Ruby

Hi Steve, Funnily enough I've spent a fair bit of time looking at hose clips after your first post. There are two I like the look of, the spring clips (easy to fit and remove) or the ear type (one manufacturer is Febi Bilstein) which you crimp up to fit and are one use, and harder to remove. Another downside is the official crimp tool is pricey, there are cheap ones but would that allow for under or over crimping so you'd get a poor seal? I believe both offer some thermal give which, as you say the jubilee clips don't, or very little. A new rack to cooling loop pipe is £178 inc VAT (TPS) and needs to be ordered from Germany, 5 day wait. My plan is to remove the pipe end, clean the area, look at the damage, if only at the very end and if I can make a clean cut and the pipe still reaches ok I'll then reattach it with a proper clip. Otherwise it's 5 days and £178 worse off!

Thanks Steve, you are spot on, they are the power steering pipes, the flexi pipes feed the loop that cools the fluid down as per this diagram which is from an A4 B7 but similar to my B6 system. This being the section I've been looking at & photographing:

Thanks Steve, I'll look into this and see if I can find a schematic for the power steering pipes.

Dear All, I took the under tray off to do another job (coolant leak, now sorted) and spotted a slight oil leak from a rubber pipe that has a reinforced braided sheath, it connects to a solid pipe with a jubilee clip, its on the offside side of the engine. Can anyone please identify this pipe? There's a similar one slightly above but that's not (currently) leaking. Looking from below the pipes run together just above the intercooler lower hose (which is the intake pipe into it). Any suggestions would be great. Thanks!