Louis

John from Covics has come to my rescue again. The old Sigma alarm on my Mk3 Golf GTi recently went haywire and stopped me from disarming the system at all. He came to my house yesterday to bypass the alarm so I can use the car, it's booked in next week to have a new Toad system fitted.

Just had a certified cat 1 toad system fitted by Coventry in-car services (cov ics) based at shilton industrial estate. Good price & workmanship. He's a vw fan too.

I suspected as much! Guess they're attractive to youths in the habit of collecting such items.

Hi all I'm looking for a red VR6 grille badge, anyone able to point me in the right direction? Searches on here seem to show up sold items & can't find one on ebay etc.

Shame to hear that, Guildford is a long trek if I might end up having the same problem. Just had a recommendation from someone at work about Coventry car centre. Might pay a visit on the weekend & see what they can do. Thanks for the help though, appreciate it.

Excellent, thanks a lot Jim I'll definitely consider it. Good to know somewhere reputable

Hi all I have searched the obvious thread above but there seem to be no recommended fitters in the Cov! Is anyone able to give me a recommendation? All I want is a remote c/l cat 1, more importantly is that the interior of my newly acquired vr6 doesn't get cut up in the process. Any advice much appreciated. Would prefer Coventry/Warks area but if I need to go to Birmingham I will. Rich

I keep seeing a Silver Corrado on my way to and from Coventry. Only just remembered to come on here and mention it! I think it's a J Reg from memory, looks like it is a valver from the grille but not too sure as it's been modified a bit I think. Normally go the opposite way to it on the Coventry road after work, I'm leaving cov and this one is coming into cov. Whoever is driving always waves back! I'm in a green VR6, G3 RLG

Warning to everyone about a bad purchaser...Raddo_Tom. I had an early 7 slat grille up for sale at the end of March this year, Raddo_Tom said he would buy it from me. Seemed eager enough to pay me, I made it clear I wouldn't send the item until any funds had been cleared. He seemed to understand. By the middle of May he had claimed to have sent various cheques, bank transfers and even private messages on here that mysteriously never reached me! Various messages had been sent back and forth over the 1 ad a half month period before I finally lost my patience. I warned him that if I had not had funds within a week of the message the grille would go back up for sale, anyway I've left it until today partly due to wanting to see if a cheque did ever arrive and partly because I had lost all faith with the whole system. I would recommend that if Raddo_Tom claims he will buy anything from you, either he is hoping you will post the parts when he hasn't paid you, or he just enjoys wasting peoples time and p***ing them off!

Oh yea, I have a deep hate for those people who do 40 in the 50 zone and then don't slow down at all for the 30 zone, I stick to the residential area limits as I think it's sensible. Just goes to show that a lot of people who hold a driving licence should have it taken off them, as well as their cars!

Yea, just signed it myself and posted it on facebook for allll to vote on. Most roads round my area are now 50, I largely choose to ignore this fact and can't understand people who now go 10 mph under the new limit where before they probably did 50 anyway, I ignored it at 60, lowering the speed limit by 10 just means I'm speeding 10 mph more! Catch me if they can.

After replacing mine two years ago, it stopped working again recently. I think they must stretch after a while, I just tightened it up again on the passenger side, which is not as easy as it sounds and it seems to be working ok, hopefully it's not planning on snapping any time soon!

Cheers pal, think I'll order the new bits anyhow just because I have no idea what condition they're in. I did find the boge fine before on the old golfs, a bit hard like you said but good fun. I'll have to wait and see what the FK's are like then, I'm guessing fairly similar to the boge to be honest.

So is the general conscensus that on standard wheels a drop of up to 40mm is pretty much hassle free? I'm strictly on a budget, the suspension has given up at a very bad point in time so I've gone for the FK AKX kit, cheaper than Boge and I decided probably better quality, although I used Boge in my previous 2 mk2's and I thought they were fine. Anyway the kit comes with 35-40mm lowering springs. Considering that the dampers are harder than the standard units I have on the car currently, I'm assuming all will be ok, I already hate speed bumps anyway so that aspect won't cause me much grief. I don't think the suspension has been changed before, is it advisable to order new top mounts etc for the job? I also read on the euro performance website that Corrados produced after Oct '93 used different axle spring plates (part 1H0 412 341) to what the kit provides, I've tried to find this part on vagcat but can't find the exact same part, does anyone know if it would be reusable when I take my old units out? Is this advisable or should I just get new parts? I can't waste money but also don't want to fit the new kit then have to order some more parts and mess around with it all over again.

Ahh, yes, that would be sensible wouldn't it! Fairly embarassing, never changed or looked at one before, that's my only defence!

Okay, anyone able to tell me what kind of setup they have to fit the ball joint onto the tie rod on their VR? Ordered the replacement ball joint from GSF (I know, save the hilarities!) It obviously has a different method of connecting to the tie rod than what is on my car. My setup has a thread going inside it which the tie rod then screws into, which I thought was pretty standard. The one GSF sent has a kind of bracket sticking out of it where two bolts obviously go through and then there is a groove at the end which something must slot into. Which one is standard on the VR? Just worried that my VR setup isn't standard? I checked out the GSF website for the VR6 ball joint part number and the number agrees from the site to the invoice and then to the part. Hoping that it was just some berk who packed it wrong but I'm not sure!

Hopefully it sorts mine out, don't fancy replacing the rods aswell and then have to pay for another alignment!

Cracked ball joint found in mot, due to replace it in time for my Stealth visit for a laser wheel alignment. It's the passenger side ball joint, going round right hand corners the steering gets progressively lighter, to the point where it feels like the front wheels are in the air! Hopefully this will sort it as it was all spot on a year ago when I bought the car.

Useful, I'll be checking my ecu shortly. I was thinking it was an earthing problem, light goes out when the car is warm and the light flickers with the indicators too, so I was suspicious of the ABS pump valve error code with vagcom.

I have had this problem since buying the car, at Stealth at last year's service, the ecu read a problem with a valve on the pump. On the grounds that my ABS still works fine I decided not to pay for a whole new pump. I'm not so sure I believe the reading anyway, because if the car has been warmed up and the ignition turned off and then on again, the warning light turns off. Also, when the indicator is on, the light flashes slightly with the indicator. Due to this, I kind of think it might be an earthing problem. Anyone had this? If it is I'll gladly sort out the earthing as the light does my head in.

Happened to me too last year after trying to show off the engine to a mate, served me right. The get under the car with a screwdriver option is the best one once you find what to do. How much of a pain is the new cable to fit though?! It's bad enough feeding it up into the scuttle panel and through the bay, let alone attaching it to the handle inside the car, it's a right awkward piece of metal, it hurts if the end of it stabs you whilst working on it too.

I don't think they're as bad as everyone makes out! Once you understand how it all works inside then it's easy to fix. I got mine a year ago, it would tilt but not slide, the owner said it was because of one of the cables, so I took his word for it. Went and got a new pair of cables, took the sunroof out, the original cables were fine! Whilst I was messing around with it though I broke another part, it was obviously weak in the 1st place not just me being clumsy! Fixed that, broke another part, so I think I have pretty much new mechanisms in there now. Unfortunately the guide I was initially following told me to make sure I greased up the cables well so they would slide properly, good advice apart from the fact that a lot of the mechanism parts are plastic and therefore soak up grease and expand in the frame! So it works with the manual winder, but is still too tight for the motor to operate it, hopefully one of these days it will all wear down enough so I can use it how it's supposed to be! It's worked fine on the manual winder ever since though, touch wood. If there is a market for high performance sunroof motors, I'll buy one.

It is very hopeful but it doesn't cost anything to try does it.

I'd give the DVLA thing a go! I wouldn't care if it's harsh, it's much better than paying over the odds, and you get it free without breaking the law! Definitely worth a try in my opinion, if it doesn't work then nothing is lost. Plus, when the time does come to sell it, think of the money that could be made!

I actually did mean that the problem could have been due to the part photographed. That is the part I needed to sort out when fixing my sunroof because the wheel was out of line, not because the other slider part was bent. It was a suggestion based upon my own experience with fixing my sunroof which could have been right, as could yours.