Dr_Mike_Oxgreen

There is also a thermostat for the DSG (hence my question!) which can fail. If that fails open, coolant will be circulating through the DSG cooler all the time, and this will cause your coolant temperature to remain lower than it should to a certain extent. I believe it’s a reasonably straightforward DIY job with plenty of YouTube videos out there. A genuine one is around £40-50, but it looks like you can buy third-party parts for considerably less. Could still be the main ‘stat, and I’m not sure how you distinguish between DSG ‘stat failure versus main ‘stat failure.

Need more info on your car. Engine? DSG?

With apologies for spamming this thread again, but here’s another update from me. Hopefully this may be useful to people searching for this kind of info in the future. So I was unsuccessful with the PH24WY front indicator LEDs from CarModShop, because the pins didn’t correctly engage with the holes in the connector. However, I have tried a different pair: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/274963723745?var=575243879512 I have just fitted them, and they appear to work without bulb faults, for the time being at least. They’re quite nice and bright, too. And of course they have a nice crisp on-and-off. Removal and refitting is a right pain. In hindsight it would probably be easier to jack each corner up, remove the wheel and the arch liner - and then I think you’d have access to the indicator fitting from behind. But I did it the hard way, working from above. As you can see from the picture I’ll put at the end of this post, there’s a single torx T20 screw holding the plastic collar of the bulb. Someone on another thread has said that you only need to loosen this; I was sceptical but he was right. Slacken it about 4 or 5 millimetres (careful not to lose the screw altogether!), turn the bulb anticlockwise to release it from its bayonet-like fitting, and you have just enough wiggle room to persuade the plastic collar to go past the screw head. Refitting is “the reverse of removal”, but it was quite hard to turn the bulb to re-engage it. I don’t think I managed to turn it more than a few degrees, but at least the screw should hold it. Note that one of the plastic lugs on the bulb is different from the other three - the different one needs to align to the right (as viewed from the driver’s seat), then you try and turn it clockwise. Here’s that picture of the back of the PH24WY fitting. The screw “inboard” on the left-hand side and not too difficult, but on the right-hand side it’s between the light fitting and the inner wing and is hard to access. Probably less so with the wheel arch liner off…

That eliminates the possibility of a DSG fault causing jerkiness that might feel like an engine hesitation. I take your point about not employing the parts cannon, but I think I would be throwing a bottle of complete fuel system treatment in and going for a long drive. For a tenner I think it would be worth a punt.

Manual or DSG?

Just an update on my attempt to replace the front indicators with the following LEDs: PH24WY: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/304561517995 Available slightly cheaper direct from CarModShop’s own web site: https://carmodshop.co.uk/product/pair-ph24wy-canbus-led-turn-signal-indicator-bulbs-amber-orange-yellow/ However, these were not successful. The bulb didn’t really seem to fit properly into the connector, and didn’t light up. I suspect the pins in the bulb were slightly misaligned, and didn’t engage with the holes in the connector. With some extra force it did eventually slide in further, but one of the bulb’s pins had retreated up into the body of the bulb instead of going into the connector and it still didn’t light up. I didn’t actually get to the point of fitting the bulb into the light fitting. CarModShop were excellent at accepting the return and refunded me very quickly. Here’s another PH24WY candidate, which I might try in due course: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/274963723745 I’m still not 100% sure about the Katur H3 bulbs for halogen full-beam (on car with bi-xenons), but it’s looking more hopeful: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0CB5YK3MW?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title&th=1 One of these was giving intermittent bulb warnings, so I took it out and cleaned both the bulb and the light fitting using electrical contact cleaner on a cotton bud. H3 bulbs earth themselves through the body of the bulb where it touches the light fitting, so a dirty connection may have been the issue. Since doing this I haven’t had a repeat of the warning, so fingers crossed. Note: It’s worth repeating that LED retrofit headlights or full-beams in fittings not designed for them will be an MOT failure if the tester can see what you’ve done without removing covers.

Ah, okay - if it’s not that fuse then it does sound like a coding issue. I have an iCarsoft reader as well. You can do recoding with it, but it’s not as friendly as VCDS.

I went out and had a play with mine to see if I could reproduce the issue. At first I wondered whether it was simply the rear window lock button on the driver’s arm rest, but that doesn’t lock out the rear seat heating. It also illuminates with an unmissable yellow light. On mine, pressing the rear seat heating buttons cycles the three green lights next to each button, but nothing comes up on the RNS510 screen - unlike the front seat heating buttons which do show on the screen. When I first got my car, the rear seat heater buttons were not working (though I don’t remember if there was any kind of padlock icon like you’re seeing). In my case it was a fuse, but not one of the two full-size fuses for the front and back seat heating (37 & 38). There is an additional fuse that’s physically smaller - I think it was number 46 labelled “switch for seat heating”. This one had blown; replacing it brought my rear seat heating back to life. I’ll try to locate that fuse and pull it out to see if I get the same symptoms as you’ve got.

Can you explain in more detail what is happening? My 2012 Elegance is non-L&K, but it has rear heated seats as an option. And as far as I know the only way of operating them is via the buttons on the rear centre console - they can’t be operated from the front, and they’re not operated by touch-screen. So are you getting a padlock symbol on the screen when someone presses one of the buttons in the back? Are you able to read fault codes? If I remember correctly there are three fuses related to heated seats: one for the front, one for the back, and another for the “switch” (which is a 7.5A micro fuse, IIRC). Worth checking all of them.

It wouldn’t take a huge effort to cover the whole front face of both front seats, which would eliminate any colour mismatch. I think the next bottle size up is 250ml, which might be more cost-effective and would probably allow you to do the back seats as well. It’s not a quick job, but it’s fairly straightforward. Best of luck, and I’ll be interested to hear how you get on!

Interesting idea. Worth a go!

I don’t know if it’ll help, but according to the sales brochure for 2012 the correct name is “Onyx” for the very dark charcoal/black leather. I dare say that’s a standard VAG colour, so Furniture Clinic might be able to match it.

On one of the pictures you can see how grubby my seat belts are. I’ve tried various things but it’s pretty stubborn. Any ideas to clean those up?

I also did the arm rest, and a little dabbing on the passenger seat bolsters. I’ve probably got at least 2/3 or 3/4 of the 50ml bottle left. £16.99 well spent.

The annoying orange mark…