gregozedobe

In case it helps anyone, there seems to (at last) be a service campaign/recall for these faulty trims: 34N1

If you can smell coolant you DO have a leak, so don't let them fob you off. If you have a snake cam you may be able to loacte where the leak is. Look around the waterpump/thermostat housing at first, but there are a couple of plastic fittings on the engine for coolant hoses that have been known to crack, so maybe check those out as well.

If this error has suddenly started to appear it is often caused by the battery being low in charge. Short trips, heavy traffic, non-standard electronics (eg dashcam, infotainment, immobiliser) or car sitting around for days on end without being driven can cause low battery charge. If you have a decent battery charger try charging up the battery and see if the error goes away. Note that VW usually fit a "barely adequate" battery to these cars, so they often need replacing at 3 years old (sometimes sooner).

Are all the lights working correctly on the other side headlight ? If so, then the problem is likely to be with that side only. Are all the part numbers identical in the replacement headlight & modules when compared to the original headlight. I'd be having a another (very thorough) look at all the connections, looms and earths to the problem headlight, as you mentioned "someone driving into it", that makes me suspicious that there might have been some other damage you haven't been able to locate so far.

To better check on the wheelspin, get someone outside the car to watch while you take off hard (traction control off) on a lower traction surface (wet bitumen/concrete, grass, gravel, dirt etc) and carefully watch the rear wheels. If the rear wheels don't spin at all you have an AWD problem (usually Haldex, sometimes transfer case/bevel box). Note, it can sometimes take a short time for the Haldex to kick in properly and engage drive to the rear wheels. If the rear wheels do spin about the same as the front then try again on a high traction surface (dry bitumen/concrete), if the

The gear inside the transfer case/bevel box may be slipping on its shaft. It gives similar symptoms to a Haldex problem, is most common on cars with extra power, especially those that have been launched. Some research will give you more info and tell you how to diagnose.

Maybe this should be in the "After Dark" section ? 😅

That was quite informative, thank you. As we got towards the end of the video without any obvious catastrophic mechanical failures in the Haldex clutch or the rear diff I was starting to suspect it might have been a failed transfer case/bevel box but no, it was only a Haldex pump that had failed. If I had been the owner of that S3 and had paid for a complete rear diff unit plus lots of expensive labour I wouldn't be too happy, as it looks like all it needed was a (relatively cheap) replacement Haldex pump (and maybe a flush of the Haldex system).

I don't know whether PPF would have saved that. It was obviously a fairly hard scrape. and on an edge too. Looking at the more extensive damage down towards the bottom of the scrape I suspect it might have scraped off the PPF there and then damaged the paint as well.

IMO keep it simple and classy/elegant, paint it body colour. I'm not a fan of multiple different colours on a car.

Sounds like when I tried Eco mode on my R. Totally sucked out all the fun and sapped my will to live .... 😅

I thought one of the reasons for the change to separate clutches was so they could send 100% of the 50% to the outside rear wheel to allow: DRIFT MODE ! YEEHAAA ! Somehow I don't think they were chasing maximum grip when they designed that mode 😅 But in less crazy driving modes it could improve handling by helping rotate the car a bit when cornering (reduced understeer).

On Mk7 & Mk7.5 Rs Haldex only sends power to the rear diff, no control over torque split side to side on rear axle. As you say, the Mk8 & RS3 send power to the rear all the time, but quite different as they have 2 electronically controlled clutches in the rear axle, so can vary actual drive to each rear wheel individually (but IIRC still never more than 50% total torque to rear axle, same as Mk7/7.5 Rs)

It seems there are a number of ways to change the way Haldex RWD works in a Golf. Here are some links: https://www.vdveer-engineering.nl/en/shop/controllers/haldex-controller-gen5-0cq-detail https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWb8ZHJR_W8 https://www.ecumaster.com/products/haldex-controller/ https://www.vagcafe.com/product/hpa-haldex-performance-controller-gen1/ Some other possibilities: I went down the HPA Controller route. I leave it in Competition mode (permanent 50/50 split) and the tablet stays in the glovebox. Makes a HUGE difference to the handli

If the red light is not illuminating than your key is not transmitting to the car. A flat/dead/dud battery is way, way more common than the remote itself failing. You have some good suggestions above. 👍