dr_mat

Get a voltmeter on the battery. Anything below 12v means it's probably too low to turn the engine over. The alarm probably goes off because the voltage drops too far - many of them detect things like that. If so, give it a nice slow trickle charge for 24 hours at 1 amp or so and you might resurrect it. If it's still low, or only holds charge for a day or two once fully charged, then chances are it's dead. Lead acid batteries don't handle being left discharged for long periods of time. The electrodes sulphate up, making it unable to deliver current next time you charge it.

No, but I would rather have had a VW one..

Wasn't the Golf VR6 replaced by the "Golf V6" and the 4motion models in the late 90s? That would explain the cliff-dive in sales figures after 97..

Completely agree, I'm happy with Synta Silver in mine, it doesn't get *that* thrashed .. :) And the oil temp doesn't get over 115 or so, even with sustained motorway driving. (Even though I didn't see the point of a third party oil cooler..)

Your local stealers do seem to be pretty useless - telling you parts are obsolete, when they're just on back-order from Germany, telling you parts are going to take months to get hold of etc... Sad fact is my local dealer runs the parts dept to feed their service dept (and because it's a requirement of the franchise), no other reason. Punters can go get screwed if they want to get work done elsewhere, frankly. The annoying thing is they're very very handy .. I now have an ECP rad on my car.

Degradation of the oil due to shearing is a one-way process though, and therefore pushing your car temp high will have a negative impact on oil performance, but that negative impact cannot be recovered by cooling the engine down again... And the shearing tends to reduce the oil viscosity, according to the above, so the losses inside the engine due to oil friction would actually be reduced.

You're lucky VW managed to GET a VR6 rad. They were telling me it was going to be months before they could get a genuine one.

Why? high oil temp usually means thinner oil, which usually means less internal friction and more power left to go to the wheels. I don't know if this changes as things go to extremes..?

Compression test and leak-down test will give you *hints* to bore wear, but the only real way to find out is to whip the head off and look .. Price of a rebore is high. Many people are currently thinking that a replacement engine is cheaper and better in the long term ..

It's similar, yes.

No it's true, the ECUs are getting "cleverer" .. Even naturally aspirated cars now have smart throttles. A mate had rust build up on his brake disks and he was told to brake whilst driving along to clear it (fair enough), but of course, when you put your foot on the brake, the throttle no longer responds (the engine decides it's stupid to do both!). He was then told that to get round that you have to press the throttle TWICE - i.e. get off it and then back on, the ECU then decides you are doing this deliberately and actually responds.

Sounds like something not worth worrying about to me ...

Sounds like the ignition switch to me.

One: sounds like your thermostat is stuck closed, easy fix. Two: the oily plugs is likely bad news though mate .. That usually means cylinder head work or a full rebore, depending on which end the oil is getting into the cylinders from .. How much oil is it using between services? :(

I thought all Corrado owners had 306TDi s as second (aka reliable) cars already? Did you pass that one by?? :)

Congratulations, you bought a G61 Corrado!

Sounds like this one is bad though..! Best avoided, imho.

"Glass cover" in your insurance will cover the side glasses too, without effecting your no-claims. You should just pay the excess (£50 or £60) for each incident up to the prescribed max.

What exactly does "ipod ready" mean?? What sort of connector is it?

And let's face it, a nice straight, reliable 2.8 with a supercharger will destroy a clunky 2.9 anyday.. :)

Immaculate as ever! Are you missing the top cable guide there? and BTW is that the donor car sitting rusting in the background there ... ? :) I have visions of a painting in your attic of a Corrado that is getting progressively more rusty, knackered, losing panels and engine parts ...

Looks like you could do with replacing the whole lot there (apart from the springs!). Bump stops and spring seats too... You could call your local GSF or ECP place, but I would imagine that sort of part would be difficult to track down on a saturday.

Kinda serves you right for moving all those perfectly functional bits of engine just to clean the bleedin thing! ;)

Duh, smooth original 2.8 or a clanky noisy smoky 2.9? No brainer there mate, unless you like rebuilding engines in your spare time. Obviously the 2.9 is quicker, it's got 15bhp advantage. But it's also likely to cost you a small bleedin fortune if that smokiness (was it SMOKE or STEAM??) is a sign ...

Sounds like the timer chip on the MFA is fubar.. Not sure how integrated into the ECU this is, but it certainly sounds like you've got to swap the clocks over at the very least.