ardandy

He works for a massive car parts place who has access to the database. Thought he was at the DVLA, doh! updated the figures on post #1 for the valvers!

Theres bound to be ones with V5's that are in bits I imagine!

After speaking to someone who has DVLA database access I asked him to find out how many Corrado's are left. These are what he came back with; VR6 - 2830 - of which there are 625 Storms??? G60 - 1280 1.8 ex G60 - 1748 2.0 16v - 1339 2.0 8v man - 95 2.0 8v auto - 14 That's everything that is still taxed or SORN. So bacicaly everything with a V5!

Ok, so I'm not selling it but Andrew came to us to get his 04 Land Rover Discovery ready for sale. We've not posted up for a while so I thought we'd better get back on the posting bandwagon! Here's what awaited us! The interior was pretty grubby in the back due to it being a family car and the kids probably using it as a fingerlicking playground! I'll speed up the write up as it's Sunday evening and most people skip through the pics anyway! Blah blah blah blah! (Only kidding!) We jet washed the huuuuge car down to remove as much dirt etc that we could, concentrating on the arches quite a bit! As you can see from these pics we could have grown a few potatoes in them! Out came the Lavor Petrol Pressure Washer next as it has the foam lance on it (the electric one was used for everything else as we were at base and it's cheaper!). Here's the lovely snow foam that it creates! We wiped down the car using Schmitts and rinsed it off before doing the alloys and starting the claying. Here's a pic of a wheel using our own secret wheel cleaning mixture! :) Here's what came off just one wheel! Now onto the claying! We lightly sprayed the car down with the Foam Gun to make lubing the car up easier. Last Touch was sprayed onto the car on the spots we were working on which seems best for this procedure. One last rinse down with the jetwash and out came the Last Touch once again to help dry the car off. Sonus Der Wunder Drying Towels soaked up the water nicely. At this point we started on the interior, now like a dope we forgot to take any 'action' shots of us working inside, so you'll have to use your imagination! George (wet/Dry Vac) was used on the mats which were removed from the car, AG Leather Cleaner and Leather Care was used on all leather surfaces to clean and treat them. Einszett Cockpit Premium and Megs APC was used on the rest of the car to get rid of the kids influence! Meguiars Glass Cleaner was used on the glass (using your imagination yet?) Back to the outside, the Disco was to be waxed using CG Jetseal on this occasion, 2 coats of course! The metal foot bars were also cleaned and buffed up using Meguiars NXT Metal Cleaner, as you can see from the cloth they were pretty bad! The tyres were then given a 'treat' (get it!) with AG Tyre Shine. Sorry for the lack of interior piccies and the usual long winded write up but here are the final shots of the car, now ready for sale! Thanks!

Did you need to do any arch work or anything to get the alloys on? Was thinking about getting some! I've a 40mm drop, do you think I'll have any issues? Cheers!

Well it's at Awesome (again!) today and for the week. They're sure it's either the gasket for or a crack in the housing for the ECU Blue Temp sensor. As it happened when they were working on it they said they'd sort it out price wise too!

It's not a weep, more of a pissing out! It'll lose 2 litres within 20mins. I'm not convinced my local mech was right TBH, if my headgasket was that bad surely the engine wouldn't be running perfectly! Oh, and yes its the VR!

My engine is losing coolant, it drives perfectly with no issues. A local mech has had a brief look and said from where it seems to be coming from it could be the head gasket or possibly the core plug??? It's going back on wednesday so he can take the underneath cover etc off to have a proper look. Could I have head gasket problems (just losing coolant, no oil anywhere that can be seen etc) even though the engine drives perfectly? Are there any signs that are obvious? All this after spending £769 on the chuffing thing! Cheers!

Well, got the final bill now! I did ask if it could be capped a little but I guess the extra labour they've spent on it has totted up a bit! Hardly capped IMO but hey ho! £360ish on parts (thats without the MAF! thank god I didn't need that!) £400ish on labour! Total - £769 inc VAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I suppose it's about right and thanks to the dead Rado the fault was actually found but it's still an awful lot right after Xmas! Couple that with the fact that someone rear ended the van on Monday and it appears he is un-insured, this has being a shitty week! :(

Yeah I suppose theres always people worse off. Just as the guy was coming in with his blown headgasket his clutch went! One of those days for him!

Would that be visible when its intact? Not sure it would be from there?

I had a simliar thing on xmas day. The trouble is, although it went in to get the seized brake caliper swapped I ended up saying "whilst its here!". Although the extra did really need doing, a brake caliper turned into a lot more work for around £500! Keep the blinkers on! :lol:

I'd give stealth a call first!

It took the AA (well a local guy on behalf!) 40 mins to come to me and that was on xmas day! :lol:

Got a phone call from Mike (general manager) to give me an update. As he was passing the 'finished and running fine' Corrado of mine it just cut out and refused to start again! He got Jim??? onto the case and they ended up checking the engine loom, fuel pump (which was not working and then was working again whilst they were working on it?) and various other parts, bearing in mind that several sensors including the £220 MAF sensor had already being replaced! As luck would have it (at least for me) another VR6 Corrado turned up with a blown headgasket and a failed clutch, meaning some swapsies for testing purposes only was possible! On a hunch he swapped the ECU over and since then it's being faultless and in Jims words 'absolutely flies' now! 8) They've sourced another ECU and fit it (between £100-£150) which is fine, but my next question was "if this thing is telling you whats wrong is faulty in itself, could it actually mean that the sensors are in fact fine and the ECU was reading them wrong?" A bit of testing later using my original MAF, and it's running perfectly! So although its costing me another £100-£150 for the ECU I no longer need to spend £220-£250 on the MAF etc as it's fine! So, looks like its properly sorted now but it's being a pain and would explain why its taken so long for various garages (going on about a year now!) to figure out whats going on. Phew!

Ok, for the new year we've changed tack regarding detailing offers! Rather than always go for the top whack full detail jobby, we've decided to offer the non-machine polish as the special. So here it is, The Executive Two! - Normally £120 (Ka size-ish) to £250 (Rangie size-ish like the one below) depending on what the car is. For a Corrado it will be a flat £100 (exc travelling to you) Executive Two Detail It's basically everything the machine polish (Exec One) is but without the machine polish. Washing, claying waxing etc is all part of it, and for the first time you also get an interior spruce! This was an identical detail we did a while back so you know what you get. It does mask swirks a bit but doesn't get rid of them! -------------------------------------------------------------------------- This is certainly the biggest detail we've done to date, a Range Rover Vogue SE in black! This is what we started off with, it certainly has being used as a workhorse and was covered in Tar, although you can't really see it in thepics as much. we started the process by attacking the alloys with some Meguiars Super Degreaser but that didn't seem to shift as much as we'd hoped, so we stepped up to some Autoglym Clean Wheels which did the trick brilliantly. The arches were sprayed with Meg's All Purpose Cleaner and scrubbed with brushes and harsher sponges to get all the muck out of them. The rather grubby foot rail along the bottom was tackled next, using soapy water, APC and a soft sponge. Before we washed the car we got the door and boot shuts gleaming by spraying them with Meg's Super Degreaser and wiping them down with microfibres. One last thing to do before we broke out the Gilmour Gun was to soften up the dead flies and various other bugs that peppered the front off the car. This was done by spraying the front with AG Bug Remover. A combination of Meg's Hyper Wash, Snowfoam and warm water was used for the shampoo via the Gilmour Gun. The whole car was sprayed and then wiped down with Edge Wash Schmitts. As you can imagine this took a while given the cars size! Given the amount of tar on the lower parts of the car we had to clay it. For this we used Meguiars Mild (Blue) Clay. Here's the state of one of them after the rear quarter panel! Another wash later using the same method above, we rinsed the car down with the Jetwash. The drying process was done using Meguiars Last Touch and Sonus Der Wunder Drying Towels. Now the cars clean and dry, we had a snack and carried on by giving it 2 coats (30mins apart of course!) of CG Jetseal. This was followed up with some Megs Glass Cleaner, #38 Trim Clean & Protect and of course some tyre shine! The heat caused quite a bit of problems when waxing the car so we followed up the last coat with a spray of Quick Detailer to get rid of the 'sweaty' residue that appeared after buffing! We also used the soft brushes to get rid of any wax residue that always collects in the gaps. Heres the final finished pics after a hard half-days work! Thanks for reading!

PSI is just too far away (nearly 2 hours each way), The main reason was because the caliper seized in Warrington and Awesome are only 7 miles away from the in-laws. Last time I spent a fortune (at PSI) was to replace all the suspension and bushes. Turns out I still don't have the car back today! They still need to replace the Lambda probe which they originally didn't think needed replacing. So it'll be next saturday now as Ican't get ove til then! :(

Ah right! Cheers, clears things up a bit! It's the Porsche Turbo (the angled type alloys, directional???) type wheels I really like. Did biggerben have some proper ones on his? Can't remember now. The RH wheels are the only ones I could find that are like that. :(

I believe they're £45 from GSF.

MAF was £180 and crank was £80ish (from dealer). TBH, it's being going on months and I'd lost confidence in the car, even as a weekend car I didn't want to use it. Even after this, getting it back and being able to drive it properly etc and not worry about it failing will be like getting a new car again! Can't wait til Sat! (Yes, we cleared the codes etc. Awesome did the same and verified what mine had told me.)

Yes I'm lowered 40mm. It says on the site (link above) Rear and Front 8J?

Right, I've spoken to the 'experts' and I'm still non the wiser. My cars 40mm lower than standard (93 VR6) Rung up Awesome (my cars there now) and asked if I put 17" wheels on, will I have problems with the tyres rubbing/catching etc? No! They said. Spoke to PSI, same question, Yes! They said. Rung up JBS, same question, Not sure! I'm useless when it comes to tyre/offset stuff, TBH I don't get half of it! All I want to know is if I'll need to roll the arches or something similar? These are the wheels I want, http://www.modifiedcarstore.co.uk/p1033500.htm Thanks!

Got the total bill now! Could have got £50 off if I'd have shopped around for parts but I genuinely don't have the time! £500! Thats for Diagnostics New front caliper New MAF sensor New Speed Sensor New ECU Temp Sensor A bulb! Labour to fit it all etc

So they'd order the plug and resolder the wires onto the existing loom. Do you think its worth me waiting until I get all that done to see how it runs before I replace the MAF? Cheapest MAF I've found at the mo (bosch) is £170inc VAT p/x or £230 with no part ex from VW. Even I should be able to replace that! Thanks a lot! Andy.

Spoke to Awesome. The lambda is reading ok they say, which is good. They also said that the wiring loom has being modified from original and fitted with one of thats actually part of the wiring? He said they'd have to source the original last 4 inches of wiring from another Corrado to get the proper fitting Lambda back on. EDIT: Apparently its a crank angle sensor I need.