dr_mat

The police will pull people over if they have "disabled" some lights, surely? And that then gives them an excuse to search the rest of the car, particularly if it's full of tweenies.. People don't like to be told their car is rubbish/stupid. There was a guy in a mk1 Golf ahead of me the other night. The front end of the car was bouncing like Paris Hilton, and I thought about stopping them to suggest they get their shocks checked .. but noticed the baseball caps .. and decided to let them find out for themselves on the next bump mid-corner .. :)

Got a laptop? Buy a lead off ebay for £30. The software is free for reading errors, you only need to register ($99) for the extras (sadly basic settings is an extra..).

Oh well, OE equipment wins again .. Pity it's so damned expensive!

The original VW loom might be a "poor" design in terms of electrical efficiency, but it does seem to stand the test of time .. I'm kinda glad I never fitted the dodgy looking loom I bought off ebay now!!

I thought there was a list on the first page, distilled from the entire thread .. ?

More likely you'll need a replacement sensor. Just read the codes first, then consider the reset/basic settings. Oh, and there is an entire thread devoted to people offering their services with VAG-COM, complete with their location information!

I'd guess you're not talking to Vince about this for a reason .. ?

Immboliser pickup fault? Tried the spare key? There's lots of threads on how to clean up the immobiliser reader coil connections. They are known to corrode over time, so check it out..

See, VAG-COM is free for code reading. All you need is a laptop and the right cable. And since this is an internet forum you can bet that a large percentage of people have laptops ... which leaves the cable. Which can be found for about £30 on ebay...

You can tell it's the timing chains death rattle if it gets worse at exactly 1200 rpm ...

ISTR that all VR6s have a slight misfire if you hold the engine revs to ~2000.. So don't worry too much about that. (Even Vince at Stealth commented on that one once.) Coolant leaks are most likely to be caused by (in order, pretty much!) - heater matrix supply pipe on rear of cylinder head (hard to see - and usually caused by sloppy engine mounts) - auxiliary coolant pump (right rear of the engine as you look under the bonnet) - radiator - main water pump (lower left of the engine, driven by the alternator belt) But general loss of water can in ultimately mean anything from head gasket to just the expansion tank pressure cap being faulty ..! As for topping up, think you're supposed to use distilled water or proper coolant. GSF sell the pink G12+ VW coolant (made by Febi) for cheap money, so get some of that.

If I was spending a million quid on a garage I'd want four bedrooms, all en-suite, two good sized reception rooms and a nice big kitchen ...

All sounds pretty normal to me ...

You can buy ECUs on ebay regularly for £20 or so, worth trying as they're dead easy to swap too. But usually the outlet valve fault means it the ABS pump unit.. They are a known weakness. The good news is they, too, are easy and cheap to come by, since on the whole they are very reliable, and therefore there's piles of good ones in scrap yards around the country.

You can't choose them for economy.. They both run on fluffy bunny rabbits and scare pensioners.. Insurance, fuel, repairs, they will all add up quickly for either car. The G60 "repair list" above is interesting, but you'll note that several of those items are Corrado-general items, so the VR6 has the same problems. VR6s, in addition, regularly require: timing chains coil packs MAF sensors engine speed sensors head rebuilds rebores aux water pumps ... and many more. But on the upside, the VR6 will hold it's value longer than the G60, because like it or not (you G60 drivers just chill out here .. ), the VR6 is the one that has attracted all the attention, and is the one that everyone wants.

Coil pack or ignition leads. Or avoid puddles. The choice is yours.

Ok, I see what you mean. :) But yeah, to increase top speed by that kind of margin (130-135 up to 150) will require a significant power increase. You only require about 50 bhp to do 70 mph, but from there on up it gets really hard, because wind resistance is proportional to speed squared .. Maybe not 70-80 bhp, that was a guesstimate based on the 125 -> 150, but certainly 40-50 bhp.

"How do I tell"? "You get a voltmeter..!"

Better bet for working around a dodgy heater matrix is to bypass it. Get the two pipes that go to the matrix, and connect them to each other. Job done. No hot air in the cabin, but more importantly, no steamy windows. Unless you want them steamy ..

Hmm. 140 vs 125 mph top speed means you had around an extra 70-80 bhp available. Unless your old exhaust was *actually blocked* I'd be somewhat surprised to see that kind of change just from the exhaust pipe!

I think you should read my post above... Look for current drains when everything is turned off... There's no simple answers.

1) because he had some lying around 2) because he wanted to fit big-arse brakes .. probably ..

I think a multimeter should really be considered an important part of the Corrado toolkit, particularly on a little-used car. Buy one. They cost £5 from maplins. Saves buying batteries, eh .. ?

It's cheating if you go for a low number while you're on cold-start enrichment, by the way.. I saw 9mpg on the VR once, when it was warmed up. ISTR that was at full throttle in 3rd @ around 70 mph ...

Point of an exhaust is not to give an unrestricted outlet, it's to encourage stable linear air flow at all revs, which helps to scavenge gases from the cylinder when the exhaust valve opens. Cars tend to run less well if they exhaust to atmosphere than through the standard exhaust system...