dr_mat

Yep, miracles of engineering. Effectively 2 cylinders in a single unit, as you say Kev. Basically there's an eccentric cam in the centre of a larger three-pointed cam. The large cam moves around inside a "cylinder head" surface making contact at each point, and thus sealing the gases into one side of it. That side is then squeezed against the outer surface (by the shape of the outer surface) to provide compression and then it ignites to push the cam away from the cylinder wall, this pushes the central eccentric cam the *other* way. Basically because the whole engine turns together, there's no need for a flywheel - it *is* a flywheel, so the power that comes out is EXTREMELY smooth. But those seals are a nightmare. They need completely replacing once every 50k miles, which means stripping the whole engine out. The japanese are the only people who ever managed to get the engine to last 50k... Take a look at: http://travel.howstuffworks.com/rotary-engine.htm for some more details.

No worries, Kev. It's another of those things where I think they're probably all a bit like that, but a) I'm hyper sensitive and b) mine is worse than some due to sheer mileage and c) it's nowhere near "bad"... So. It'll come down to whether I feel like paying for it to be done or not.. :-\ I hate that. If one had genuinely bust, I'd feel no compunction about replacing them both and at the same time benefitting from improved handling, but since theoretically there's nothing wrong with them, they're just a bit "soft"... I've got to decide. Now, how much is an OE set then?!

I only do 7 miles to/from work, mostly on the motorway, so I hardly think I'm significantly altering the heat of the bushes in that time...

There are a lot of RX7s on the road that have had the rotary engine ripped out and replaced with a conventional one. It's cheaper than the 100,000 miles strip-down-and-rebuild-the-engine service, probably. Wankel rotaries are amazing engines, very difficult to get your head around how it works, but they produce HUGE power from tiny capacities by eliminating all the stupid reciprocating motion crap from your normal piston engine. They aren't cheap to maintain tho. You think it costs a lot to have a G60 refurbed...

Rubber might have perished slightly, but not by as much as if they'd been on the car under pressure and exposed to water/oil/frost/etc etc... But you're right it's a long time for it to be sitting there...

Bringing this thread back from the dead.. Question - I have been driving my C around for some time now noticing a shift in the way the car handles after periods of hard acceleration compared to "normal" and also after periods of hard braking compared to "normal". After hard acceleration the steering seems to feel lighter, more wayward, but after hard braking the steering appears to feel heavier, more centre-weighted. I'm guessing this suggests the wishbone bushes are squishing about a bit, but I've had the car into two separate garages who've both told me that there's nothing loose and no obvious signs of degradation of the bushes or the ball joints, so I'm wondering what the hell I have to do to check these things? (Short of forking out for replacements and finding no change..) There's nothing wrong with my wishbones themselves either, no visible rust, no delamination, nothing. Very frustrating.

I'm getting very good at parking the C now. I parallel parked in a tight spot in my street the other evening. When I got out of the car, I discovered that I couldn't actually walk behind OR in front of the car to get to the street and fold the wing mirror in.. I had to actually walk AROUND the car in front to do it... The looks you get in the morning: "Bummer mate, looks like you're blocked in." .. "Err, no actually, I parked it here myself last night!" :)

Yup, totally agree. Driven carefully the VR is actually pretty damn good, given the potential of the engine. Cruise at 50ish all the time and it'll return 36-40 mpg. Around town on short runs though and you can expect to see 20-25 mpg ...

The thief was the pink panther.

I'm sure someone will point out that the last Storm ever made is in the Karmann museum in Germany.. (Or somewhere like that) Unless the pink panther has been busy this year...

Another option I'd been thinking about is bleaching the plastic somehow, then putting a pale red tint on and using bright orange bulbs underneath. Not sure how you'd treat the plastic to get the bleach through the full thickness though - inject it?

Nice one mate, so at least I now know they *were* certified and can show my insurance someone else's certificate if they ask...! LOL :) TBH so far I've not had too many problems. I told the insurance company that the car had a CAT1 alarm/immob from new, but I didn't have the certificate and they were fine with that. I'm sure other insurance companies might be more anal about it... (I'm just about to fire up photochop and stick my VIN and reg on that form so I can fax it to someone... ;) )

A lot of people have talked about using Passat *rear* handles (to get the de-locked look) but no-one's ever mentioned using the *front* door handles before (at least that I remember).

The Corrado owning hordes will be extremely interested to hear that passat front handles fit, if it's possible... It will remove one of the (many) lingering fragilities of these damn cars...

Are you sure you gave them the Corrado? You didn't take your girlfriends' Japanese run-about by mistake? That can't be right.... Anyway, IIRC your VR6 has almost no miles on it... (Not that I'm jealous or anything..)

Stick an iPaq in and get a program that draws fake dials. Or even do some simple electronics and hook the senders to the iPaq and get it to draw *real* gauges... Browse the web from your Corrado...

VR6 8ULE (with bullet point at the bottom of the "8")?

Ok, nice one. Good point about the certificate...

I would love a photocopy (or even a digipic) of the certificate. Mine also has the factory alarm/immob, but I have no documentation, nor even the original keyfobs.. :-(

It's worth it just for minor pieces of tech info like how many litres of oil and water you need for a service, or for how much to torque bolt X or for various other jobs. Yeah it's VW-generic rather than Corrado specific, but it's definitely worth £1.99.

"the netherland" .. of nigeria, clearly.... LOL! He couldn't even figure out that "netherlands" should have an "s" on it! Anyone who lived there wouldn't make that mistake... Well at least you know now...

You need high pressures I would imagine, cos if the tyre is very slightly soft kerbs and potholes will go straight through the tyre and hit the rim... You need more sidewall if you don't want a hard ride...

It was brand spanking new..! That kit would cost over £3k from VW in that condition...! Is it worth it? It is to someone who's after a new block and has the rest of a good engine, cos you'll have the basis of another ten years of trouble free VR6 (ha) motoring, but...

That's not necessarily the engine mount, most VRs have that (it's a "feature"). Stick the hand brake on, lift the bonnet, start the engine and gently apply some torque through the front wheels in 1st and reverse gears. If the engine moves much you need new mounts. You'll know if something's wrong...

Wonder if the timing has been checked? Could be that your timing chains have slipped a tooth? But then I'd have thought you'd notice a lack of power at high revs too... Puzzler indeed! You *are* running it on good petrol we take it, a good couple of tank fulls of optimax/bp ultimate quality? Misfiring can be down to poor valve seal or holes in the valves, or so I've heard. This is obviously something you don't really wanna mess with until you're sure it's not something else...