spartacus 68

M12 or M10 - get a splined set.

Likely to be multi-spline bolts, 12 point bolt. You’ll need 1/2” ratchet, extension bar, etc. Very easy to cross thread when refitting, always hand start and don’t use power tools. Nip up at each corner. No idea if they use thread lock?

You need to get a pry-bar on the suspension. Arms are usually good for around 80k miles. Upper arms possibly. An inspection of the engine and transmission mount would be worthwhile as suggested. If you are changing arms, Meyle HD or Lemforder only.

On older tyres, it's possible to get flat spots, but that's not the case here. You definately want to be running with the same brand on an axle.

Any smell in the car I’d be looking at ant-bacterial treatment on air conditioning. You can get similar smell from screen wash reservoir if not using correct additive. If it’s from the car under load, next thing to check would be catalytic converters.

No, never tried it. Cheapest VCDS package is £225 for 3 VIN licence, plus an old laptop. Works on all VAG cars, so Audi, VW, Skoda, etc. Very useful for this procedure. Remember and hook up battery on trickle charge when swapping out discs and pads. You can use it for fuel pump priming, clearing DTCs, fault finding, etc.

Can’t hear the video, but to be honest between road noice and background noise, these sort of videos rarely identify culprit. If you had new outer CV joint, that may have contributed, especially if drive shaft boot was torn and and CV joint was open to the elements and contaminated. if you’ve got a worn wheel bearing then you’ll hear constant reverberating sound, around about 40-50mph. You might be able to pinpoint if you jack up car, and hold the coil spring and get someone to rotate the wheel. Any friction on the bearing will transfer to the spring which you should feel. Straight forward if your spanner handy, although I hate generation 2 bearings which are the press in hub variety on VW Polos for example. If generation 3 wheel bearing, then they are held in place with triple square bolts. Useful to have air hammer as the bearing is usually welded in with oxide corrosion if an alloy strut. You’ll need a breaker bar, torque wrench, etc. Fit quality F.A.G. Bearings given labour involved.

My rule of thumb is 60k miles or 5 years on 4 cylinder diesels. Change the water-pump, and tensioner pulley as a matter of course. Cold starts, towing, extremes of heat all have to be factored in. Do auxilliary belts at the same time. Sure I’ve read that it can go to 140k miles, but if it breaks, then you pick up the bill. It’s not normally the belt but wear on ancillary components such as bearings on pulleys, water-pump, etc.

Can’t help with the paint code, but if you’re refurbishing yourself, Würth silver paint aerosols are as close to OE as you can get without going down professional wheel refurb route with powder coat, etc. Needs a few coats of lacquer too. Get the Würth 891090 spray attachment.

That's more complicated than physically removing it. I suspect you'd see glue stains and no guarantee of success. The foam is attached with a contact adhesive, but its the headlining material that's detached from the foam i suspect. The correct way is to remove the headlining. It's basically a card composite with foam backed headlining glued on. As the glue dries or the card is subject to damp, the headlining material separates. On a 20 year old car, I understand that using these self tapper buttons is a fix, temporary or otherwise.

Pretty sure its a cardboard composite. No need to use a drill. The buttons I've seen use self-tappers and the cloth button clips over.

Waxoil won't stop the corrosion. The alloy insert is there to strengthen the rubber suspension seat. It corrodes from the inside. Leave it and you risk the spring breaking. Easier to replace on a 2WD car. On quattro, you can remove lower shock mount. You need a piston jack to extend lower trailing arm down. Worst case scenario, loosen subframe bolt a few turns too. No need to undo the eccentric bolt either.

That's fair enough. This is a forum, so you're going to get different opinions and using roof lining buttons in my opinion is a bodge, but each to their own. Here's the process on a B6 saloon. Good news is rear window doesn't need to come out. Removing front seats would probably help. You also don't need that interior grab handle too, looks like B6 are screwed/bolted in.

I’m know I’m quoting the obvious here, but insurance business is based on risk. Their business algorithms are set up to minimise losses based on age of person driving, experience (advanced driving qualifications and protected no claims), job, where they live, the car value and insurance rating (1-50 set by Thatcham), and where it’s deemed high risk, then they set the premiums accordingly or simply refuse insurance. A bit like a casino, the house always wins. Health and travel insurance works on exactly basis. I hope you get a satisfactory outcome Tony, but suspect it will be expensive.

You must be knowledgeable and spanner handy if you have rebuilt turbo. Given the time to remove and the likelihood that it could potentially fail again, I opted for a new unit from https://turbo-diesel.co.uk on my old A4 Allroad. Back to your issue. The actuator can be be tested with a hand held vacuum pump if it holds pressure. Trouble is, it’s pretty specialised to remove actuator and reconfigure. On new units they are set up from factory, so basically plug and play. Did you renew the oil feed line to the turbo? The union nut at the turbo is known to be problematic and can weep if cracked off. In addition, did you renew the gasket to the exhaust? What are you using to read codes? VCDS would be software of choice and I’m sure would log actuator fault if low boost.