Gnomeface

You cannot rely on the diesel Yeti's readout of MPG (or Range) after tuning it - unless you've cross-checked it against a few brim-to-brim fills and calculated the real figure. I fitted a plug-in tuning chip after 20,000 miles and ran with it for another 45,000 miles, and I keep a spreadsheet with every fill recorded and calculated. Over these distances the average MPG after tuning was 1.5 better than before, as well as the car being far better to drive thanks to the extra torque. However, the car's MPG figures from the Maxidot were much too optimistic with the chip fitted and the Range was always over-stated and unreliable. From what I could find out, it appears that the VW software calculates the fuel used and hence MPG by using the throttle pedal sensor (which is the major factor determining how much fuel is to be injected). The tuning chip interferes with the fuel rail pressure feedback, causing slightly more fuel to be injected but giving better performance, and the software is unaware of this so the resulting lighter throttle opening for the same road conditions fools the software into giving a better MPG than is actually the case. I used to have the same chip fitted to my Jaguar XF 3.0 diesel (but with different settings) and that gave accurate readings for MPG with or without the chip because the car's software calculated the fuel actually being injected, not by using the throttle opening - a more complex way of doing it but more accurate.

My dog guard was bought in 2012 (can't remember the make or where from) so a recommendation wouldn't be of much use now, but it tucks down behind the rear seats at the bottom and has straps to secure it to the rear headrests. I had to fit a large piece of hardboard to it, otherwise rear seat passengers with the centre arm rest down would find a dog's head complete with long wet tongue poked through the aperture. The guard does come out easily, just the two straps to undo and the telescopic side pieces to push in and it can be lifted out.

I took a completely different approach and fitted a dog guard. When I need to carry a load of stuff I can pile it up to the roof if necessary with no risk of it coming forward if I have to brake hard. The one I have even allows the parcel shelf to be used, although I don't bother.

One thing to watch - if the OBDII Bluetooth unit is left plugged in permanently it might cause problems. I haven't tried mine on the Yeti but on my Mercedes SLC it has run the car's battery down within three days, causing error messages and preventing some systems from operating (stop/start included) until the battery was fully recharged and everything shut down for a while. This has only happened on one occasion - before that the car had been fine with the unit plugged in permanently, even when not used for 10 days, although it's normally parked out of Bluetooth range.. The problems happened when I was away from home and I believe it was because the car was parked much closer than normal to where I was working and sleeping - and because the car was still within Bluetooth range of my phone the plug-in OBDII unit stayed live and kept the car's computer systems live as well. I've heard of this happening on BMW cars as well, where the OBDII unit has prevented the car's computers from dropping into sleep mode. I unplug it now when I don't need it, which is a shame as the Torque Pro app is quite good (despite the lack of a manual!).

I fitted a Racechip unit to our 140bhp 2.0 diesel DSG 3 years ago. Overall fuel consumption has improved by just under 2 MPG in the 30,000 miles since then, compared with the previous 15,000 miles (all figures recorded on a spreadsheet and based on brim-to-brim filling) and the car's performance and driveability is substantially better; the fast getaway from traffic lights is a big improvement, as is cruise control - where it now rarely needs to drop down a gear in places where it always had to before the chip. There don't seem to be any drawbacks except that the car's computer calculates the MPG readout based on how much throttle is being used, I believe, although most cars calculate the amount of fuel actually being injected; this means that because less throttle is needed the MPG readout is far too optimistic, and the range figure is also overstated until the tank is nearly empty. A small price to pay for the improvement in performance and economy. My insurance company increased my premium by £16 (3 years ago) when I informed them, but even now it is only a little over £200 per year for 3 named drivers. I chuckle quietly to myself when I see some of the negative comments about chipping diesel cars, almost always from people who have no knowledge or actual experience of how they work. I used the same chip (with different setting and connectors) in my previous 3-litre Jaguar XF diesel, pushing the BHP from 275 up to well over 300 and also improving the consumption by around 2mpg in the 20,000 miles that I had it fitted.

Most car have accurate calculated speed available to them using digital signals from the wheels - the signals that also provide input to ABS and traction control systems. I'm amazed that some people seem to think that old-hat cable drives with fixed gearing are still used. The issue is the legal requirement that a speedometer must NEVER show a speed that is lower than actual, so the electronic systems add an amount - typically 5-7% - to the figure that is sent to the speed displayed (be it analogue or digital, or both). The real data is used in distance calculations, and is usually available on the CAN bus via the OBD2 connection if you wish to display it. I had an OBD2-connected display on my last car; when the car's speedometer showed 75mph on flat straight motorway the OBD2 readout from the car showed 70mph and two separate sat-nav systems also showed exactly 70mph.

I've had a Racechip plug-in box fitted since 2014 (2.0 4x4 140 diesel) - easy to remove at service time. Performance is definitely better - the traffic lights grand prix can be quite exciting! I do the same 80 mile journey regularly and on the dual carriageway sections have cruise set to 75. Before installing the chip certain gradients always forced a downshift, but now it stays in top without strain. Overall mpg has improved by just on 2mpg, measured tank-to-tank and averaged over 20,000 miles before fitting and about the same after. Insurance cost went up by about £12 per annum (it's an economy improvement chip, of course). The only drawback is that the mpg readout and the remaining range ( if the tank is fairly full) are considerably overstated because the fuel consumption is calculated from throttle opening rather than the fuel injected - and for normal driving I need less throttle.

Two punctures so far this month... The first was a fast-deflating one 120 miles from home late on a Saturday afternoon; I had an electric pump and managed to make it to a nearby Quikfit before they closed but the tyre had to be replaced. The other one a slow one that my local tyre place repaired for £10 (I could see the nail in the tyre, right in the centre). I didn't need to use the spare either time, luckily, but I wouldn't be without it.

There can also be a much simpler solution. My pre-FL model boot light stopped working, but when I took the light unit out and tested, all was OK and it worked when put back in. It failed again after a couple of weeks, and this cycle repeated half a dozen times. In the end I found that vibration would shake the bulb slightly loose in its holder (cheap design); bending the contacts slightly worked for a few weeks then it started all over again. End solution - I bought a compatible complete LED light unit 2 years ago and got 5 times the light, and it's been 100% reliable since.

You need to be really careful when assessing whether MPG has changed after the fix. The car's MPG read-out is calculated from throttle opening, I believe, and certainly not from the much more accurate fuel injector calculations that other manufacturers use. This means that if VW change the engine mapping to use more fuel to deliver the same power at the same throttle point then you wouldn't notice any difference in performance and (more importantly) the displayed MPG will be unchanged, even though you are actually using more fuel. This leaves plenty of scope for VW to pull the wool over our eyes. As proof of this, when I chipped our Yeti the MPG readout immediately showed an improvement of anything up to 15 MPG and "range" figures that are unbelievable, simply because the engine now needs less throttle for the same performance and the calculated fuel usage is completely wrong. I log every fuel purchase and always fill to the brim, and my fuel usage spreadsheet shows that the actual fuel consumption improvement is a little under 2 MPG, based on 18,000 miles before the chip was installed and 17,000 miles since. So - if you do have the mod done (and I certainly won't) then be careful not to compare MPG figures unless you log brim-to-brim fill-ups over at least 5 tanks full, before and after.

Mine also had a Haldex oil pump fault code at its 3-year service, according to my dealer; I don't know what code came up but I wasn't aware of any issue (no warnings) although I had noticed a tiny bit of wheel spin on acceleration once or twice just before the service. Anyway, the pump was replaced under warranty. They still charged me for the Haldex oil change I'd requested, saying the pump can be changed without draining the oil. Fair enough - if they hadn't checked the codes I'd have discovered the problem eventually and as the 3-year warranty expired a couple of days after that service I would have had to pay for the pump replacement.

Yes - I've had a plug-in chip for 9-12 months and there's a noticeable increase in power (e.g. on cruise control at 75 it doesn't now drop to 5th on two specific uphill sections of a regular route, and the car is surprisingly fast away from lights) - and mpg overall is 2mpg better. My mpg is calculated brim-to-brim and graphed via a spreadsheet. The one downside is that the mpg and range that the car calculates are now wrong, by quite a large percentage - presumably because they are calculated from throttle opening rather than by the more accurate method of calculating the volume of fuel actually injected. My insurance company charge an extra £16 pa but fuel saving more than covers this. I transferred the chip from my Jaguar XF, with the settings adjusted, because the XF's standard 280bhp and immense torque is adequate for road use and I rarely made use of the extra 40bhp (mpg was unchanged on the XF).

Exactly. What's even more irritating is that when you're approaching another car which is waiting at a passing point and you're doing 10mph and slowing (no, NOT 30 mph) the mirrors not only won't fold, but they still don't fold when your speed drops below 9mph, so you have to find the damned multi-purpose rotary switch, make sure it's in the right position by peering closely at it to see where the little dot is, then turn it back and try again. And all this when you should be focussing totally on the road ahead. Why is it that Yeti owners are so defensive of the car's bad points? It's a superb car in so many ways, just let down a bit by the software design. I love it, but the experience is dented a shade by a few things; as well as the mirrors folding only at low speed, - when it shuts off the radio for 10 seconds in the middle of a travel announcement just to tell me that the Bluetooth is not linked to my wife's 'phone - when I want to close the windows and fold the mirrors on the key fob it's necessary to hold the button to close the windows and lock the car, then unlock, then hold the button again to fold the mirrors ( why can't the mirrors fold automatically when I lock the car and unfold when I unlock, like all my previous cars?) - why press the key fob button once to double-lock the car and twice to single lock - illogical and the opposite of most manufacturers; ask my dog, who’s been shut in with the alarm system going off a number of times because the Yeti is different from the other cars I use - unable to display the speed in digital MPH although KPH is always available - speedo points numbered at 20 - 40 - 60 mph rather than much more useful 30 - 50 - 70 - unable to turn off the fairly useless and misleading cornering fog lights (yes, I've been stopped by the police for "having faulty fog lamps") although you are allowed to turn off the really effective cornering headlights - auto settings for lights and wipers are just not reliable – but I accept that most manufacturers can't get this right All fairly minor things, and some may have been improved on the face-lift, but they do irritate me... even though they are offset by the fabulous DSG box and excellent handling of the car.

Tuning boxes are not necessarily a botch job, I have a RaceChip box fitted on my 140 DSG, on the middle of their recommended settings, and the car is much better to drive - much more responsive, far better acceleration, and it will now cruise at 75 in 6th on quite hilly roads when before it would drop into 5th or even 4th at times. Best of all, the fuel consumption has improved by 3 mpg (using real brim-to-brim data) even though I use the extra performance a fair bit. When it went in for service I disconnected the box for a while; the drop in performance was instantly obvious and the next fill-up was back down to the old MPG. I don't expect the DPF to be affected and I've never been aware of a regen in 20,000 miles of mixed driving. Downside? The maxidot fuel calculations are wrong - now even more optimistic than they used to be, which affects the 'range' prediction. This set-up won't be as good as a proper remap but it isn't going to be far short, is removable within seconds (and transferrable to another car) and isn't affected by any dealer software upgrades. I had this box on my Jaguar XF and although it pushed the power up from 275 to over 300 the effect was much less noticeable than on the Yeti and MPG was not improved.

I looked it up - replacement LED bulbs for 21w are typically 2-5w each, so a pair would be 4-10w. Still low enough to trigger the bulb failure logic, as Llanigraham said, but any additional resistor need only absorb about 10w at a guess.

Back on the original topic - adding the second fog lamp bulb by simple wiring can overload the circuit or trigger the 'fault' condition, apparently. I've seen lots of posts from owners wanting to put LED bulbs in various fittings but they don't draw enough current and also trigger the fault message - but for the opposite reason. So if you wire in the second fog lamp but fit an LED bulb in both of them, would that restore the balance?

Don't be too quick to blame the micro switch. The boot light on my Yeti fails to come on more often than not and it's entirely due to the poor design of bulb holder, which doesn't hold the bulb tightly against the terminals. Check the bulb holder first (sometimes my lighte will come on if I just tap the trim by the bulb holder); it may be as simple as bending a contact inside the bulb holder slightly, BUT remember that the contacts are live when you have the boot door open (assuming that the micro switch is working) and be careful not to short them out. I've been trying for the last year to make the cursed thing work consistently - if they were cheaper, I'd buy a complete LED replacement unit. A voltmeter on the bulb holder contacts will soon tell you whether the holder is receiving voltage, and if not then the plug behind it can also be disconnected and tested. If there's no voltage there then the micro switch itself is suspect.

I have a Saunders T95 dog guard - it fits fine, the parcel shelf can be removed and replaced without undoing anything, and because the guard is strapped to the two outer rear seat headrests it can be removed in seconds, even with the spare wheel and raised boot floor. I'm very happy with it and can safely stack stuff in the boot up to the roof. The only slight snag is that because it's a tubular steel framework, when the centre rear seat is lowered or the armrest is down there's a gap through - useful if you carry things such as skis, but not something I need - but I fixed that by cable-tying a large piece of hardboard onto the guard (which also makes it more comfortable for the dog to lean against).

I'm with the majority on this - the 140TD and DSG is a brilliant combination. More than one passenger has commented on how good the gear change is, virtually unnoticeable in normal use yet as fast as lightning if getting away from traffic lights quickly. I don't miss the lack of paddles - my other ride (Jaguar XF) has them and I rarely use them despite driving quite hard sometimes. The only thing to watch with the DSG is not to leave it in gear when stationary on the handbrake (the clutch partially engages). Stationary with footbrake on is OK as the clutch is disengaged, although at night the driver behind may not appreciate bright brake lights in his face (but that's another well-worn topic).

Years ago I watched a guy in a Triumph 2000 reverse up over a kerb - ripping both rear mud flaps off when they were trapped between wheels and kerb.

I won't travel without a spare, having had several punctures on long night-time trips including at least two that injected sealant would have been unable to fix. I have a matching 19" alloy and tyre on my XF, a 'skinny' on Mrs Gnomeface's MX-5, and the near-full-size spare on the Yeti. To compensate for the slight loss of boot space due to the Yeti's raised floor we have a dog-guard which allows luggage etc. to be safely piled up to the roof, so that's not an issue What I find odd is that the Yeti's spare is a normal steel wheel and tyre that could be run at normal speeds - but because the wheel is slightly narrower than the others it is restricted to 50 mph. I accept that the car might be unbalanced under harsh braking with the spare on, but it's infinitely better than a 'skinny' pumped up to high pressure with just a tiny amount of tread touching the road, and yet the skinny has the same speed limit. I've seen two drivers lose control of their cars when they've tried to corner at quite low speed with a skinny on the front.

I've just picked up this post. Surely the boot switch is eliminated as a culprit by your first test (voltage 12v drops to zero when the boot is closed)? If the bulb lights up when connected to an independent 12v supply, then the implication is that wiring loom and bulb unit are both OK but the earth contact within the connector that joins them is faulty. These bulb units are rubbish and I've taken mine out at least 10 times to get it working again. The problem is that the bulb hangs down and isn't held tightly and any movement or vibration can separate the contacts on the bulb from the contacts in the holder. I've tried bending things to give a better contact but the d*mned thing always stops working after a while. I suspect that the only way to make mine work properly is to mount the unit upside down so that the bulb "sits" on its contacts rather than "hangs" from them, but the wiring loom isn't long enough. Having said that, yours may be a different problem - but I'd still suspect the light unit itself, and the LED replacement is likely to be perfectly OK.

Most cars compute the road speed and distance covered from the ABS wheel sensor signals these days - speedo cables are a thing of the past (I presume that this applies to Yeti as well). The electronic programs then send a signal on to the speedo, which can be calibrated separately either within the electronics or within the instrument depending on design. The speedometer is not allowed by law to under-read at all, hence the reason why it is inflated slightly by the electronics, but the mileage is true. I have an OBD2 gauge hooked in to my other car and it gives a true speed readout - at least, it's as true as it can be bearing in mind slight differences in tyre rolling radius - so the correct information is available although not normally displayed. That readout agrees exactly with TomTom but is noticeably less than the speedo reading, around 3mph at 30 and 6mph at 80. What is interesting is that the displayed cruise control speed agrees with the speedo (which makes sense) but other speed-related functions work off true speed. For example the speed limiter cuts in at around 164 mph on the speedo not the 155 in the book, according to drivers in Germany, and the speed above which the wing mirrors won't fold is about 5mph higher on the speedo than the manual states. I must hook the OBD2 gauge into the Yeti and see what interesting stuff is on the canbus link.

I had a wheel rebalanced at QuackFit, and when they refitted it I watched them do the nuts up in the correct sequence and tighten lightly, then set the correct torque, retighten each nut until the wrench clicked, then add another 15-20 degrees of turn AFTER it had clicked. I drove home and reset them, and haven't used the place again. Good torque wrench - check; Correct setting - check; Correct tightening sequence - check; Good job? Rubbish!

It's also a pity that the auto transmission problems aren't split between the 7-speed dry clutch box and the 6-speed wet clutch version. I seem to recall quite a few issues being reported with the 7-speed as fitted to the smaller engine petrol version, but very few with the (older?) 6-speed version.