Hi,

With a free couple of hours free this weekend, I decided to check that the drain plugs were clear on my 1.9TDi 2000. Just as well a nice inch of water was sitting under the battery.

Anyway cleared the plugs and the water drained away freely, it was only when I was struggling to put the battery back, that I noticed a wear mark on a pipe leading of to the break servo and into the back of the engine. A quick look up in the Haynes manual , I believe this is the Vacuum hose. Moving the hose slightly in oder to slide the battery back in caused a hissing sound, so I'm guessing that the the pipe has a small hole in it. This looks pipe had rubbed against the battery and caused the wearing. I just used some duct tape as a temporary fix.

I have a couple of questions.

1. Is this likely to cause any problem with breaking? I have checked the breaks and the seem to work ok, with no loss of pressure.

2. Is a replacement hose only available from VW dealers?

3. Whats is the standard physical size of a Passat battery, I'm not sure if this is the original battery, but it does seem to be a very tight fit.