coolrado

I suspect you've put your finger on the problem - it took your fitter 4 hours (and mine 3 hours) to do a perfect job. Autoglass & the like want to spend an hour at most and so bodge & cut corners with the result that you wind up with a cr*p job. I just won't use them anymore after 2 major c*ckups on previous cars; I now use a trusted independant who actually takes pride in his work :) Do they get paid by the job one wonders? the thing is it took them from 9am to 4pm to remove and fit it so it should have been a perfect job but it was about as far from perfect as possible :roll:

another one in the light, shows up all the fine scratches from that angle :roll:

pretty easy so far the hardest bit was making the controls fit which took quite a lot of dremmeling and a bit of aluminium frame work making to support the centre console properly. just need to find someone to sort some custom aircon pipes, the right pullies and a re-gas the leon pump is a straight fit and the doner car had only done 12k miles before a tree fell on it so the pump is practically new. the heater ducting was really easy to fit and only required a couple of modifications but it does mean i had to shorten the glovebox a bit and loose the deep recess in the left hand undertray but i have got some flock on order so i can make it look totally original. its all been put on hold until the bonnet is sorted though. :(

time for a new avatar i think

im sure i will change my mind if it gets sorted but i just cant see it being done any time soon i had the whole week booked off work to firstly to get the stereo re fitted then pick my brother up from the airport on wednesday and spend the rest of the time driving him round to relatives and friends he hasnt seen for years, so i wanted the car to look as good as possible, now it looks crap and i havnt had time to sort the stereo out im just keeping my fingers crossed that this all gets sorted out

i allready have said about the hire car and they are sorting that out as soon as it needs to be painted the damage is from the bonnet stay as its above the hole for the stay and they showed me the stay this morning and it was bent double also the stay pivot is bent down a little the hole where the bonnet stay sits in the bonnet is actually torn out where they have ripped the stay back out it looks like the chimp has got in a strop and has slammed the bonnet in a temper without taking the prop out i actually dont care anymore all i want is the car back to as it was before without me spending another penny i am honestly considering selling it as soon as its done as i never seem to get chance to drive it due to someone elses cockup so far its been crashed into, the charger blew because vw didnt change the oil feed even after they changed the charger 3 times before i had it, and now this, whats wrong with this f***ing country nobody seems to take pride in their work anymore and its just not worth all this hastle i was motivated to get more stuff sorted out on the car after some of the beautifully done cars and great people at e38 but now i just dont feel like it.

i found out this morning that they hadnt actually taken the bonnet off and the damage is the result of one of the chimps trying to close the bonnet without moving the prop, he thought it had hydraulic lifters ?????????? the cheeky tw*ts called me earlier to ask if i could find a bonnet pay for it then they will pay me back :mad: :mad: i dont think so somehow so i have put a wanted ad on the wanted section but i dont hold out much hope the bodyshop have said it will be 220 quid paint and 600 quid labour so this is turning out to be an expensive job for them but i honestly hope the ars* who did it gets the sack, its more than a simple mistake, it would take considerable force to cause the amount of damage he has it actually makes me feel ill every time i see the damage and i really dont want to drive it anymore its just too depressing.

i dont know what they are going to do then as they have said they can get one and i will not have a second hand bonnet

can anyone confirm this???? the guy said he spoke to vw and they had stock at the main depot. it will not be having a second hand bonnet as the original was one of the few unmarked panels with not a spot of rust on it

it gets done for 50 quid on the insurance and rado's are not easy to find in scrappies here anyway

got most of it in now just need to get some pipework sorted and the aircon will be working too but just the temperature contol is a vast inprovement and the re-circ option is very handy when driving past the local slaughterhouse

there isnt a chance in hell they are getting it done by their bodyshop it will be done by my choice of bodyshop but i dont know how much of it he will have to do to make the repair undetectable, they have said get the quote and they will hand me a cheque so thats what im going to do

its just taken from a different angle does look odd though :? i am still seething now and just feel like driving the car through their workshop door :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: its really anoying as once the front end has been re-sprayed it will look like its had a front ender if i ever sell it and allthough the guy who im getting to do the work is a brilliant sprayer you can allways tell when somethings been painted, i cant afford to get the rest of it done as well yet though so i dont know whether its worth getting him to paint both sides of the car and get them to pay for all of it any ideas how much a brand new bonnet is going to cost them and are early bonnets still availiable?, he said he called vw and they had 6 in the main wharehouse for a 1990 to 94 spec but im sure someone said on here they give you a vr style bonnet which i dont want.

booked the car in for a new screen last week and took it in today, dropped it off at 9 am this morning at the chester greyhound park branch of rac windscreens as they said they will probably spend most of the day doing it. the guy said to me he had allways liked corrado's as one of the lads there used to have one and commented on how good the paint looked as most of the red ones he see's are pink, he said he was quite good at doing corrado screens as he had done quite a few before and said he could get me an original vw screen with a top tint if i waited until the afternoon so i said yes and left him the keys and went into chester for the day. i didnt get any phone call to say it was ready so i went back at about 4pm with a mate of mine who had just picked up his new mk1 gti cabriolet and as we approached the door of the place one of the guys came running out and said "erm we had a bit of a problem with the bonnet stay" so i turned round and looked at the bonnet to find a bloody great dent in the middle of it !!!! he said it slipped on the bonnet stay .........erm yeah right after telling him he was talking bo**ocks i asked to speak to his boss who told me the real story, it seems the chimp who had tried to re-fit the bonnet had tried to do it on his own!! and only put it on one hinge and the other end on the bonnet stay and then let go of it so it span round and the bonnet stay twisted out of its hole and wrecked the bonnet. after going completely mental and calling them every name under the sun i told them to give me the keys so i could check under the bonnet for any further damage only to find that the bonnet stay was missing and they had thrown it away, there was a bit pile of workshop wrags stuffed in the radiator fan and a rubber mallet wedged between the airbox and g-lader against the belt !!! i nearly swung at him with the mallet but just threw it in the skip with all the old winscreens instead. they said they would get thier bodyshop to sort it out for me so i said no you wont i will get my bodyshop to do it and you can pay whatever it costs to get done which he agreed to. so it needs new bonnet, new under bonnet foam, new stay, new stay rubber thingy, and the bonnet and both wings painting as well. also the screen isnt a genuine vw screen like he said, its a pilkington screen and the outer trim flew off on the way home and it doesnt sit level so they have to do that again as well. i booked this week off work so i could spend time with my brother who i havnt seen for years as he is coming over from canada on wednesday, it now looks like im going to be spending all week sorting out someone elses cockup i am extremely pi**ed off to say the least

i couldnt agree more with the one for wrexham except they got the chav scum meeting place wrong, if you go past the wickes car park from 8pm onwards its full of the scrotes with their nova's, saxo's, fessies, escorts and corsa's all covered in ridiculous body kits and neons everywhere. i bet if the police actually bothered to go down there and inspect the chav chariots they would have a field day with all the un-insured mods and drugtaking, and they are only over the road http://www.chavtowns.co.uk/modules.php? ... e&sid=1098

windscreen pillar pods are probably the easiest option then but are a matter of taste as they can look a bit "fast and the furious"

you can get the a/f ratio and voltage guages that replace the blanks next to the steering wheel and i have seen people that have removed the centre vents and put them there.

isnt there also a problem in that they where pushing the engineering a bit in the g60 charger as the displacer had a higher mass than the g40 so it cant have very small pulleys or it wll simply explode at high rev's whereas the g40 can be spun faster without the risk of going pop so the g40 is an easier engine to tune, g40 is certainly a car i would like to own in the future, and the first thing i would do is de-badge it, the look on peoples faces when they had just been blown away by my mates totally standard looking fettled g40 was priceless :shocked!:

fitting poly's will increase road vibration anyway thats inevitable with a harder compound bush but the originals are known to be a bit squidgey its personal preference and the originals are a trade off between comfort and handling, but i have heard about a lot of people using stiffer bushes in the the a3 to sort out the dead feeling steering

i drove a bora a few years ago and i was very impressed with it, very comfortable and quiet inside and was ideal on the motorway, but the suspension and steering did feel a little bit mushy, but thats nothing a full set of poly bushes wouldnt sort out. a mate of mine bought an audi a3 tdi a few weeks ago and the first thing he did was fit poly bushes all round but left the rest of it totally standard and he said it now feels like it should have done from the factory.

just called my insurance to get mine replaced and they put me through to rac windscreens in chester they have ordered 2 screens one with the tint and one plain to see which i prefer and he seems to think they are genuine vw screens as they have had problems with the other make they used last time, he said they de-laminated around the outside and went milky he even said i could bring some bits with me to sort out the small rust spots from where it was changed last time as he said they will have to have the car all day anyway as they are such a pig of a job, one of the lads who works there used to have one and they said they know a couple of tricks for doing corrado screens

the connections are the same but the leon panel is bigger and fills the gap between my headunit and screen perfectly (may be too big if you still have the ash tray and lighter though) you will also need to move a couple of the brackets that secure the heater box to the bulkhead or drill different mounting holes in the bulkhead (i moved the brackets) i am pretty sure its the same system as a mk4 golf anyway.

well i have the whole system from a leon and i will be using the leon heater box which has all the sensors built in and the matrix (corrado matrix is identical but the seat one has quick release couplings on it) the only sensors that need custom mounting are the one for outside temp (can be mounted next to the one in the lower right hand front intake) and a sunlight sensor that needs to be mounted in the top of the dash (can be mounted through one of the slots in the windscreen heater vents) i got all the controls working last night but i have not got the aircon working yet as i need some custom pipework, the correct pulleys, and a re-gas to get it working fully as i had no aircon to start with the dash should be back in tonight though so i will try and take some pics before i put it all back together if you are doing a climatronic install i would try and get the SEAT controller as it has a clearer display and nicer buttons than the vw version IMO and fills the space left by the old controls perfectly but it will work fine with the rest of the vw stuff as the connections are identical

just put the wheel at its lowest setting and lift the left hand side of the dash up first and it has a reasonable amount of clearence to lift out 8)

i took the dash out on mine when i got back from e38 to start fitting the SEAT climatronic stuff and it only took about 30 minutes to get the whole thing out. the bolts and nuts that need removing are 2x 8mm on either end of the dash 2x 10mm nuts in the scuttle panel (dont need to remove ecu or wiper mech) 4x screws from the bit in front of the clocks (carefully remove plastic caps from bottom 2) i think removing clocks is optional but i did it anyway (2x screws at either side of the clocks) 2x screws in cubby at bottom of centre console 4x screws behind heater control trim 1x screw in left hand centre heater vent 1x screw at top behind blanks/foglight switches (will need very short or angled screwdriver) 5x screws from left hand under dash 5x (i think) from right hand under dash (a couple are behind fuse box cover) 1x 10mm nut from back of metal plate behind centre cubby unplug all switches, stereo, unclip all cables attached to underside of dash ect i managed to get the dash out quite easilly without removing the steering cowling or steering wheel to remove the heater matrix remove 1x plastic knob/nut/round thing on the left under the shelf 3x 10mm nuts with big washers and rubber washers behind them in engine bay on firewall (looking from the front 1 on the right 2in the middle ) 2x hoses that run into the matrix behind the throttle body(g60) may need to unclip various heater hoses and remove 2 screws that hold the top vent to the bulkhead lift the heater box out and remove 2 screws that hold the matrix in and slide it out and replace with a nice shiney non leaky new one may be more but im doing this from my admitedly crap memory