Roger Blassberg

Try Mike Chapman in St Albans, Herts if you can travel that far South. 01727 844179. VW trained staff and an hourly rate way below the main agent. RB

I've modified the standard arms as follows and the problem of smearing disappeared. The cast boss of the arm, the bit which is splined onto the shaft, has projections which bear against the inside of the pressed steel part to which it is hinged; this stops the spring from pulling the blade against the screen hard enough. If you take the complete wiper off the car, push the arm back to over-centre the spring, then the projections are there before your very eyes. Mount the arm LIGHTLY in a vice, then take a small file, or even better a Dremel, and grind these projections back a millimetre or two- there's plenty of material there so not much danger of weakening the boss. Take care not to scratch the black paint off where you don't want to. Blow out the filings, put it all back together, treat youself to new aerofoil blades and you too can see through the screen in the dark and the wet, even at 100 (KPH of course!!). I find that the Rainex glass cleaner and repellant work well, but need to re apply quite often. Good weekend to all.

Just had the heater matrix replaced, so the dash was removed. Minor gremlins now in the electrics; occasionally the ABS warning light didn't go off, accompanied by failure of the heater blower and wipers. Switch on the headlights, and, Hey Presto!, it all works again, no recurrence so far. Is there a feed to these circuits from the headlight switch? I have now noticed that, if the headlights and the heater blower are on together, the heater blower stays on after turning off the ignition until the light are turned off - is this right? I don't remember this happening before, but I may be mistaken. Finally, the pilot light in the HRW switch has failed although the HRW and mirrors do heat up- is it a simple job to get the switch out of the dash ?(1994 VR6, push on, push off type switch, about 2cm square). All advice appreciated. R

Thanks for the advice. I'll have the knock sensors checked. Please will someone tell me about VAG-COM - is it the fault analyser that plugs into the socket under the gear stick gaiter? Or is it a software package I can get hold of for use with a laptop/adaptor cable? Where do I get it, and about how much? Incidentally, I have just done the headlight wiring loom modification - literally a brilliant improvement. Roger

My first visit - good to meet all you like-minded ladies and gents. Maybe and old question, but all advice is welcome. My VR6 pinks like mad under acceleration once operating temperature is reached, running on Optimax. New cylinder head including valves, guides, springs, seals, cams 6000 miles ago. The pistons looked good when the head was off. Coil pack ignition. Exhaust gas analysis shows no problems at idle, so I assume the lambda is ok and not weakening the mixture outside the specified range. Water temperature about 105 in slow traffic, much lower at normal driving speeds, fans both operational, new thermo switch, new supplementary water pump, oil temperature often over 110. How many knock-sensors are there, and where are they? Are they prone to failure/malfunction? Oil temp seems high to me, certainly a lot hotter than ever had with 16V 2.0 litre engine code ABF, so is there still an overheating problem? I suspect that the previous owner had re-chipped the EMU, but surely the knock sensors would do the necessary to the timing to prevent pinking. all the best Roger