dr_mat

I can't be sure, no, cos I didn't do it. But someone here did and said "it still made the noise"... Who cares? All VWs do it anyway.

Only saying because someone took the aux belt off and started the car when cold and it still did it. If I'm wrong, fine, but what else could it be? Oil pressure is very high when the oil is very cold, your theory about the PAS pump was based on the same assumption, but I'll wager the oil warms up much more quickly than the PAS fluid.

By the way, we'd discussed the whining noise, and I think we'd come to the conclusion in another thread that it was probably the oil pump.. (Since it still happens if the water and PAS pumps are disconnected ..)

I hope you didn't pay for a battery instead of a battery tester ... !! When my starter died it wasn't repeatedly clicking, it would click once. The copper braid that carries the current from the solenoid to the starter coils was rotted through, it was just green powder. It had exploded in the cold air. When you said it was "clicking" I assumed you meant repeatedly, and rapidly...?

I'd talk to them first ... calmly and sensibly. If they raise the bar or are unreasonable, send in the lawyers.

Well don't panic yet, it could be any one of about 7 other expensive components leaking instead!! Start by making sure the expansion bottle cap is tightly screwed down ...

Hold both terminals of the battery. If you're still alive when you let go, it's flat. (Don't try this at home, kids.) Seriously though, you have two choices: - test the battery (multimeter costs £4.95 from maplins) - replace it anyway (~£40-50) - recharge the battery (a decent charger will cost ~£30 from Argos - though there's an RAC one on sale for £17.99) You might find that the battery can't be charged, or even when charged still won't hold the voltage, so you'll have to replace it anyway.

Got a voltmeter?

- 0513 Engine Speed Sensor (No Signal) means the engine was not running when you scanned the ECU.

Stepping off topic I doubt that is the source of this, or any problem. Clearly that connector hasn't gone like that, it's always been like that. So if it worked before it'll work again...

Yes, if the battery is a bit low it'll do this. Basically the solenoid kicks in ok, but the moment the starter attempts to turn the crank, the battery voltage drops too low and the solenoid can't sustain it, so it kicks out again .. then the battery recovers slightly and the solenoid kicks in ... rinse and repeat .. Most likely your battery is low. See my post on the "Optima batteries group buy" thread for more details ...

Do you invite them all to your loud parties Jim? ;)

They don't last for ever ... once the acid breaks down, it's no longer a battery, just a heavy plastic box with poisonous things in it ...

Good! I bought it from GSF, and I was looking for that very information last night but couldn't find it. BTW: checking some more it seems that the C's 14v alternator output should be enough to properly charge whatever battery you fit, so don't worry too much. It seems a lot of older cars had e.g. 13.3v regulators and that left batteries around 60% charged at most, not good. I am thinking that next time I leave the car standing for any length of time I'm going to locate the circuit that's draining it, and pull the fuse .. Did anyone figure out which circuit causes the problem?

Even Bosch's website states that you should never leave a brand new Bosch Silver discharged: "fully recharge the battery immediately"... Man I hope mine's not knackered.. it's only two years old...! Funny isn't it? The more you read, the more you don't know. It seems that many people claim that older cars don't provide enough volts to fully charge modern batteries. The Corrado's alternator regulator was always set to 13.8-14.2v ish. It may be that Optima batteries use a different technology that needs around 15v to fully charge... Bosch Silver may well be in the same camp. Perhaps we should just go to the dealer and buy a nasty old fashioned lead/antimony/acid battery with a point where you can top up with distilled water?

Looks like the red tops are just heavy duty lead-acid, so they aren't any less prone than any other brand. The only thing they talk up on the web site is "strength" - resistance to heat and vibration. They don't make any claims about deep-cycling resistance. This probably just means they use stronger internals to make up the electrodes. The deep-dicharge cycle isn't a big deal, as long as the battery doesn't spend much time down low. I don't know what sort of time limits we're talking about on this though.. maybe google could help.. craigowl that's probably fine. The fact that you trickle charge the battery every day means you'll probably never have trouble. (The fact that my car is rarely less than 20 feet from my house makes that impossible!) Note also that when the battery is on charge in the car, it's receiving ~14v, so if you take a reading moments after turning the engine off, you'll see an unrealistically high value. You need to let the battery equalise for 30 minutes or so before you can see what it *really* outputs. bcstudent, yep, 200mA drain will completely flatten your 50Ah battery in just over 10 days... But worse than that is that the battery may not be able to start the car once it drops below about 20% charge, so you'll reach that about a day or two earlier ...

I have had a suspicion for some time that the subframe is moving and that's what's causing all these problems (in fact, I mentioned it to Vince last summer).. The subframe -> chassis mount point is the only bit that's "corrado-specific", too.

i.e. 5% charge and below ... There's a whole other class of batteries called "deep cycle" batteries that are designed to be used that way - i.e. charge right up, drain right down. (This is probably what you're more familiar with for e.g. NiCd rechargeables and so on.) The point I was making is that unfortunately, each and every time the car battery is allowed to completely discharge you are damaging it's ability to be recharged. This is why cars have battery voltage meters on the dash - so you can see when it's time to whip the battery out and give it a top-up charge. These damn Corrados seem to sit there sucking juice, even when everything is turned off, and basically that means they chew batteries - unless you use the car every day. Even then, if you go away leaving the car at home for three weeks it's completely flat when you return and you've probably taken a big chunk off the life of the battery.. :(

My battery was flat yesterday morning, too.. If you have a flat battery (i.e. car won't start), check the voltage across the terminals with a multimeter. Anything less than about 11v means the battery is probably fubar and won't recover even if you charge it carefully. Anything 11v or above means it just needs a good charge, most likely. The open circuit voltage, measured when the engine is off. It can be approximately related to the charge of the battery by: Open Circuit Voltage ~ State-of-charge 12.65 V 100 % 12.45 V 75 % 12.24 V 50 % 12.06 V 25 % 11.89 V 0 % Just FYI. Note that car batteries will not last long if they are deep-discharged. Sulphation occurs, rendering those areas of the electrodes effected useless for charge carrying. They are designed to operate best and last longest with continuous trickle charge, so that the state of charge is always kept high. There are other designs of battery that DO survive this type of treatment, but they usually can't deliver the very heavy starting current that a car requires, so we're stuck with what we have, on the whole.

They are, after all, "captive"... But it would be an ultra-uncool design if they were welded into the chassis and then completely inaccessible. Writing off a car for busting one of these bolts would be uncool..

I don't have a lowered car. And I don't have steering rack issues. I think it's something else...

How actually *cold* is it there right now? I mean it's pretty bloody cold right here in the south of England 52 degrees latitude...

The "oil filled piece of junk" is the only mount the succesfully prevents you listening to your aging gearbox whine like a barsteward. But yes, it's a bit sloppy, so some may prefer to switch to a solid mount. The oil filled piece of junk also usually manages to last around 100k miles, so it can't be that bad ..

Did you replace the subframe?

Nope, I have standard bushes all round. The only non-standard bit of rubber is the VT front engine mount. It could easily be something to do with the wishbone rear bush - it is, after all, responsible for keeping the wheel position central. Mine are new though, as are most people's round here. More likely to be what it mounts into though. Could also be the bottom BJ mounting shifting? (They're screwed onto the wishbone.)