dr_mat

Those prices are much more like it. Although the rebuild might be a bit more expensive darn sarf...

You can buy a used VR6 box for MUCH less than that, and it'll be good for another 50k miles...

Q1: they must check that the light is lit during the engine start cycle, then that it goes out and stays out for the remainder of the test. You'll need to be lucky... can't help ya with the other one.. sorry..

I thought Inpro did all-red too?

Just build it the wrong way round. And call it a "Megane" or something...

(Well we've already ascertained that the lambda is being fed fresh air, rather than exhaust gas, so will be reading utter nonsense..)

.. but VAG will sell you a whole 2.9 ABV engine (probably a bored out 2.8) for about £3700. This is clearly inclusive of a new/recond top end and comes with 2 year warranty.

My spreadsheet of costs of VR ownership overflowed a 32-bit integer, so I had to divide it all by £10,000 to get it to fit on the page... Look at it this way - if you catch an original VR at the end of many of it's part's lifetimes and you're looking at: timing chains: £600+ exhaust: £300+ aux belt tensioner: £140+ steering rack: £250+ pair of tyres (once every 8000 miles): £140+ rear brake calipers: £150+ rear axle bearings: £150+ full set of shocks: £250+ .. plus the inevitable failures: a couple of door handles, headlight switch, sunroof repairs ... .. and then there's the low 20s MPG, and the group 18 insurance costs ... Now you're right, you might not catch all these in the next couple of years, you might be lucky. You might also stumble on a car that's had the majority of this list done before. But if the person who's gone through the pain of this lot is selling, you can bet they'll want more than £4k just to cover the repairs they've paid for... Don't get me wrong - the C VR6 is a great car, but puurleeease don't expect it to be cheap to maintain. The above prices are not that much less if you can get the labour done cheap/free, by the way...

..but of course start by lifting the cam cover and checking the cam timing, to see if that's a possible.

I really must get a new sump gasket fitted.........

Sorry but it would have to, cos it looks pretty awful... :?

Well not that it helps you one jot, but my VR just passed it's MOT.. Makes me happy, anyway! :) When you say "reset at a steady 60mph" does that mean you reset whilst coasting with your foot off the throttle?

Hey, how about that! Someone on the Corrado Forum bought a Corrado! Wow! ;) But I *do* like the blackberry ones...

Use your AF meter - what does *that* say the mix is? If you're running hugely rich, there's a problem, if not it's your driving!! Like you say though, an air leak in the exhaust manifold will *not* help your lambda one bit. The ECU would probably over-richen the mix to compensate for the high air/fuel ratio it's seeing at the lambda. Have you got some heat resistant tape you can wrap the leaks up in?

1) remove old one 2) fitting is reverse of removal this is a three spanner job.. ;)

.. such as your good self, Hooligan Hayward? ;)

They can't prosecute based on a camcorder, no. And the "truvelo" cameras aren't infra red, no, there's a couple of sensor lines under the road, that's how it measures the speed. Then it uses an infra-red film to take (two) pictures of the car, like a normal gatso, but with no flash.

Clearly you've been caning it... At least a bit...

Yep. The engine stays cooler longer and this means it runs richer longer, which means you have more opportunity to pollute the CAT and you simply burn more fuel. The other option is your temp gauge might be a bit iffy. (But if it goes up to around 100 when you're stuck in traffic and stays there, it's probably not.) Around 80 is not too bad, by the way - the thermostat is supposed to OPEN at 80, below 80 is a problem.

BTW - if the heater matrix is the newer type, it'll fail to "blocked" - i.e. cold. So if the heater matrix has gone, you'll get no hot air (and no wet feet either). Get under the bonnet and make sure that both pipes "to" and "from" the heater matrix are hot.

Don't see why not..... But then, I've not heard of anyone who's tried that..

Well it's a pretty stupid roller if the torque/power doesn't cross at 5250... given that one is calculated from the other.. They can still be out though, even if the lines cross.

If your water tenp drops below 80 on the open road your thermostat is sticking open, and it'll be costing you a fortune on cold start cycles in fuel. Up to 95 is no worries, it's a pressurised system, so don't be surprised to see 100+ if you get stuck in traffic in the summer. The engine not catching and keeping running on startup *is* unusual - this is a reasonably modern fuel injected engine, it should fire and keep firing. Difficult to say where to start looking to solve something like this, but certainly checking the plugs/leads seems like a sensible starting point. As said above, VAG-COM (or equivalent) is the starting point for ABS faults. It *probably* is just a sensor, but if the light comes on during an MOT test it'll fail, and bear in mind the ECU logs the faults - once it records the same fault a number of times for a given sensor, the light will come on permanently until you can get it to a diagnostics-equipped garage. Also, as I'm sure you read the buying guide you'll know that you're probably approaching the dreaded timing chain time.. :-\ Having just had my chains done I can tell you that the engine runs a lot smoother when cold now that the valve timing is tightly controlled.. You just had the 80k mile service done at 94k? What happened there? Good luck!! (I bought a VR with 101k miles on it about 2 years ago now.)

I wasn't jumping off the fence...! But it'll certainly help you decide.

Drive the audi, then decide.