounced but could it be the drop link? Not being able to get my bloody great torque wrench in there I just did it up as tight as I could. And can a ropy shock fail just coz the car's been jacked up and the suspensions been dropped down a bit?

Brilliant news, at least I know I've got the correct pads.

The look like they should be parts of the front/rear window controls, from under the switch, the square brass things sitting on the greenish circuit board and the rubber pad on top. But then it needs to go into the switch assembly. This might help: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpAiCz8Ftgw

Reading this, I'm curious as to how you manage to make the car go backwards at all.

My 2007 1.2 12V used to go into limp mode occasionally under heavy load (eg blasting through roundabouts) until I changed a coil pack which appeared to have been cracked and "repaired" with a soldering iron. Changing the plugs also stopped the uneven idle it always had, to the extent it would often cut out idling in traffic.

Will do. Just to reiterate about the gap with the pads, in that picture of the top of the nearside brake unit, the top ear of the outer pad on the left in the pic is snugly sandwiched between hub & caliper whereas the inner pad is only touching the hub. Just seems odd how it's not touching the caliper too. Seems to work ok.

Didn't have any problems getting the "custom" bolts out but had to trim the rubber sleeve off the offside too. This was the top bolt on the offside as I found it. Obviously too much effort was required to nip it up. I suppose he might have been a bit wary of it contacting the pad, it does come right through the caliper if done up 'properly'. By the way, does that inner pad look right to you guys? There's about 5mm clearance between both 'ears' and caliper body, top & bottom. It's the same on the nearside and the outer pad in the photo wouldn't fit in the inner position anyway. ...and then when I refitted the nearside I noticed he'd helpfully added his own plastic sleeving to the top bolt bush. Literally carved from a Fairy liquid bottle or something. Brakes are actually great as always. Knocking noise I wanted to investigate while replacing discs (I suspected a rattling caliper after reading this post, especially as it seemed to stop under braking) seems to be worse, more like a duff shock now. Maybe shock is under different forces as I'v done the droplink on that side, too. But will invest in a caliper bolt/bush kit first obviously

Bottom bolt is 12mm head. Oh well, it's off now 🤣