dr_mat

These cars get nailed from day one in so many cases.. It's almost impossible to find a good one, sadly. You also have to check VERY hard to make sure that 75k miles is for real. A lot of 'em get clocked. As a guideline, a full engine rebore, plus head recon will cost about £2700 from Stealth, but you can buy a "new" engine - rebored 2.8 usually from VW for about £3600, and at least that way you can look forward to another 100,000 miles of VR6 fun.

That's a lot of oil! Mine doesn't use much - about 1 litre every 10k miles. It's most likely to be either the valve stem seals, which last about 100k usually, or the bores and rings.. (Which could last 500k if people knew how to treat cars properly.) Neither are easy/cheap. :( Of course, I'm assuming there's no sign of mayo and no sign of oil in the water here. The head gasket would be another contender.

Bummer dude. That is a good price though.. I'm looking at a bill of around £1900 next month for shocks/timing chains/abs sensor/shrek manifold plus fitting.. I think being skint is part of being a Corrado owner, sorry to say...

You'd imagine I robbed 'em with prices like that..! :) It just goes to show how much mark-up they make on stuff like this via the normal distributors. I mean, the rear shocks were £12.50 each!

Ah, the honeymoon period. You'll get over it. ;) Erm, as for that electrical thing, dunno off the top of my head. Someone around here is sure to have a bentley manual kicking around who can answer that question. You could also just spend a happy hour with your fuse tester and see if there's any duds...

Dunno about that. I'd say adjust 'em and put up with the squeak.. It'll probably go away if you lube 'em too, so a "free" repair! :)

LOL - jedi discovers that he didn't remove that nut at all.. :) £380 inc vat?? I would just like to point out I got a full set of OEM gas shocks delivered to my door for £72.. :D

Yep - can be adjusted. They only need replacing if they break. VW can do that themselves (let's face it, they'd need to adjust 'em if they fitted new ones). The only problem is if they've stretched too far, but I doubt that's likely.

Yeah, it's a bit high if it's doing that when you're moving, on the motorway. Do the fans cut in while you're driving along? What does the oil temp say on the MFA?

It sits at 110 when you're at speed on the motorway or in traffic? And are you talking about oil temp or water temp?

As a guideline, Stealth offer a package - new valve stem seals, guides, new head gasket, new tappets, new timing chains/tensioners and clutch for an all-in price of £1300.. Not cheap, but it certainly covers everything that's likely to need doing for the next 100k miles!

And yes, the rears are red, the fronts black from the factory.

Try the search engine. The OE VR shocks are SACHS Advantage (gas over oil) shocks. They are good for 100k miles usually, but if you've any knocking or wheezing, they will need replacing. You can buy them from GSF (fronts), or get BOGE Turbo Gas shocks in their place - I've been told by the manufacturer that they are identical.

Joe M: When VW talk about the track correcting rear bearing they mean the axle bushes. AKA axle beam mount bearings. Nowt to do with wheel bearings... Why is it a good thing? Well under cornering force the whole rear axle twists, so that the rear wheels point slightly outwards, thereby making the car turn in more sharply and countering any understeer you were about to experience...

I'm just wondering why you *need* this component? What does it do?

The VAG ones are the only ones that provide the passive rear wheel steer that the car has from the factory. Other than that I don't know much about the poly ones. Note that a large proportion of the in-car noise and road vibration comes from the back end (due to the ancient design of the rear suspension), so I have a feeling the harder poly bushes are likely to make that worse.

You wouldn't be the only one... By the way - the gas shocks contain oil too, so they can still leak in the same way..

I think that's the secret of their predictability.. The flexible sidewall allows the tread to scrabble about and regain grip when it's lost. Also it's handy when you regularly have to park on kerbs and parallel park (like every day) to have a forgiving sidewall..

I don't think that's true, Kev. I suspect it's more about spreading the pressure across a wider area of pad myself. The OE single piston can quite happily exert far more pressure than any mere human being can apply on the brake system. * - (But while I think about it - if the replacement caliper has more piston surface area (i.e. the combined hydraulic surface area of the pistons), that will give you more mechanical advantage. You'll have to push the pedal further, but that will allow more pressure to be applied at the pad..)

I must admit, the F1s are a bit soft in the sidewall. But they look mean, don't they.. :twisted:

I suspect you've a problem then... Any car with well setup suspension/wheels/tyres will be nice and stable at speed, that shouldn't be the limiting factor.. :( Start with tyre pressures, wheel bolts, wheel balancing, tracking and work up from there!

What, £20 EACH more??

GSF do sell the VR6 wishbones, yes, complete with bushes, for about £35 each, IIRC. I don't know if the dealer-supplied wishbones come with bushes or not, no-one has mentioned that so far.. I've heard mixed reports of the GSF wishbone bushes being a bit rubbish.. YMMV.

10 for 1? You think that's a fair swap?? :)

You don't. You swap it with my brand new Schrick VGI, which Vince ordered for me yesterday.