dr_mat

The "plus" policy, which is £100 a year does cover "normal wear and tear" tho, but even that has the exclusion about "faults you should have known about when you started the journey". Dunno man, in some ways it sounds ok, but I'm right out with 118k miles, and I can't help thinking that you can't get a decent car warranty from an expensive company like the AA for cheap cash...

o) the Vehicle is no more than 10 years old and has no more than 100,000 recorded miles when you register it with us o) defects you knew or ought reasonably to have known about prior to the commencement of the journey on which the breakdown occurred; o) failure of an insured component due to gradual deterioration, commensurate with the age and/or mileage of the vehicle; this last one is the killer. Coil pack's 8 years old? Oh dear. Probably about time it failed then.

A failing coil pack very rarely completely strands a VR6, most failures tend to be irritants that don't strand you anywhere, and hence won't be covered. Coolant system though, that will strand a car. So maybe it's worth it for stuff like that, but I have a feeling there's exclusions... I can't remember what the exclusions were, but basically I think there were enough that I wasn't going to bother with it. Check the small print..

I think we mentioned this before, could be wrong, but my point was that this will only cover parts and labour required to make good a *breakdown*. This is not a mechanical warranty... If you lose a hose *at the roadside*, they'll replace the hose (not bad then!), but if you fail the MOT on emissions, your timing chains are rattly and your steering rack is loose, you won't get anything back from the AA..

I agree - it definitely points to insufficient additive and prolonged intervals between coolant changes (but then, it's not on the VW service schedule, AFAIK). Given that it's brown, it's got to be rust, and therefore it's got to come of the big lump of ferrous metal - probably the block. I doubt that it's going to cause too many problems in the long term, but once it's been pumped around a few times it really does seems that it's VERY hard to get rid of completely. I mean, over the last couple of years my coolant system has been flushed around 4 times, and it's still there. Just flush it a few more times, maybe not straight away, and see if it starts to fade away. I don't seem to have problems with elevated coolant temps or anything, certainly nothing different from what other people have reported, so I'd be inclined to not worry about it too much.

GRINGOG60, you might just need your headlight targetting adjusted slightly, if main beam is really pointing that high. The uprated looms help, certainly, but if you're shining 100 watts into the air, it still won't help!

Yep, those are pretty much the exact symptoms we had on an old Jetta 1.6 when the distributor cap was rotten..

I suspect you'll find that pretty much every component inside the system has rusty coloured gak on it. I've replaced a top hose, thermostat and housing, auxilliary water pump and they've all come out with rusty brown gak...

Most garages these days do an engine flush when they change the oil.. Which is a bit pointless if you're changing it so often..

Well it seems from the above article that people *do* want old tax discs... Bizzarre but true. I can't help but wonder if no-one had ever thought to collect this stuff until this company came along and decided to offer it..

They will only be paying good money for very old tax discs. The last ten years they probably have buckets fulls of them...

It's more likely to be the trim just above the pedals not quite sitting properly. I had the same problem the other week, sometimes I had to squeeze the pedal over to one side to pull it back past the nick on the trim.

S'funny, I'd heard they were illegal...

I think it's called "creating a market"...

ISTR that remote start is illegal in the UK.. Something about not being in control of a running vehicle, can't remember the details.

Not the same design. I've not seen what you're refferring to, but I know all the recent problems have been with the inidividual over-the-plug coilpacks, that remove the need for HT leads. And I thought they'd fixed that (mostly) now?

Someone send that guy a spelling checker..

Is it noisy? If it's running at the proper speed, and it's not noisy (when it's on) then it's likely the fan is fine and the problem is an intermittent contact somewhere else. Apparently the contacts on the dial control can wear to the point they won't work well...

AFAIK there's no overall cover for it, just a small cover for the right hand side near the ECU. But the plastic they made it out of is so flimsy a strong breeze will blow a hole in it, so it's probably not worth it!

Valuations are also based on "options" fitted to the car, e.g. leather trim, air con, CD player etc etc. (Interestingly the adjustable steering column was a £97 option on the original cars.. So how come they're £537 now?) Pictures would help a great deal also..

.. don't forget the Peugeot 406 (minicab of the year 2002). That's also the best handling front-drive car ever. To be honest I'm more inclined to believe a Lotus-derived chassis is class leading than a Peugeot (or even VW) one.. The brits make the best sports cars and the best hifi. We're crap at Cricket tho...

I know the noise you were talking about Phat: try going on hols for three weeks and then (jump) starting your VR6. The tappets will make exactly the same noise.... I say jump starting cos the battery will almost certainly be flat! :|

They might have been horrid looking (I'm not disagreeing there), but by all accounts they handled fabulously. "The best handling front wheel drive car bar none." was about the sort of thing you would hear.

In Henny's defence, the vast majority of people using this forum use the "search messages since last login" page, which means all six of your postings were immediately sitting there at the top of the page in a line, thereby making it pointless to post more than once..

Does your car come with a "little devil" and "little angel" attachment, kev? It certainly seems to be schizo...