dr_mat

I don't think it's worth having a larger battery .. more weight is never a good thing, and it won't even last any longer if it's allowed to discharge.. The best investment you can make is a trickle charger so it never goes flat - if it never discharges significantly it'll last you ten years. I know only too well that a battery that's allowed to go flat often will only last a couple of years. FWIW if you want to run the ICE without running the engine you want a separate deep cycle battery for it. Normal starter batteries are designed to provide big current for vey short times, then be immediately topped back up, they degrade very fast if you actually let them drain.

I don't think this is an issue - the alternator provides *up to* 120A (nominally), but the regulator on the side controls what it actually outputs, and that is led by the drain that the car places on it. It's not impossible to have an alternator that over charges the battery, but the charge voltages reported above look normal - 13.8 to 14.2 volts is what you should normally charge a 12V lead acid battery at.

Disconnect the battery when "fully charged". If it reads less than *exactly* 12.6 volts on a voltmeter then it's a faulty battery. The voltage drop does sound too much. It should be capable of still being essentially fully charged after the overrun fans have been running. Some maths.. Battery capacity is nominally 50 or more Ah, so it should deliver 50 amps, for an hour. Overrun fans are around 20 amps, so run that for five minutes and it'll knock maybe 3.3% off the battery charge, which would still read 12.56 volts... I think you have a faulty battery unless as suggested above there's a serious short out happening. Your charging voltages sound fine by the way.

I think if it's pushing near 500 bhp with "small" turbos then it should have a staggering torque band.. Sounds great. Can't wait to rip my corrado in half by pressing the throttle pedal down. :)

Exactly. People trying to find logic in car insurance prices are wasting their time - it's all about the statistics, which are based on such a large set of observations that you cannot possibly predict what the pattern will be. :)

Yes of course, I guess my point was just that you wouldn't expect third party to be significantly cheaper than fully comp is. At the end of the day, it's all about risk. Maybe the insurers have all found that the people who buy third party only have MORE accidents on average than people who buy fully comp? In that case they'd simply charge more for less, because that's what the numbers work out as. Nothing malicious in there, it's just the logical outcome of the mathematics.

Third party is always the most expensive part. Fully comp is only protecting your car, maximum payout is the value of the car, but third party protects against you hitting *anything else in the world* - the maximum payout of your third party cover is millions and millions if you wind up e.g. crashing your car into the gates of buckingham palace or something .. Third party is also the only bit you're legally required to have. I'd find another postcode if you're able to - there's plenty of parts of birmingham are lower risk. And yeah, having an EU license doesn't help. The missus has the same issue.

Agreed, it's a fun car but even the Renault Kangoo we had last week on hols has a suspension system that doesn't crash over potholes, and that's a bloody van.. My Corrado is aging disgracefully..

Cheeky *******. Oh well, such is life.. Anyone emailed the original owner yet? :)

Watch out, they may not be aware that radiator replacement is a slam-panel-off job .. (by the book). You can wiggle it out sideways if you remove the battery though. Pain in the ass..

Hesitate to suggest it, because it might not help, but have you tried a VAG-COM diagnostics scan for ABS error codes? If you can't connect to the ABS controller full stop there's a serious problem with it, but if it's just got a dodgy connection or two it should flag up some meaningful errors.

I'd stick with your original TBH, unless you are seeing obvious rust spots or flex in joints around the sides and you're worried it's going to start leaking soon. Mine got replaced with a Eurocarparts special about six years back and it's "alright", but it didn't fit properly..

My only complaint with this policy is as above: education is more important than slapping the unlucky few who actually get stopped .. but more than this even, the description of "careless driving" is *so* open to interpretation that I'd quite like a court to decide if I've done it or not. If a copper has the right to fine me for something that vague, you know straight away what he's going to be doing all day long, whether you've done anything wrong or not. I'm all for people driving better, but I do think that the police have to be able to prove they're in the right when they hand out penalties, you can't just go on the judgement of one guy. The most annoying thing about these headlines is that this is a blatantly popularist policy that's been invented by a desperate government to draw attention away from the fact they are screwing us all in so many other ways. Don't lose focus - the people in charge are still dicks. ;) And FWIW I've seen the reports about motorway capacity being lost by the middle lane hoggers, and it's mostly bullsh.. It is entirely possible that in a totally pathological situation where literally no-one uses the left lane then one third of your road's capacity is lost, but don't be ridiculous - this never happens. The reality is it costs us a few percent, and most british motorways are so damn busy all the time that the middle lane hoggers are trundling past trucks all day long. You can argue they should pull in between trucks, but who's going to do that? All that happens is some inconsiderate ****er won't let you pull out next time you need to, so why bother?

My VR sits at a reported 80-85 degrees when moving in cool air. Thermostat opens at 82, I thought. If it's below 80, really if it's ever below 80, my guess would be your thermostat is a bit leaky and not closing properly.

There's two water pumps on the VR - the main one driven by the crank and an electric secondary pump. If you open the expansion tank lid you can usually see circulation coming into it when the engine is running.. but I think you have a screwed thermostat myself. If the radiator doesn't get hot, the fans can't actually do anything.

It's a homeopathic car remedy..

I recall there's a reason it's not that simple.. Maybe you'll find it impossible to time it up properly or something? Ring Stealth racing if you need more details, but I don't see that there's any justification for going single-chain anyway - even if you're taking a load of stuff out.

I'm sure VW would either dip the finished items face down, or use a custom made shield and spray the part.

It's not worth going to the single upper chain setup - you wind up replacing too many parts, but you CAN use the later model tensioner even with the ABV double-chain. Stealth Racing do this regularly I believe. The late model tensioner is significantly more reliable (it's a single piece).

No probs. :)

Well.. mine's done it at certain lock positions since I had the car 8 years ago. It's all metal down there shifting a lot of weight and there's a little bit of flex here and there (not to mention - YOU choose where to put your steering column height), and it just happens.. Try playing with the column tilt.

I suspect it's probably done this since new!! I don't think there's really *anything* that can be adjusted, nor does it really mean that there's anything loose or wrong. It's just a quirk of the right hand drive car I think.

Good one. This was classic ECU immobiliser fault - it kills the engine after a few seconds if it doesn't get the right code from the key reader coil, but it gives you the benefit of the doubt initially so the car starts normally.

Sounds a lot like the immobiliser .. Got VAG-COM?

Even better, VR6 plus a few cheap and tasteful modifications and you're off into 220 bhp / 220 lbft territory, and it's rock solid reliable. Only have to worry about the timing chains, the oval bores, oil pump drive shaft, blah blah blah .. ;)