Rpmayne

Just turned it down, thanks for talking me round. Is going to bug me that its going to end up in an auction for silly money but can't get rid of the Corrado for it yet. Agree that the Corrado is a better looking car no question but money versus outright performance the Jap stuff is hard to beat. Maybe couldn't live with them as an every day car but for a pure adrenaline rush would love to own one aswell as.

It's been a company car and mainly motorway miles. He's been made redundant so got offered the car cheap. I know they do feel abit thin but my mates 280bhp import Impreza on an L-plate seems alot more taught and has less rattles than my VR. And the handling / power just leaves it for dead. The Corrado seems like a grand tourer compared. It would probably cost the price of a Impreza to supercharge the VR to keep up, and I would still be left wanting the 4wd.. Can definitely see myself going the Jap way one day, after the VR there isn't really any other VAG car I want.

The third cylinder bit did scare me a tad. Having to take the engine out to work on it is a sod though, especially as the clutch has never been done so that probably hasn't got long left. Think I will hold out for a Sti, thing is this particular car is going for under £5k, £2k less than the book price for its condition (excellent). Other thought was to buy, sell then look for another one. I hate these decisions. Cheers for the info.

I've been offered a standard frog eyed 2001 WRX, two owners, the last of which has had it for 90k of its 100k miles and doesn't miss-treat it. The price is good and the more I read about turbos and that an extra 100bhp can be had for a grand, the more tempted I become. Plus the standard reliability appeals to me alot after owning a Corrado for 3 years. Has anyone got one or can shed any light as to why I shouldn't get it? Will leave me skint but finding it hard to turn it down.

Thanks Nick. Think I've found the problem. Never had to do anything to a gearbox other than change one complete so all new to me. The gear selector internal to the gearbox can be removed by taking off the lever, undoing the 27mm socket at the front of the gearbox then sliding the assembly out the front. Also undo the nut on the top of this section, that is a ball bearing assembly which helps locate the gears. This can also be a problem apparently because the ball bearing can fall out. Mine was badly worn. When I got the car the gear change was really sloppy, bought an overhall kit from GSF and when fitting noticed that one was completely missing. Think over time this has caused the damage to the selector, and when I tightened the linkage movement up it jammed the worn selector. Picking another selector up tonight so fingers crossed, only just changed the engine so really don't want to take it all apart again.

This is on a mk2 16v Golf, not sure whether the 4 pot corrados have this gearbox or not but any help would be much appreciated... Only reverse can be selected. On closer inspection the plastic linkage which moves the gearbox selector in and out had broken. Reconnected it but it seems that the selector in the gearbox will not pull out. Pushing it in (and turning to the right looking from the front) gets it into reverse, but it will not pull out to engage any forward gears. I'm guessing this is what caused the linkage to break. Any ideas what's involved in fixing the gearboxs internal selector mechanism or is a second hand gearbox the way to go? Thanks.

I cleaned the ISV, did look slightly sooty but seemed to operate quick enough. Idle doesn't hunt so much now but the pull away is still well flat, and most importantly the intermittent stalling remains. Tried disconnecting the MAF completely and the engine stalled immediately so its doing something. May bite the bullet and go for the VAG one, confirmed as £212.69 including the VAT (#021 906 462 which is the later type on some '94 and all '95 VR6's). Takes the piss that Eurocar are charging £284.00.

Thanks for all the info. As long as the rain holds off tonight I'll try the ISV again, didn't get a chance to do anything with the monsoon last night round here. Funnily enough it didn't cut out once, although the complete lack of power under 1500rpm still remains. Engine's on about 25k after rebuild so should be pretty tight but won't harm. Will let you know.

Think that's where mine went, the fitting which fits to the end of the hose, the other side of which has an o-ring that then bolts to the radiator by 2 allen key bolts. Mine was so brittle it cracked when I tried to touch it. When I took the hose off this part I could just break bits off by hand, had just perished. Crap material which just warps and falls to bits, same thing happened to my thermostat housing as mentioned. Had to buy a new radiator from VW to get this part because others I tried to source didn't come with the top fitting. VW wouldn't sell it separate either. Someone may know where to get one from though if you do need one. Hope for your sake its just the o-ring.

Haven't tried unplugging it, will do that later. Phoned GSF and they said they don't stock them, will try again if it turns out to be knackard. Think I have some contact cleaner somewhere so will try that if disconnecting it makes no odds. Dam Corrado tax, only thing keeps me going is knowing that older Audis are usually alot worse.

Cheers, just tried GSF and they don't stock them, and Eurocar want £284.00. Need to be dam sure its the problem. Does a mk3 golf VR6 use the same think, a mate has one of them I may be able to borrow the MAF off?

Cheers Toad, good info. Does it sound like that could be causing the problems? Toad, did clean the ISV about 20k. Will have another go. Any ideas where to get a MAF from other than £300 stealer.

Have put up with the VR idling iratically and randomly stalling for some time, have just be greatful that it does generally work (don't expect too much). It's getting alot worse now, no power until I reach 1500rpm and idle can hunt from 500-1000rpm continuously. Parts already changed for a variety of reasons.. Lambda, coilpack, HT leads, spark plugs, plastic box with foam in it (old one blew up due to dodgy ECU timing :roll: ). Has got progressively worse so wondering whether the MAF is playing about.. Can it be cleaned with something, throttle body cleaner or similar? Cheers.

To short out the battery to effectively stall the car I would have thought it would be an unfused supply shorting to ground somewhere. I don't have one of these uprated wiring looms but assume these wiring looms use the original headlight supply to switch a relay supplying a larger cable supply to the lights? Are the uprated cables being switched by the relays fused at the battery or after the relay? I would personally check the new loom first. Saying that I had the internal lights wiring loom to the switch burn out before with no idea as to why. Replaced it and never happened again...? So could be alot of things.

Think I'll give this a miss then, not too many recommendations. Wonder if anyone has ever managed to get a car through them, and if not how the hell does this stuff keep going? The cars advertised in the local friday-ad and has only made the internet part at the moment. If they ring back I'll mention the rogue trader report and see what they have to say for a laugh.

I've got a mk2 Golf for sale at the moment and have been contacted by this http://www.autobuyer.co.uk They're telling me they have people waiting to buy the car using they're credit, all they want from me is £70 which will be refunded once the car is sold. Has this actually worked out for anyone or will I just loose the £70? Sounds too good to be true I recon.

Do like the look of the Alpine headunits but as you say they are expensive compared to the others. Clarion do one but not so keen on the looks. Didn't fancy the DVD way, just thought that if the headunit could play the HDD then I could keep all the tunes in one place.. plug into the indoor PC for playing / downloading then the car would always be up to date. Apparently most of the next generation Kenwoods will have USB's (hopefully more advanced search wise) so this is just a stop gap.

Thanks TimmyVR but I just bought the highest Kenwood they do with USB. Thing is I have tried attaching the HDD and its not working too well. First it wouldn't recognise any of the files, now it seems to have scrambled a small amount of them. I spent all day yesterday using tag&rename to sort all the id's out making sure there wasn't any huge filenames or that the limits were exceeded (max 500 folders etc.). Still no joy. I change the format to Fat32 from NTFS though because it will only work with FAT16/32. It did warn me about loosing some data streams during the conversion? Maybe that's the problem..? Plays off the supplied USB stick fine, although its only displaying folder numbers rather than names at the moment so if I do get the HDD working it will take ages to find anything. Displays the artist/track name ok. Probably not set up correctly yet though.

Does anyone own a USB enabled headunit, or have any pointers? Think this would suit me as all my music (30gb ish) is on an external HDD so hoping that I can just plug it in and scroll through the ID3 tags / folder & file names. I was ideally going to get a Kenwood MASK head unit but they don't seem to do as many as they used to, and none of this years MASK models have the USB. Do any other manufacturers have a similar system to mask so I don't need to take the front off all the time? Ta.

Ended up being the coilpack on mine, no obvious cracking. Had a mate with a VR6 Golf and swapped it to double check before buying a replacement from GSF. This was after changing leads, lambda and plugs with no effect.

Thanks Andi, pm'd and pm'd back.

Does anyone know what the differences were between the early (1999-2001) and later (2002-onwards) S3's? I know the later ones had 225bhp instead of 210bhp but other than that I can't really find many details. Any information / buyers guide links would be much appreciated, doesn't seem to be the same amount of information around as with VW's. Cheers.

That would have been spot on Storm 2, ordered some from VW near me after all the agro though and had to pay up front. They should be coming in today. Cheers for the offer. Had to laugh, a mate saw me driving home yesterday not knowing the misfire problems (and how the remap never happened) and text me saying it sounded the muts nuts. Does sound like an Impreza, just a lot less powerful. :) AMD did put it on the rollers (for a laugh I guess) and it's running 50bhp down.

Thanks for the reply Steve, tried ringing them but to no avail. As in true VR style they found a set of leads that would apparently fit, yet it contained only 4 leads?? A VW dealer in Oxford also had a set apparently for my '94 car that came with a king lead (mine's a coil pack type), thought £60 for the set sounded abit reasonable. Came home after a 12 hour day where I only managed to get the 4-wheel alignment and track rod end changed.

Got my VR up at AMD today for a remap and the HT leads are arking badly. They haven't got any and I need some by 5 otherwise they can't do anything. Travelled over 100 miles and the problem only started 3/4 way through the journey. :mad: Is there anywhere very near Biscester / Oxford that would have any you recon? Any help much appreciated. Thanks!