Lufbramatt

economy does sound low- one of our pool cars is a mk2 laguna (previous shape) which gets ragged mercilessly and always says about 43mpg on the computer. Agree with the turbo lag and silly powerband tho, and they are like driving a matress, no feedback and horrible wallowy suspension. ugh

sorry i just msn'ed him to check, it was the front mount that he replaced. said it was pretty easy to do- put a jack under the sump with a bit of wood to spead the load, undo the bolts on the mount and jack the engine up and fit the new one.

i doubt that they would be knackered so soon if they were vag items (think they are on yours, remember seeing the huge invoice hehe) as they are joints designed to accomodate movement so even if somethings not aligned right it shouldnt make any difference. A mate of mine whos a VW tech had the similar symptoms recently on his mk4 passat and turned out to be the front engine mount.

strangelt mine has just started doing the exact same thing you describe . . . be interesting to see what it is. Mine has had new wishbone bushes, ball joints, shocks, springs, top mounts and ive checked them all for tightness. When i had a similar knock before it turned out to be one of the rear caliper carrier bolts had come loose, but that was a different sound and you could hear it on bumps and whenever you touched the brake pedal. This clunk is only when pulling away ... i think it might be an engine mount on its way out tbh, in which case it dont matter as its getting a new engine soon woo :D

ive gotta make a 400 mile round trip to shrewsbury to pick up a car in a few weeks time, might get one of these to save me £50 worth of petrol :) if its anything like the last generation laguna, it will indeed be pants, but the 2.0 tdci engines are pretty quick and theyre comfy on the motorway . . . edit- BOOO 25 or older :(

oddly, i had the same thing, but only when i replaced the plastic steering wheel on my passat with a leather one from a VR6 rado. The morning after i swappaed it i had to leave at 6am for work, and woke everyone up when i turned the ignition on (erm twice lol). Incidentally the wires had been taped up inside the wheel when i got it . . . I ended up swapping the horn contact plates for the ones out of the passat wheel, as no matter how i put it back in the rado horn switch was stuck on. I did notice that the foam on the plates was different- the passat foam was thinner but denser. I dont know if that had anything to do with it, but both the passat wheels ive seen had foam like this and ive never had any probs with them . . .

it would force manufacturers to really step up on the technology front- performance would still be a key factor to the consumer, so theyd just have to make fast cars that are efficient as well.

thread revival . . . long story short is im getting engine/gearbox/subframe etc off a mk4 16v passat to go on my b3, which also means I can convert it to 5-stud :) Im going to be refurbing the wishbones so i can use the mk4 style ball joints+hub carrier, and rather than use polybushes this time i was going to go down the R32/TT route with the bushes, assuming theyre not silly money. so, anyone know how much are a pair of the bushes from VW?

bout £25 each though arnt they? done mine (all 4 in a passat) with a £2.50 pack of rubble bags and a £4 tube of waterproof adhesive :)

4" round speakers will fit too if you make a little adaptor plate out of mdf. opens the choice up a lot.

one of my mates has had excellent resukts with the zaino range of products from the usa- the leather cleaner (z9) and conditioner (z10) borught his leather interior in his GTV very nicely, and it now looks and feels like a new interior. http://www.zainostore.com/Merchant2/mer ... Code=Zaino he got his from an ebay store.

has creaky steering when turning to right at slow speeds- turned out it was a fubared top mount. When we took the strut out the bearings fell out on the floor! new VAG top mounts= no more creaks :D

when mine broke, one of the plastic retainers for the gears broke and jammed the direction lever as the gears have a kind of cam/track in them that moves the cables in or out. Its all a bit flimsy tbh. I didnt find it hard to source a working set of mk3 passat controls though, lots of people breaking them on ebay just have to keep a lookout. Lubing the control cables helped a lot too, as i think thats what makes them brake in the first place.

:( I am sad now :(

currently doing the door membranes/sound proofing on my passat- i got a pack of 10 rubble bags from B+Q for about £2.50, and instead of dynamat i picked up a roll of flashing tape- really sticky bituminous stuff with a foil backing meant for the edges of roofs i think. Got a 6" x 10m roll for about £7. Might have to go to one of those huge warehouse B+Q's (or wickes) tho as the smaller ones dont seem to have the flashing strip. Its a bit thinner than dynamat, but seems to work just as well and is loads cheaper!

if you go right back to the plastic make sure you use a proper plastic primer to make the subsequent primer and paint coats stick properly. I got some transparent U-pol stuff from http://www.paints4u.com which seems to have worked well. For the paint I used this: http://www.paints4u.com/ProductDetails. ... uctID=6056 and the laquer I used U-pol smart clear which was excellent and polished up really well. Use a palm sander if you can, makes it much easier. I did the plastic front mask (see sig) and the front bumper as well as all the plastic door and wheel arch trims on my passat about a year ago and apart from one or two tiny stone chips on the front bumper theyve help up really well, including one of my door trims being reversed into by a transit van, wasnt even a scratch :)

just a quick note as weve been discussing this on ukpassats (someone put a '95 mk4 passat PAS rack on a '90 mk3 passat), that the spline on the bottom of the steering column stayed the same it appears, so if you can get the universal joint that matches the rack from a scrappers etc then the spline type can be changed. http://www.ukpassats.co.uk/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=3932

"meadow fresh" for me lol

yea they are on the same switch as the HRW. Ive been using the halfords screen wash that you dilute yourself in the white 1 liter bottle mixed about 1 part wash to 15 parts water and not had any probs with freezing washers and car said it was -8 this morning!

is there anywhere i can download this? it was my gf's birthday so has been the only TG of this series ive missed and turns out it was one of the best :(

my mate richards tinted lights on his passat: http://www.ukpassats.co.uk/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=2055 ok theyre not yellow but defo more orange than with just a normal white bulb behind the red lights.

so sounds like its one of those "they got what was left on the racking in the warehouse" type situations?

those ebay green bulbs look like they should do the job :) because its transmitted light rather than reflected light its all a bit backward compared to "mix red and yellow to get orange" when you paint a picture, hence green+red=yellow lol

only bodge so far on the piss-rat is holding the sides of the mk4 front bumper (its mk3 passat) in with zip ties through holes in the plastic arch liner so it lines up with the wheel arches :) as mk4's are apparently about 2cm wider than mk3's . . .

you would need green lights IIRC think the colour has to be quite intense too, I know some guys who have done this with glass paint, but the bulbs needed a good 3 or 4 coats before the pigment was thick enough to make a difference.