dr_mat

"an inch of freeplay in the steering" - in which direction? That must come from somewhere.. track rod end? track rods? hub itself? The grinding on left handers could be wheel bearings or CV joint. CV joint wouldn't cause steering weirdness though (unless under torque from the engine I suppose).

Sorry mate, but didn't know if you had vagcom, or a halfrauds LED -based reader or even a few diodes and LEDs hacked together yourself. No point us busting a gut to re-write the VAGCOM manual if you've not go it, is there? Though I note that RW1 has re-written the VAGCOM manual anyway (again!). Perhaps you have more patience than I! :)

R T F M!!

Might have been nice if you'd put your doubts in with the original post, just in case someone came along and read it as gospel ...! In fact the best way to cool the brakes down is to not stop.. Just keep moving slowly, getting air to flow over the whole disk surface..

Trouble is dinkus, you're sitting there for two minutes allowing 70% of the disk to air cool, while holding hot pads against the other 30%, and preventing any air-flow over them..

Also known as a good method for warping your disks I would have thought!

It would be easy to justify replacing the lambda at least (oxygen sensor no signal). That might also clean up the mixture and possibly even the idle reg errors. Does hall sensor show up "no signal", like the crank sensor on early VRs? Crank sensor (engine speed) will always show if you've not got the engine turning.

The most common problem is corrosion on the inner rims causing this. There's not really a *good* way to fix it without having a refurb (though careful sanding should be almost as good), oh and watch out for some of the wheel refurb coyboys who don't consider that the inner rim needs tidying up too ..

24v came out well before the R32, so more likely the other way around. Is the R32 still using an iron block?

Did the rotor arm feel tight? Yes, contamination would be obvious, but what was the condition of the contacts on the rotor arm like?

The other plugs look like they're just sooty, not oily.

There's only two pipes go straight to the bulkhead, undo the two circlips, get a small piece of joining piping (the RAC carry this stuff around habitually), clip the two free ends to either side of the joining pipe ... fasten ... say hello to your new uncle Robert.

Yes. Got any sensible error codes?

Keep thinking, got nowt against that, but keep yer wallet in yer pocket ... Rolling roads give you an estimate of transmission losses that's all.

I cannot believe that the RAC man couldn't be arsed to bypass your heater matrix and run the car like that?? Incredible! Five minute job, and you're back on the road (albeit COLD!)..

10 years or 100k miles is the upper limit on all the insurance policies I looked at.

That would be the odd noise you were talking about then ...?

That's an MFA-measured 20mpg? If so the engine is overfuelling - check your lambda. If the MFA is still reporting fine MPG then you must have a leak. ..

Could be... but then, your dizzy could still be clagged up with oil or something too, so still worth checking it out..

I've had similar problems that were caused by dizzy .. I note you have a '92 so worth checking out your distributor too.

"Arguments derive from MY opinions being different to YOURS....how boring the world would be without belligerent people...." Well said. :) I don't like to see people chasing ghosts, that's all. Trying to lower your transmission losses based on a *guess* as to what they are is kinda pointless, imho. Okay, maybe "guess" is overstating the inaccuracy, but it's an empirical system that allows you to infer roughly what the transmission losses are. Sure it may work consistently (I've read the story Vince put up about his faith in his rolling road), but consistency does not automatically mean accuracy. It might be consistently wrong .. Without an engine dyno you'll never really know for sure. You don't have to be an expert to see that this is plainly true. The experts would say their results are "good enough" though, no doubt. No point in arguing about it though..

Fit smaller wheels ...

Is it? Did you measure it by using an engine dyno, then a wheel dyno and calculating the difference? If not it's an estimate at best .. 30 - 50 bhp is not uncommon ..

If your Golf has the electronic throttle body AFAIK it should be the same as the AAA ECU from the 97 car, if I'm not mistaken at least ... But I thought it was only 95-> VR6s that got OBD2 and electronic throttles..?

Come off it! How many people on this forum would think it was the mrs being photographed when they were out driving their C? The CF bunch all have one-track minds... ;)