tim-spam

Does that mean 1 bhp or perhaps as much as 2 ?

The splined tool for the pulley has a hole in it through which a much smaller diameter splined key can pass - this is normally supplied with the splined tool. This engages in the alternator shaft and is used to counterhold it when loosening the pulley.

Make sure you report the fault before the warrantly runs out - it may be worth putting it in writing if they argue about whether or not they are prepared to change the clutch.

Again, model and year? Your symptoms sound very much like a MAF starting to deteriorate assuming it's a diesel.

What model and year is your car?

So that's the reason....

Oh, and by the way, did you realise that you never have to replace the spare on the new Galaxy?

Fire engines, caravans, trailers, etc. rarely do enough miles to wear out the tyres - hence the age limit.

It is recommended that tyres should be replaced after no more than 8 years, although this is an absolute maximum. The Caravan Club recommends changing caravan tyres after 5 years, and the Fire Service replaces tyres on fire engines after around 6 years.

Having followed mine being driven pretty hard, there is very little smoke after the initial blast. The early PD engines meet the euro 3 emission standards and there should not normally be much visible smoke, even when driven hard.

If the car spends most of its time in heavy traffic and / or being driven gently, soot can build up in the exhaust and the first time it is driven hard, this can be blown out causing the smoke. However, this should clear fairly quickly and there should be very little visible smoke.

I bet the fault code will be, "charge pressure - positive deviation - intermittant", or something very similar. This will have been caused by the turbo vanes sticking. If it has only happened once and doesn't recur, don't worry. If it starts happening more often, you may need to clean the VNT mechanism on the turbo - there are some other excellent threads on this problem.

Smoke will be the heater booster - so long as it's not excessive, nothing to worry about. As regards the oil in the intercooler, this is most likely condensed oil mist from the crankcase breather - again, nothing to worry about and quite normal. If it was the turbo seals, there would be smoke from the exhaust and excessive oil consumption. I would guess that you've been subjected to the all too common "spanner monkey trying to scare the customer and drum up business" syndrome. Best avoid in future. For the other jobs, you are likely to need a 7mm allen bit - availble from halfords amongst others. This size is now becoming quite common.

It seems that on most modern cars, when the battery gives up, it does so totally. As regards the alternator pulley, this is a fairly well known issue with Bosch alternators (whichever make of car they're fitted to, incuding other Ford models as well as VAG, BMW, Mecedes, etc.), and there are basically two modes of failure. One is partial or total siezure, which causes the drive belt system to rattle at low engine speeds due to the torsional vibrations of the engine reacting against the high rotational inertia of the alternator rotor (worse on diesels for obvious reasons). The other is slippage which could cause the alternator to under charge and can make a rather nasty screeching noise. So you could concievably have had a flat battery if your alternator was not being driven properly. If the battery was getting weak anyway, this may have been enough to finish it off completely.

If your car is going into limp mode at 1500rpm and the DTC shows this to be due to excessive boost pressure, then I would suspect that the TMAP sensor is giving the wrong information to the ECU. From your description, this sounds to be an intermittant problem, so the first thing I would try is to remove the sensor and clean it. Alternatively, as they are not massively expensive, you could try "doing a main agent" and just replace it and see. The other thing main agents tend to do is to replace both this and the N75 valve. However, from what I've read on other VW forums, it appears that N75 valve faults usually result in a negative deviation DTC. I would doubt that a sticking VNT or a faulty/blocked N75 valve could cause sufficient overboost at 1500rpm to cause the car to trip into limp mode. However, if the TMAP sensor was telling the ECU that the boost pressure was excessive, this could be causing the problem.

Yes it would - in fact, I would say that your economy under these circumstances is not bad at all. No.

I'm a little puzzled about all this stuff about the seats folding into the floor on the Mk3 and being so much better than just folding the seat back down on the Mk1 and Mk2. I would agree if that is all you could do on the Mk1 and Mk2, but it isn't. When I need extra space in mine and the rear seats are in, I remove the head restraints, fold the backrest forward and then tip the whole seat forward - plenty of space then. Last weekend when my wife decided we needed (yet) another tree for the garden, we needed the load bay to be as long as possible - we had the 3 kids with us and the rear seats were in. What we did was remove the LH rear seat and stow it behind the RH rear seat (there is space if you slide the seat forward). We then folded the LH middle row seat right forward - good long loadbay for the tree and still able to seat 5. Excellent. You don't actually have to remove the head restraints, but the seats tip further forward if you do. By the way, with the seat folded, the head restraint tucks in nicely between the seat cushion and the backrest.

ABS problem could also be one of the toothed rings on the outer CV joints - this is not unheard of.

Presumably, the Charge Pressure Control: Positive Deviation fault code is intermittant? You mentioned that the car has tripped into limp mode occasionally - at what engine speed did it do this? I would guess that it was over 2000rpm, and is the cause of the fault code. As regards the lurching at low speeds, this could be related to the transmission or could indeed be a boost control issue. The first thing to check is that your turbo vanes are still operating freely and that the ring of 5 bolts holding the VNT mechanism are still tight. If all appears well, the next possible culprit is the N75 valve (or boost control solenoid valve). You could try removing and cleaning it to see if this makes any difference - a garage would just replace it. The same goes for the TMAP sensor - if this is contaminated or faulty, it could be giving spurious information to the ECU. For example, if the car was tripping into limp mode at 1500rpm due to an alleged overboost fault, I would suspect the TMAP sensor as it is very unlikely that the turbo would be capable of overboosting at this engine speed. If you have VAGCOM, you could always try the graphing functionality and plot actual boost pressure against requested boost pressure to see if this shows up any oscillations or deviations - it would be better to have someone else driving, although I believe that you can start recording, go for a drive, and then stop recording. If you monitor engine rpm at the same time, this may make the results more meaningful. I have only played with the graphing functionality very briefly, but it does look good.

16mm open ended spanner will do the trick.

Car model and year of manufacture? My guess is that you need the proper tool to remove the plastic cap - Halfords and others sell them for around

Needs to learn some basic arithmetic - 1/4 of the price?? I don't think so. Seriously though, as both cars are built by the VW Group it does indeed make interesting reading. There are several factors that could explain the difference: 1) Skoda is actually the best performing part of VAG in terms of quality. 2) MPV's (whatever the make) tend to be lower volume products and are therefore less well developed. 3) MPV's tend to have a harder life than many other types of car. 4) Dealers can have a massive influence on customer satisfaction, and the Galaxy is certainly disadvantaged in this area. After all, what could be worse than having a Ford serviced by a Ford dealer? Answer - having a VW serviced by a Ford dealer. It is interesting that many who do all of their own servicing are very satisfied with their Galaxy / Sharan / Alhambra. 5) Dealers tend to charge more for servicing larger cars, mainly because they think that they can. For example, a cambelt change on an Alhambra TDI costs considerably more than on a Leon TDI - the work involved is virtually identical.

Well, I've just replaced mine again, and guess what - the switch has been redesigned yet again. They are now a turquoise colour with a white contact tip, and set themselves as they are twisted into position (with a rather nasty 'plastic breaking' sort of click). The one I've just replaced had to be set after fitting, but needed one of the tags filing before it would fit - the new one just fitted with no need to depress the brake pedal. So, I wonder how long this one will last...

Ross Tech in the US - you can order direct from their website. You will pay more for the lead than from the ebay sellers, but you will get the genuine lead with the activation built in, and be able to use VAGCOM on more than one computer. It will work 'straight out of the box' and the support from Ross Tech is first class.

Red 'I' on TDI = 110PS All silver TDI = 90PS