andy

Competent winter road maintenance authorities help a lot up here, too. :wink: Absolutely, I'm right on the south coast, we hardly ever get snow. They grit the Motorways ok but anything smaller than that and your struggling. This was a particularly heavy dump of snow on an otherwise clear day, the roads were below freezing all day and the fresh snow just melted into it, the gritters were just getting out after about 15 mins of snow!

I've saw a Citroen AX spin in front of me on a roundabout yesterday, the ice on the road hadn't melted all day, it wasn't being driven fast, its just ice. Some people at work rave about 4 wheel drive, yep great for going forwards, it doesn't help you stop though. My closest call to death was in a coach in the alps, fishtailing down a snowy hairpin-infested mountain road. Excellent driver, full opposite lock, left to right all the way, you could hear the abs chattering flat out and we were still speeding up. ABS or driver skill is no match for Gravity + Ice. We had to use the wall and the side of the coach as an extra braking device.

Ice is ice, all you clever people who can get up anything seem to forget that. Last night you could hardly stand up in the road down here, let alone steer or brake a car on it. You can't get traction in some circumstances. I helped push a guy with traction control who was certainly not revving his engine in the slightest, he had no traction whatsoever, very similar to me who was trying to push him! His rear wheels were turning slowly, slithering him sideways, not forwards at all and that was only a slight incline.

No don't move the alternator, to release the belt you need to wind a bolt down the threaded hole in the top of the tensioner, I think its M8.

We've got an inch here tonight, with frozen tarmac underneath. The ABS does absolutely nothing, I came down a hill near my house at walking pace, touched the brakes and I hadn't come to a standstill 50 yards later...shocking. Luckily there was a dry patch under a bridge just before the tight bend at the bottom, scrubbed some of my 5mph off there! Turned into my road and there's a Jag X type having major problems, he was trying to go fowrads but the back end was just sliding sideways towards the car parked next to it, rwd for you I guess. It took three of us to push it, we could hardly stand up! I then got back in the Corrado and steamed straight through the same tricky bit, no problems hehe! The guy in the Jag had to abandon his car at the next corner and I just went sailing past again then straight up a slippery incline onto my driveway. It was quite impressive really, he must have been pig-sick watching my £3.5ks worth of 11 year old car defeat his Jag. I'm not looking forward to tomorrow morning though.

It does make a noise, like rushing air, in my experience they all do it.

It needs to be lifted, but not very much, I removed the front and rear engine mount bolts and jacked the engine. Much easier than it would originally seem.

Sure about that? I don't think I've ever seen a VR6 in Storm Grey. Potentially a cool colour. Here's one (mine)! It's similar to Ice grey violet pearl from a distance.

Alarm "fitters" are my pet hate. My centre console was rattling a lot, I took it out and there are ten to fifteen breaks in it where it has been forced in, cracks where they have push fitted screws to hold the ultrasonic sensor on, screws missing, tight wires....apalling but common.

F**king hell, check out that Mk2 golf for £3895, nice cars all of them, not so nice prices!

Did you do the compression check with a warm or cold engine? One of my cylinders reads very low cold but fine when its warmed up which is when you should check it.

Not if the temperature is 90 ish normally and up to 105 in traffic. What's the max temperature you've seen?

Putting the engine back together a tooth out is unforgivable in my opinion. Its just not on, and it would be bl**dy amatuerish too. I've done two in my driveway now, the first without a manual even, and still got the timing right. You check, check and check again. Spin the engine over 4 revolutions and check all the timing marks line up again etc etc. If it transpires they've reassembled it a tooth out I'd seriously consider taking it somewhere else next time.

That picture is of the auxilliary water pump, a common place for VR6s to leak/fail. Both VR6s I've owned have required replacement pumps due to leaks. You've got a later style pump on there, which has three bolts holding the end cap on rather than the earlier push-fit/glued on version. The later ones aren't nearly so prone to leaking in my experience but thats definately the aux water pump in your pic. You don't need to get the coil pack off to replace it/check it just remove the ht lead guide(plastic cover) run it up to temp and see exactly where the water is coming from.

Well, you may have a point there. As you know I'm still slightly annoyed with the ride quality on my car. It does react rather nastily to sunken drains and ridges in the road etc. I have been thinking lately that tyres could be an issue. Now you've questioned it...hmmm...are they reckoned to be lacking in the ride comfort department? I'm not impressed by my ride comfort but I don't know if I can blame it on the T1-Rs yet! They are quite noisy too, although I've only used Toyos on this car so don't have any comparison as yet. I was less than impressed with the ride quality on my old Golf VR6, that was on Toyos....

As far as I know, it doesn't matter which sensor goes where, its just a hollow pipe with three holes in. It obviously does matter which connector goes on each sensor (sorry to state the obvious). 90 normally, 105 in traffic doesn't sound a problem. Sounds like mine, you only need to worry if it gets a lot higher than that. The sensors are very easy to replace but you will lose a bit of coolant. It's literally a case of sliding the little green clip out and then pull the sensor out, new one in preferably with new o-ring.

I've just done a 12 mile journey in the VR6, mostly twisties, really throwing it about, awesome fun. I got out of the car, walked to my house and noticed the road glistening and sparkling, the pavement was even slippery, walked back to the car and the outside temperature was showing 0 degrees C. If anyone needs convincing how good Toyo T1-Rs are, I'm your man. Phew!

Yep, my ex had a very nice looking gold one with cream leather with the sport pack, it looked good but that was about it. Engine as Phat says, phlat as a phart! I can't believe it was 160bhp and rwd. My rado would have demolished it on any road at any speed. The brakes were absolutely dead feeling, it had big brembos on it so should have stopped very well, yet it left you wondering whether you were going to hit the car in front every time. I'm a big bloke and with my size 11s behind the brake pedal, pulling on the steering wheel I couldn't stop it quickly enough....frightening. The engine noise is awful, so flat, my ex used to comment all the time about how much nicer the VR6 sounded. Gear change stiff as buggery. Visibility is apalling unless you are 5 foot nothing because they fit the biggest rear view mirror you've ever seen and the A-pillar is so thick you find yourself rocking in the seat and peering round it to see if the road ahead is clear at junctions and on the twisty stuff. Handling wise it doesn't get any better, it's very choppy and hops across the road on bends...scuttle shake city. They have their fans but they are mainly people who buy them because they want to be seen in them, not because they want to drive them like a sports car. Majorly disappointing imo. Buy an MX5 every time over one of them. There is some seriously bad buffeting going on with the roof down too btw.

The second one is way too expensive I think. Too old and too many miles for nearly 4k.

Where can you get Plus Gas from these days, I haven't seen it for a while, awesome stuff?

Yep it could still be a stuck thermostat or several other things, a bit early for people to assume its a headgasket tbh.

Then there's something wrong with it :-) Its unfair to suggest that's normal :-)

You obviously get good ones and bad ones but I have a very low opinion of stealerships. I wouldn't let them loose on my car on any job. Monkeys.

If you're only measuring that voltage (12.6V) with the car running then something is wrong with your charging circuit, either your alternator is goosed or perhaps the cable running from the alternator to the battery is damaged/misplaced? You should see 14V ish as you say. Your battery will not charge properly at 12.6V hence your battery munching.

hehe Spike Milligan I think :-)