craigowl

There is no way I would fear confronting them face to face about this. Egg on face for them and they should do backward somersault for you as wronged customer.

As, supercharged, says. Paint thinners is volatile, aggresive solvent that will not affect glass. I have never been without it in nearly 40 years of car care (nor white spirit and paraffin). Never try to remove stains from paintwork, some rubbers or plastics with thinners, though.

Dont worry about ebay - overall, I find it is great and I am of an older generation. :grin: If you check that the customer satisfaction rate of the dealer is 98-100% - which applies to a lot of them - you will be glad you started on ebay. Today I am waiting for a new boxed Canon printer from an ebay dealer in Glasgow and I bought my "obsolete" brand new boxed Canon EOS30D for a steal a few months ago. Got a new Alpine radio cassette (yeh - I know! :roll: ) for £27 incl postage, too. Many of the ebay dealers are better at treating the customer as king than your high street stores and garages (deff!) IMO. Recently, one of them upgraded my item to 1st class post at no extra charge after I requested a speedy delivery and offered to pay for it.

I still have original on at 105k. It wasnt noisy, but after reading about noisy ones, I took the pulley off about 3 yrs ago and got some oil or melted grease down the side of the bearing. Dont know if it helped or not, but you could try it as it may save some money. I have changed pulley belt myself and I am in my 60s. A real pest on your own :bad-words: but I did it. Make sure you have diagram of belt's path round pulleys for refitting - you may not remember it! The fan motor on our 18 year old Pug 205 was very noisy for the last few years - common fault. New motor is £65, so I dismantled old one and got some oil and silicon grease into the dry bearing and it has been OK for several months now. :D

Relatively common problem when you have slush and snow - even with added salt - flying about under the car. Once you have had it happen, you do not normally allow it to happen again. A pest to fix on a freezing morning :brickwall:. As other say, best solution is to leave hand brake off. Your car will always be left in 1st or reverse gear anyway, won't it? :grin:

Agree with Roger - what a gent he is! I remember lots of deep snow and sheet ice situations, but I can never say I was a skid pan expert or anything like it. Never even been on one. Have survived 36 years driving in Scotland, not by being "good", but by being a coward, really. I do pride myself on putting a lot of thought into the highly technical experience of driving a motor car. Forget about the wing I crushed on a concrete pillar when reversing too quickly out of a car park in our town, and the two other prangs I had in 14 years of commuting in the Edinburgh rush hour. Insurance found other drivers at fault. In any case the big Tarmac Cement MIxer lorry driver called me a "f....in' weasel" when I called his bluff and refused to move the Polo :lol: over as he barged in. We held up the Gogar Roundabout traffic in the Edinburgh rush hour for quite a while. Happy days! I spent most of my time driving on ice and snow as if walking on eggshells, being sensitive to the mechanics of the engine, drive and steering, and trying to interpret what they are telling me. Trying to stay as far away as possible from other vehicles is one of my first instincts, too. Common sense, really. Unavoidable in the rush hour though - try and go early - or late! I once got into work in Edinburgh during a gritters strike at 11 am. Was then told to go home at 3pm. It was so slippery the stopped lorry in front of me slid gently sideways into the kerb (no forward motion at all) due to the slight camber of the road and the skating rink surface. If you have a front wheel drive car and cannot get up a hill, if safe to do so, go up backwards. Amazing difference as c of g and weight of engine over driving wheels (now at rear). Oh, and I have said it before and make no excuse for repeating it. Read the weather and road conditions before you get in your car. In our town, in December 1995, two of my kids' friends (20-year old girls) leapt into their car excitedly to go on a shopping trip 10 miles away and 2 days before Christmas. The roads appeared merely wet. They undertook a bus which had moved into the right hand lane to turn right, lost control of the car on black ice and hit a bigger car coming the other way. One girl was killed right away and the driver - a local builder's daughter - has been in a wheelchair ever since with no speech or useful movement. I was a witness in the case where she was pursuing the council for £6m for lifetime care and which only ended after appeal this year (13 years later!) with the judge(s) finding the council not culpable. You can often detect black ice, firstly as light steering (cue for my legs to turn to jelly!) and then seeing the big Rover straddling the hedge and another car on its roof about a hundred metres away in the field and a dopey looking guy in a suit standing at the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. :lol: Sometimes, on going onto black ice you may hear a strange "zizzing" noise from the tyre treads - I have, but do not know any others who have. Anyway, safe driving, all. :wave:

Yes. Good point by was8v. Some people have had trouble with water pumps (even those in more recent VAG golfs). Agree, best not to get one from a really cheap pattern parts place.

All I would add to what pianowire says is: - I did this last year and I am of an age where this kind of car mechanics is getting a bit too adventurous. What I am saying is, that if you are younger than me and can tackle simple nuts and bolts stuff, you can manage it yourself. - I had misfortune to shear bolt of rear mount when tightening up to torque. VW say these bolts are "one use only". However, a useful tip from one of our forum users in Stuttgart IIRC has said that starting and running the engine a little, before refitting the engine bolts, has been found to settle the engine into the correct position with the bolt holes lined up. Sounds reasonable in theory. Good luck, anyway.

As the title.

You are a technical devil, Torsten! er...Gruss Gott.

"Cheap" stuff is of so much better quality nowadays. Sometimes it is a loss leader in stores and as someone has already pointed out, it may be the same item as another outlet sells, but in disguise. Personally, I have been astounded at some of the quality of "cheap" tools I have used. Many are made in Germany, or China but under German quality control standards, I would guess. I find this applies to LIdl and Aldi, but I will not be buying the ultra-cheap (£2.99 a set) tools from Homebase or B & Q. My daughter in law works for a brewer/distiller and the malt whiskeys, etc in Lidl are merely better known named brands sold to Lidl as a good deal on a bulk buy. Pay £12 or £20 - its up to you, but you have to find "stuff" out first.

:ignore:

Sure, pianosquire, I wouldnt buy Homebase drill if I was a professional - probably like you I would get the dearest De Walt I could find, or whatever! However, as a pottering about home user I have used B&D tool and a mixture of B&D and Aldi/Lidl things for seven years now and been happy with the saving. I do tend to wear safety goggles/glasses, too. Clearly, if one is spilling over with cash, one always buys the best and tends to look down on budget stuff. However, how many Corrado owners have more cash than they know what to do with? lol!

My pleasure, young dude (lol!) Looks like you may get 40 attachments with the tool, anyway.

For anyone looking for cheap version of these indespensible tools, Aldi have them for sale on Sunday 21st. A box of attachments comes at an extra £2.90 something. They will usually fit all types of imitation Dremels. They did fit my B&D, anyway. http://uk.aldi.com/uk/html/offers/2827_8345.htm

Yes, get this fixed Josh Waddi and you will get much better consumption. I just checked our VR6 today after filling up and it is 28 mpg. Even this is poor for the VR6. In warmer conditions and longer runs you can get 30-34mpg or even more. Dont put up with 28mpg at best from your valver. Good luck in sorting it.

Not a bad show after the start IMO. However, the runty hamster went down in my opinion with his crashing-touring-cars-item back in the 60s and 70s. I remember that era well - I was there, he was not. There were NOT spectacular crashes all the time and the understated Mini seemed to win nearly everything it competed in against much flashier looking and bigger opposition. Can't help thinking of four "boys" (15, 16, 17 and 21) burning to death in a stolen Subaru last week has something to do with the puerile treatment of motoring on the telly, DVDs, etc. However, a reasonable upbringing would almost certainly have spared them. Having said that, I believe car fatalities peaked back in the mid-1960s, pre-seat belts, MOT, good crash barriers, etc. Par for the course, the BBC shows poor judgement in that program every other week, or so. Nevertheless, on balance, I do enjoy Top Gear and Clarkson and Co' s banter most of the time. The hydrogen powered car item may prove to be a classic - I remember seeing a CD being played on Tomorrow's World after having peanut butter spread on it then wiped off, never dreaming that some day millions of us would own several hundred of the things. Now, do you feel a draught? where's that cardie?!

:thumb right: Hey! That sounds like a good one, Matt.

Aw, shucks - missed her!

Yes, very entertaining program last night. When we had "worst car you've ever driven" thread I put down (father in law's) Morris Marina automatic. - think it was in "Sand" colour, too. Yuk. Glad to see that TG reckon it was appalling, too. Wife's father got Cavalier auto next at my recommendation - much better and it lasted for years. Hard to imagine even 10 to 15 years ago the "Lord Mayor of London" taking part in the Top Gear speed trial or similar stunt. Good sport Boris J is brainy and can be very amusing - wonder if he will avoid being an ar$e in his new post.

Er.....Hope you don't have to be in a Corrado for that. If so, the answer is "could be a lot better".

Make sure you get a new bolt for it - the original is "one-use-only" and they can shear quite easily on tightening to torque. I had to go to garage after bolt sheared when I was retightening. Had been replacing water pump ( you raise engine on jack after loosening mounting bolts then retighten them.)

Germany gets a lot of snow and severe frost compared to the UK. Surprised you sound surprised! Have you just gone there? Fat tyres are as useful as a chocolate teapot on snow and ice unless you are a one in a million driver. Best car in snow I had was Citroen Dyane. - You are not so paranoid about bending it either. Dont show the Germans you are in a flap about the snow - they will think we Brits are all precious wooses!

....... can't believe how cheap that is. Awesome. Was that at Volkswagen Yep, VAG dealer prices about a year ago.

I got mine done for 1995 VR6 after they came up as advisory in MOT for two years. mounts part no. 357412331A (two) 23.16 plus VAT bearings part no. 1J0412249 (two) 8.88 plus VAT (That is price for pairs.) Cheers.