dr_mat

The manual for the Corrado states that the ABS unit performs a self-test after igition on when you reach 10kph which will be audible and you will feel through the pedal. You have a borked ABS component.

They also appear to do UK font pressed metal plates. I would guess they're road legal in the UK, cos they're the correct font/colour etc. I guess they must be reflective too ..?

Where do you get pressed steel ones? I have to say though, having seen nothing but Corrado front bumpers with a number plate in the middle I don't like them without...

Sure she wasn't parking against the curb and trying to push the car sideways with the rim .. ? ;)

That sounds like the bunny. The water pump is cheap enough, but you need to jack the engine up slightly to remove it so that it clears the chassis leg. If you're going to do that you may aswell replace it anyway.

You should be able to pick one up for less than that off ebay. Worth a go to test it .. They *can* be tested, but you'd need to take it to a Bosch specialist I think .. ** edit - i.e. wot he sed.. ^^

Was that funny? Perhaps I don't get it ...? For sure it's a seemingly obvious thing to say, but my point was that in the context of this discussion it backs up everyone's statements that "this is normal" and not to worry about... And maybe not everyone thinks about this sort of stuff.. (My missus for example...) Totally agree on the letting the car idle == bad thing on cold starts. That's (one of the reasons) why the book says you should get in and drive immediately rather than waiting for it to melt the ice you can't be arsed to scrape off the windscreen.. Glad to be of service, if I've amused anyone .. ;)

I think it's also because the pistons are made of a different alloy than the block - hence different expansion relative to temperature.

You will get away with it. As we said, all of 'em do it. It's just generally good advice to budget for a rebuild, because these cars are old and nearly dead.. ;)

I'm told by the erstwhile mr cheesewire that even new VR engines have a little bit of piston slap when cold ..

There's not a lot you can do .. other than try another one! If you have a late VR then they are ~ £65 + deposit for exchange from GSF.

The MAF is the other part of the fuelling holy triumvirate..

I hope you at least gave them a bollocking to remember.. :)

I would say that if VW stats are causing people problems, you shouldn't just avoid buying them, you should take them back until they supply one that works... That's the only way they'll get the message that supplying crap parts is not a good business model!

Only gas shocks return when you push them down manually. The shocks fitted to Corrados were not gas filled, with the sole exception of the ones on the VR6. I'd imagine that older Golfs were the same .. So don't necessarily assume that means they're fooked. I'm sure Vince said something about every 20k. Perhaps he meant they should be checked every 20k..

Apparently you should replace your shocks every 20k miles. But that's almost certainly a bit excessive for most people ..

Miles?

I expect to see those pics on rotten dot com before the end of the week ...

Make more difference how long your journeys are and how you drive than how big the pulley and exhaust are mate.

Sounds like your heater matrix is stuffed. There's a bypass valve to prevent water flooding inside the car when it fails.

Well that's odd, why would they keep making it? Anyway, the handbooks *are* out of date. For a bit of history VW replaced G11 with G12, but found that due to it's different make-up when mixed the two *can* cause blockages in waterways, so they reformulated to G12+ which is mixable with either the other two. Or so I'm told ..

Handbook was written in 1993. There's no such thing as G11 any more.

Surely there's gotta be a law covering this ??

I don't, it's already more expensive than milk per litre FFS. So what? One is a finite resource, the other is essentially infinite. It makes sense that the finite resource costs more... How synthetic are the synthetic oils? You can't refine them and run your car off them .. can you? And at the moment they are produced using energy derived from fossil fuels, so the problem just gets shuffled around somewhere else.

Thank fcuk you're not in parliament. But I think we should pay market rates for renewable sources of fuel for cars. Non-renewable sources should be hiked to suppress demand. I'm well in favour of the bio fuel thing, using plants to produce the oil directly is a great idea. The problem is the oil/gas companies inevtiable courtingof governments in order to massage future policy. We all know money talks to governments like nothing else, so I also think that political parties should have limited budgets and a certain amount of free election advertising so that they are less prone to bribery (it appears that most major political parties are basically bankrupt). Particularly in the US, the people with vested interests in maintaining the oil-based economy pour lots of money into political lobbyists. But to be honest, those people are pushing the government to keep the tax on fuel DOWN... So if there's corruption it's applying pressure in exactly the opposite way to the one most people are complaining about ..