golddust

It's been like that since I got the car so it could be anything...

Ok, I've had loads of grief lately resulting in head gasket, expansion tank/cap etc etc. Anyhow, I've found when I start the car in the morning if I let it idle for say 30 secs the coolant warning light comes on, even though there's plenty of coolant? However if I drive away immediately or stop the engine and restart the warning light doesn't come on....? It's a new expansion tank so the sendor should be ok. Also I've noticed I am still losing a little water, not much by comparison to problems before, about half the expansion bottle every 3 or 4 days which is about 210 - 280 miles for me. Any ideas on both issues?

I went to DeMontfort Uni which had campuses in Milton Keynes and Bedford (among others). My mates astra GTE (which I bought in the end) got nicked from our campus 3 times and turned up at or near the Bedford campus every time! Never did find out who kept nicking it! hot wired every time, in the end he got rid of the ignition barrel all together and just put in an on/off switch and push button starter. At least they stopped hot wiring it!

My fan is intermittent.... I leave it switched to 4 all the time and some days it will cut in and run for 5-10 mins then not again for a few days... I will sort it out one day! Dunno if it's the fan, the switch or bad wiring... probably all 3!

Cool, do you happen to know the approx cost from either dealer or GFS etc? Basically I'm costing up the job at present...

That's a good deal! Well done on finding that one. Best I've seen is £725 for a bare 180BHP engine. Are you using the 20V gearbox? If so have you sussed out how to fit it? That is to say are 2002 Beetle drive shafts the solution?

Ooh ooh ohh! I just remembered my Chav joke! 3 Chav's are in their local Wetherspoons knocking back the drinks with their dole money and talking about their new investments... 3 XR3i's! They're all dead proud of their cars and remark at how they've all got at least 3 months MOT left and not much rust. Just to be cool they all bought different colours, a black one, a white one and a red one. They decide they would be cool if they named their cars and had the names written up the side in Vinyl lettering. The first Chav says, "I'm gonna call mine Black Thunder cos' it's all black innit, way cool!". The others all agree that would be "totally sik!". The second Chav says, "I wanna call mine White Lightning, like my birds favourite drink innit!", the others think this would look cool too. The third Chav says "I think I should call mine Clitoris!" The others nearly spit Sidekick shooters everywhere in dissbelief. "Why the fook you doin' that?" Asks the first Chav. "Clitta what? Never 'eard of it!" Exclaims Chav number 2. "Ya know, Clitoris!..." Says the third Chav.... ... "It's 'cos every c*nt's got one!"

Bill's quite right, the roundabout's make MK 100mph (private road?) between roundabouts and a 5 mile journey in under 5 mins.... Until you reach the city centre and I crawl over the speedbumps at 5mph while ChavScum with his rusty "D reg" Xr3i hits them at 30mph thinking he looks cool with his 2ft off the ground suspension...

Out of interest how much did you get the engine for? As I've been on the lookout for one and so far am looking at a 225bhp one, low mileage at £1450. Seen others cheaper but missing the loom/ecu.

I say, Why not? Nice people, nice weather, lots of space. Can't fault it... well except for some of the wild life, like the flies in summer!

Metro's. A.K.A. Portable crumple zones... The patrol the streets looking for nice cars to send the scrapyard in the sky.

HA HA HA HA HA!!! LOL! I've now got an open plan office staring at me for disturbing the noise of typing with an apparently loud laugh... :oops:

:oops: :oops: Fixed it, found the headlight plug had worked its way loose from the headlight unit... :oops: As the back light was off I thought it must be more serious than that!

Hmmm - they've been that price for a few months now, a bit silly to stick the price back up in January! Its still advertised at 99 on the website but when you click it the price becomes 149! - might be worth speaking to the manager of your store and trying to blag it! That's a bummer, they were still £99 on Sunday, plus you're right they had been that price for months!

I've got a new headlight switch so can rule that out, also checked all the fuses for lights and they're ok so it's gotta be a connection... I think the indicator/brake light is ok, just the tail light and headlight are at fault.

Did you ask as my store had loads in the shelves of the parts dept. Also noticed lots on the shelf at the Watford branch...

Hi everyone, I assume this is the old "Problems" area so this morning I've got a new one... Neither the headlight nor the tail light on the passenger side are working. If it had been one I'd say blown bulb but with both I'm not so sure. I've checked the fuses and they all seem ok. I'm assuming it's a bad connection somewhere but could use advice on where the most likely place is as I'll be looking on a very short lunch break and don't want to drive home with one light! Cheers!

I've been using various Halford Professional tools for several years and it's all good... So much so that at the moment they have a special offer on their 150 piece tool set, reduced from £149.99 to just £99.99 and I decided to buy myself a Christmas present! Does mean I've got some duplicate tools now so I think maybe ebay time... Also, they come with a lifetime guarantee! :-) (Sorry if I sound like an advert for Halfords, but I'm really pleased with them!)

For anyone interested in following this thread, I had an overheating problem after this and it's all now fixed. See other thread: http://the-corrado.net/.archive/forum/viewtopic.php?t=18301&highlight=

Thought you guys might like an update... The good news is that as of today I'm back on the road! As you know the engine was still boiling water even with the fan bridged. I then gave it some thought and remembered that pressurised water has a higher boiling point.... Of course when things blew before the seal on the expansion cap and worse still the emergency overflow valve on the expansion bottle were both no longer airtight.... SO, I bought a new expansion tank (£14) and cap (£3.50) from German & Swedish. I also bought a new rad fan thermoswitch (£7.99). I plumbed everything in (took about 30 mins) although this necessitated a trip to Halfords for a large 30mm socket for the fan switch which turned into a whole new socket set using Xmas gift vouvhers :D Did a first run and was very pleased to find the fan cut in at 90 degrees but the important point is the water wasnt even bubbling! :) Blatted it round the block again and no signs of distress so at present at least I'm happy to say it looks like it's all fixed! For anyone else with water overheating problems I'd say don't overlook the expansion tank, I think it's been the saviour for my engine as I neared despair! Anyway, thanks for the help/advice everyone! Hopefully this is now fixed for good, or until I can afford a 1.8T :lol:

Cheers for that Paul. To get the fan to go on I actually ran a spare piece of wire from the plug behind the headlight to the plug on the rad fan. I left the thermoswitch at the base of the rad alone. I'll try bridging that tomorrow, I presume just a bit of wire from the earth to each of the red wires in turn? The car still seems to be very unstable with water. One minute the expansion tank will be overflowing, the next it's empty. Top it up and again it overflows! Then sits stable for 5 mins then overflows, etc etc. Over 20 mins on the driveway must have put in 20 litres, most of which overflowed onto the ground but still once the engine was off the expansion tank was empty...

I used to own several Vauxhalls. This website will be the Mecca of Vaux answers for you: http://www.migweb.co.uk/forum

OK, just made an important discovery... After several hours of reading posts about rad fans I've put 2 and 2 together.... SInce buying the car I've had a loose black wire with a spade connector next to the airbox but it couldn't reach any connector... When doing the head gasket I noted one rocker cover bolt had a sensor with a spade clip on it. This was right over by the distributer. I placed it back there but could find no wire to connect to it. I just tried earthing the mysterious black wire and hey presto the rad fan comes on! So now I figure that sensor on the bolt should be connected to this wire and must be in the wrong place, should be next to the timing belt? Is the sensor on the bolt the ONLY sensor that controls the rad fan as my fan wasn't coming on at all before....? (Unless I made a direct connection to battery).

Hi everyone, I've done some more tests and am still unsure as to what to do next. I flushed the water system and connected the rad fan so it was permanently on. Then ran it on the drive for 15 mins then a 5 min drive round the block. It didn't overheat at all :-) But did seem to use water still... There is white smoke from the exhaust but it's bloody cold so not sure if it's just weather related. I checked the wiring on the loom to the rad fan which goes to a sensor on the bottom of the rad and a multi plug behind the passenger side headlight. I found the earth was fine at all point. There wires in the short rad loom all connected with a continuity test. On the plug behind the headlight the earth was good, the red wire had a 12v supply but the red/white one did nothing, though this was with the engine off. My questions: What controls whether the rad fan comes on or not and how do I test it? Why might it be using water still?

OK, so the general feedback seems to be: Check the thermostat. - Can someone tell me where it is? (showing my lack of VW knowledge here!) Full system flush to eliminate airlocks Bridge the fan switch to see if having that on stops the overheating.