Railroad

If only that were true. Lol.

The A/C won't switch on if the outside air temperature is below 6 degrees Celsius. This is a safety feature to prevent ice forming on the evaporator which could damage it. So unless you're operating your air conditioning inside a warm workshop I wouldn't be expecting it to work. Wait until the weather warms up and try again.

Check out the Diagnostic and VCDS section of this forum and find someone near you with VCDS.

Slacken the handbrake first and ensure the levers on each caliper is in the fully retracted position. After you've fitted the new pads pump the brake pedal up. Then finally adjust the handbrake. Failure to do it this way will mean the rear brake setting and handbrake won't be as good as it should be.

Just to let you know that to constitute an MOT failure your wheel bearings MUST be below minimum standards. And minimum standards are not much higher than the floor, meaning that to fail they have to be knackered with a capital K. If you don't believe this is the case you can initiate an appeal with VOSA.

Dirt and dust coats the hot blade and so acts as an insulator. I explained how the MAF works earlier in this thread. If the hot blade is prevented from reacting to temperature changes then the ECM will not need to supply much to reheat it. The effect will be the ECM will think the engine is under low load conditions and will thus fuel the engine accordingly. No fault code will be stored because as far as the ECM is concerned there will be no fault. It has no way of knowing the MAF hot blade is covered in dirt. People have a brain and can apply common sense and logic. Computers do not and cannot. Our failure to grasp that fact is one of the reasons why so many faults on modern cars are going misdiagnosed.

If you drive with the MAF disconnected the ECM will obviously be receiving no input from it, and so ECM default values will be used. As for adjusting the wastegate you should be mindful that the ECM is expecting a maximum boost of 2,100mb or 2.1bar. An overboost condition will usually set at around 2,500mb, and then you can expect limp home mode.

Try this. http://www.mafcleaning.co.uk

I would Google MAF cleaner. Brake cleaner is a solvent and I wouldn't like to say whether or not it would damage the hot blade. I do know there are specialst cleaners that you can buy.

A faulty or even missing MAF will not prevent the engine from starting or running, so if yours only runs when it's disconnected then I can only assume the MAF is short circuited. This I would've thought would flag a fault code. Mass air flow sensors deteriorate over time because they are bombarded with dust and dirt particles from the passing air. This is why it's so important that the air filter is clean and in top condition. The MAF is a hot blade which is heated by a voltage supplied by the ECM. The passing air cools the blade, and the ECM determines the amount of air passing by how much it needs to supply the MAF to hear the blade again. The more passing air the higher the supply voltage is required. Cleaning the blade with a specialist cleaner will very often restore them to good working order. If yours is short circuit though the only place for it is the bin.

The significance of all of this is that modern engines are very emissions critical. Incorrect valve timing even only by a couple of degrees may not have much of a noticeable effect on engine performance, but it certainly will result in a more inefficient combustion leading to poor emissions. Eventually the MIL will illuminate.

Also the camshaft pulley is not keyed onto the camshaft. It's tapered, and so although your marks on the pulleys may line up it does not mean that the camshaft is in exactly the right place in relation to the crankshaft when the belt is tensioned. In fact your belt may not be tensioned evenly at all. You can only tension the belt correctly by locking the camshaft and the pump with the pulleys loosened.

Regards servicing. The manufacturer's recommended service intervals have long since gone out of the window by the time a car is twelve years old. You should service your car on an 'as and when' and common sense basis. Change the engine oil and filter at least once annually, regardless of mileage. Twice a year is better.

Open circuit glow plugs usually flag a fault code on VAG engines.

Check the multiplug on the CD changer unit for bad connections and broken wires. These are not at all uncommon.

You say you don't need any special tools, but you most definitely do need a camshaft setting tools. You need to lock the camshaft in the correct position with the pulley slackened and knocked off its taper. You also need to slacken the three pump pulley screws and insert the locking pin. If you have relied on putting paint marks on the pulleys and then realigning them to fit the new belt then the timing will not be correct.

I agree with Pikpilot. Check the base pump timing with VCDS. Plenty of posters on this forum have it, so there's bound to be someone near you.

Start by reading the fault code/s. That won't tell you what's causing your problem, but it will give you an indication of where to start looking. Post back when you have the codes.

The date stamp refers to the date by which the item must be sold by the retailer. It should not be on the shelf after that. Some people might interpret it as the end of its service life, and in the case of a toothed belt which if failed prematurely not many would advise you to fit it for fear of repercussions. That's an example of the nanny state we live in I'm afraid. Off the record though, if it was my own car I'd still fit it. I'd be inclined I think twice if it was for a customer though.

I know what my opinion is, but for obvious reasons I don't think anyone on here is going to give you the answer you want to hear.

My brother is a Process Operator at a major UK oil refinery and knows a fair bit about petrol and diesel. He should do, he's involved in making the stuff. He told me that the base stock for 95RON unleaded is the same regardless of where you buy it. Same goes for 97 and 98RON. What differs are the additives that are put into the fuel for enhancing performance and cleaning. They added by each company to the base stock. The end product is therefore different, and so BP is different to Shell and so on. With almost total certainty the supermarkets do not use as good a cocktail of additives as the branded fuel companies. This is why it's cheaper, but it's false economy. I'm also firmly in the branded is best camp. My own car definitely performs better on branded fuel than supermarket fuel. The best ignition timing for any petrol engine is as advanced as you can go without the engine 'pinking'. Since octane is a fuel's resistance to flame higher octane fuels ignite less easily, and a more controlled burning away from the source occurs rather than an uncontrolled explosion, which tends to happen with lower octane fuels. It also means that ignition timing can be further advanced with higher octane fuel with pre-ignition less likely. This and the fact that the fuel burns more completely is why cars perform better on high octane fuel such as V Power.

AC Delco Freedom batteries were the best in my opinion. They used to be fitted as standard on Vauxhalls. A 1982 Astra which belonged to a friend of mine was still on the original battery in 1996. Vauxhall later fitted 'Go' batteries and they were also very good. I don't know if you can still get them though. I would definitely avoid cheap unknown makes. They're often rubbish and in some cases you'll be lucky if it lasts six months.

I have one that I use at work. It can be very useful, but the trick is to run the engine to completely warm it up before drawing the oil out.

An MOT tester should not be strict or lenient. His job is to test the vehicle in the correct manner, and to satisfy himself that the minimum standards with regard to testable items have been met, or otherwise.

Although I'm not disagreeing, I would be interested to know why this is.