craigowl

Yeah - Roger's right. Good ventilation is so important. Too many good, fit people have never woken up after snuggling up for the night. I remember someone in the UK died after picking up their sleeping bag straight from the dry cleaners before going on a camping trip. The fumes from the cleaning solvent were still copious enough in the bag to kill him in his tent that night. :angel: Cheers folks!

Keeping my fingers crossed it doesn't let you down, Stephen!

Me too now. My wife retired this week, so we are both penshnurs. :gag: Our household income has now dropped about 50%. Anything I sell will be for the max I can get from you overpaid, young folks in good jobs! :evil:

At least, jenks, your failures appear to mostly be the familiar ones. Coil packs are bad design - the great heat they absorb from the big engine means the plasticky components become degraded in a relatively short time. Extortionate replacement cost from VAG - get a quote from somebody like ECP or GSF. My ECP quote beat the gsf one mentioned above. Ive said this before - the bonnet catch/cable goes regularly because people have to keep overusing the damnt thing to peer into the engine compartment as yet another problem arises. These cars are at least 10 years old now and can be expected to fail from time to time (or every other day depending on how lucky you are or how careful the previous owner(s) has/have been.) Poor show by VW, though, many other cars can still be mainly trouble free after 12-15 years of average use. My Pug 205 (reg jan 1990) for one.

fernsie pm sent.

Might be overfilled and will settle down when air bubbles in system displaced, Alan. Worst case scenario could be cylinder head gasket leak. This was one of the symptoms when that happened to one of our Polos. Coolant in reservoir appears to be boiling, in that case, too (engine hot and running). There are other symptoms, also, like water droplets apparent on oil dipstick/oil globules in coolant in reservoir/coolant loss/lots of steam in exhaust fumes.

del

Yes. A good read from Ollie Oyl, once more.

Getting into it. Rearward visibility when reversing.

She likes MGF and doesnt like MX-5? She does not know much about cars then? :wink: Sorry! A bit cheeky. That is what I always say to my wife or friends when they say so-and-so has a Fiat.

Phil K said lol If I had a truck like that, I wouldnt use it to collect a Beetle and an "R" reg Passat, chum!

Cold conditions followed by snow/slush/salt and milder humid air often cause this. Seen in my street this morning. PS Doesnt quite fit in with that advert that shows a VW pulling away into the road from a line of parked snow covered cars on a wintry morning. "If only everything in life were as reliable as a Volkswagen". Still, we love 'em! (Best put that in lest any local dealers be watching.) :roll:

Been talked about a lot this. Seems what the dealers would call "idiosyncratic" of the model. :roll: I dont use my VR6 too often either and find that it will have a low battery after about a fortnight. I attach battery (no need to take it out of car) to a trickle charger (about £20 from Draper/Halfords) a couple of days a fortnight and have no problems. Others may tell you to check that boot light goes off OK, or to make do without bulb. Didnt work for me. There are also suspicions that factory fitted immobiliser/alarm is culprit - I suspect that is true. Dont be quick to blame battery - I bought new one and it made no difference. Good luck.

I have no problem with oilman's dual role as expert passing on technical information/salesman. I welcome any technical contribution on this type of forum - keep them coming. At the end of the day we all decide what we believe and what we buy and we never stop learning 'til the day we snuff it.

hiasakitesaid :salute: My sentiments entirely. Some safety aids are a plus (belting up, e.g. - can you believe we did not have to do that not long ago?) The captain/driver is ultimately responsible for the safety of his passengers, crew and craft.

Reassuring to see that decent hard working people on the forum of a generation earlier than mine feel so strongly about these issues. All that we can due is to pressurise and support politicians that promise policies that will bring about changes and improvements. Deciding who to support is the problem. Who can you trust to carry out the task? Also, there is always the chance that the tempting changes such as full employment and persecution/incarceration of the classes we blame will bring about a national socialist regime with an opportunist, though charismatic leader like the runty, Teutonic one with the funny moustache. Anyway, I still think that to vote for a politician/party who will carry out what you want, even if it means changing your support radically, is the only route we have in our democratic country. Many of your fathers may be able to confirm that the desire to stick with one party from cradle to grave as was often done up to maybe 30 years ago in this country has now become unattractive.

dr mat said True to a degree, doc, as many scientists want their loyalties to lie with the science. That is what I say to the lawyers, anyway! On the other side of the coin, see "Science and the Swastika" which describes what can happen when self-interest beckons. I was thinking, too, of the pharmaceutical scientists that you sometimes see on programs like "Panorama" spouting clearly biased dogma about the wonderful efficacy of the multi-million£-making pill made by their company. It would be nice to think that scientists were wholly ethical and not like those greedy, deceitful marketing types. Someone close in the family works as a chemist for a large company, so I may have had my thoughts about the industry coloured by his accounts, too!

xbones said Oops, sorry. As I dont use a drop of oil in my VR6, I thought kev was talking about fuel/petrol consumption.

Very nice, young horselady. 8) Dont leave foggys on too long, though, they will crack and you will be hit with a pesky big bill for nowt! (Sorry - slipped into fatherly advice mode, there.)

As I have said already, only a few days ago on another thread about "engine cleaning" additives in some petrols, the uninformed consumer is at the mercy of the scientists working for manufacturers. I have no reason to disbelieve what the oilman's boffin is saying (in fact, as a scientific minded person myself, I always enjoy reading what oilman puts on the forum). However, he does have an axe to grind. kevHaywire's remark about reduced consumption is of interest, though. I have always taken it as read that fuel consumption is a simple but reliable guide to engine performance and efficiency. Likewise, if your consumption climbs for no apparent reason, it is time to get things checked out.

I would not use mineral water in the cooling system. I believe we have to use distilled water because there are no minerals in it! Bottled mineral water, I am certain, contains more calcium, etc, than, say, the soft water out of many of our taps in Scotland, at least. Having said that, it may take years to cause a problem, I do not really know what part modern coolants like G12+, etc, play in the equation. A few decades ago, though, hard tap water, etc was strictly taboo in the cooling system. We are all at the mercy of the scientists working for the oil/coolant/fuel companies here. Very few consumers will get to know what really matters, I suppose.

delmonty said I tend to regard them as "alleged cleaning properties" unless someone out there can enlighten me in a convincing scientific manner. One should never believe everything that someone says about the product they are selling, even if you want to.

Wont argue with you, sox. As you'll guess, I rarely go above 4500 rpm, old pootler that i am. :)

Too true, dinkus. I have seen people on this forum say they can notice the improvement. Clearly, it can be measured with proper gauging equipment but I feel that anyone who says they can feel the car to be more responsive must either drive for 18 hours a day every day or - more likely - is happy to swallow the advertising blurb.

Wish the top gear exotic car footage did not use such over the top saturated colour and sky tinting gimmicks. Makes everywhere (including a pi$$ing wet moorland location in dreariest Britain) look like somewhere from a holiday brochure. Total con. No disrespect to the IOM, by the way. I actually love these kinds of places but would prefer to see them in natural, subtler, realistic colours. Today, everything, including natural beauty has to be tarted up for the 15-second-attention-span channel surfer.