dr_mat

Your other option is to simply tell them about the accident (you have a legal requirement to inform them), but that you're not claiming for it. You keep ownership of the car, break it yourself. Might work out better, financially.

I refer your honour to the previous posts with the same question... Trawl autotrader. Send ads. Ebay postings. Anything like that. But you won't get any of the modifications value back, they will never pay for that. So it was worth £4k a year ago - how many miles have been added since then? Losing £1k in a year is a *little* harsh, but that all depends.

BTW - don't worry too much about sitting with the fans on and the coolant at 100 degrees. VW knew this was going to happen, so it can handle it. Yes you get heat soak (inlet temp climbs rapidly), but all that kills is performance. Once you get moving again it should all cool down nicely. The only thing that is a concern is the climbing coolant temp while driving along. Oil temp should climb to over 100, that's perfectly normal, but the water temp shouldn't.

Aux coolant pump is very quiet, yes. Doesn't sound too bad, apart from the leak. Thermostats are easy to come by, yeah. Just a bit of a pain to swap, there's not a lot of room in there.

Buy a Bugatti Veyron. That's the only way to win the horsepower derby in the pub on saturday nights.

Dunno. I'm sure there'll be a module for it, but I dunno which one it is. Maybe it's the wiring to the gearbox that's the problem. BTW - you *did* check the engine earth strap, didn't you?

huh :| :? dont you have a hand brake in yours then mat? there all the rage now a days.. you should get one Modern technology such as this hasn't made it onto the VW product line. I park on a hill. The hand brake is rubbish. 2+2 is 4.

That'll be why no-one's seen that error. You have an auto box. Clearly some electrical connection to the auto box is flaky. There's an ECU there too, and obviously the engine has interlocks with the auto transmission.

You mean you trust your car to be where you left it parked without leaving it in gear? Or does the remote-start automatically take it out of gear and waggle the gear-stick left->right to make sure, and then sit with the brakes on till you get in the car...?

Wot's the obsession with highlighting the word "storm"? It's just a weather phenomenon. Or are you smarting at paying all that extra insurance for a badge? ;)

Gotta be the tappets. But then, mine are new, and they do the same thing. And before you say it my timing chains are new, too ... ;)

Must have been LOUD before the joint went, with no centre box!!

Or do you mean the one that attaches near the camshaft that reads the cam position?? Or maybe you mean one of the wheel speed sensors?

Hmmm. £90 vs £350... no brainer it seems to me!

The late VRs have a rev limiter quite a lot lower than 7k - around the 6500 rpm mark, IIRC, anyway. You'd need a rechip if you want to go to higher revs, but it's not a great idea. This is a big engine to be throwing it around at that rate. Fine if you rebuild every six months... The Schrick cams are really "designed" to work with the Schrick manifold - which provides slightly better flow at high rpm (by all accounts). I couldn't say how much, but there you go..

Yeah, last estimate of his piggy bank was in the $3-4 billion (or about £85.17)..

But surely "Grand Prix" is a generic term, can't be copyrighted .... oh wait, Microsoft managed it. It's about time they sued Redhat for having the gall to ship a "window manager". As for Bernie, well he's had a good run. Even if they fry him he's still going to come out with billions in the bank.

Did you have cause to "think it was a 60 when it was a 40"? If the signage is wrong you might be able to get out of it...

No, they ain't available. From anywhere. It's all you lot, obsessed with your cars, bought up the last lot of 'em!! ;) I don't know how hard it is to chrome plastic, but surely it's not going to be impossible!

[GPS tranmitters] Hopefully they won't be retro-fitted, so I'll keep driving round in old cars for the rest of my life. (At *slightly* above the speed limit, on brief occasions, but only when overtaking.. Ahem..)

*that* doesn't count as a defence. the law states that the letter must be *posted* within 14 days (or longer if the car's owner isn't the registered keeper, such as company cars), it doesn't stipulate when it has to be received by...

Next time you get a rattly wing mirror, don't worry, it's not the driveshaft, it just MIGHT be a rattly wing mirror... ;)

Not unless you're in that particularly weird part of the west midlands with a tropical climate, anyway...

First things first - the "hangs at 90 for a while" tends to indicate that either your thermostat is opening a bit late, or you've got a dodgy reading on your temp gauge. Possibly the 'stat is getting sticky - should open at 80 degrees. The fans should NOT be needed when cruising along the motorway, and you shouldn't see more than about 90 degrees in the water then, either. It really sounds to me like you have a stuck thermostat. Does the radiator ever get warm? The temp sensors for the rad fans are in the rad, so if it never gets any hot water in it, there's your big clue...

Twilight violet. THE best Corrado colour, EVER.