dr_mat

Lower chains too?

($300 used to be about £200, yes, until the latest US economy slump took the dollar to a staggering £0.57 each...!! :shock: )

Except the VR only has one pump, the big one in the tank...

Ok, I'm sure you're right lesarcsneil, I was just going from the item description. There are quite a few of these manuals popping up on ebay now, I suspect some ex-dealership is shifting it's old stocks.

That item is only the service manual - it's not the bentley. It certainly won't cover trim, bodywork etc etc. It might tell you how to change the cambelt, or changing brake pads and how often you have to do it, but Bentley it's not. YMMV.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/de ... e&n=507846 There ya go - $90 US, plus shipping. Should work out at around £70 after all the miscellaneous expenses.

Bentley can be had for less than £70, on amazon.com IIRC.

... as long as you're not driving it at the time, of course, cos that would be illegal ...

By the way, stormseeker, next time you're taking close up pics of your shiny (and very reflective) car, how about you *don't* wear WHITE trousers...!??

"No hint of ignition in cylinder 3 whatsoever." Oh it *can*, it just doesn't WANT to. You know what these VWs are like...

Stick a voltmeter across the battery terminals. It should read ~12.6 ish when the engine is off, and ~14.2 when the engine is running (whether the engine is idling or being revved, this shouldn't matter). If the first figure is lower, replace the battery, if the second figure is lower, replace the alternator... Unless there's something on somewhere that's pulling the voltage down, but I suspect you'd know about that with problems starting the car after you'd left it for more than a few days. My suspicion is a knackered alternator.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... gory=36681 ...for example...

Shouldn't lose the mileage, but it will probably lose the other "trip" functions. All VRs had black dials with white letters, and red needles. White dials is an aftermarket hack, hence your funny speedo readings. They've probably fitted the 16V dials with a 0-140 dial. You'll probably find the fuel gauge isn't right either. Your VR6 should have a 15 gallon scale. If it's the 16V dials it'll also have a 0-8000 rpm rev counter. ALL WRONG! In other words!!! :)

Didn't you say you had a silly speedo fascia? Some coloured thing? Or was it someone else on the group said that? Maybe the dial isn't placed correctly? VR6 should have a 0-160 mph dial.

Cool oil does this. If it's not completely up to temp then it's often gonna look that way. You say it goes away? Then it's almost certainly not a problem!! Chill out! I thought I was paranoid!! ;)

Inner panel - there's "several" (can't remember exactly, but something over 5) plastic fixings. Just pop a philips-head screwdriver in these and turn them 90 degrees anti-clockwise. You'll feel them come loose. At this point you can pull the plastic panel away from the tailgate. It's hooked under the solid bit at the top, so it may be stiff, but you should be able to get it off without too much trouble. Fitting is the reverse...

Ahem, apart from the huge 2.9 litre V6, of course.... ;)

Anything over 75 degrees is considered "ok", but really 85+ before you're thinking about redlining it. The oil temp readout is the single most useful feature on the C that none of my previous cars ever had. You don't realise just how slowly the oil warms up compared to the water without something like this.

Such is the nature of Corrado ownership.. Sounds like from the rest of your message you're on top of the problem. 100 degrees on oil and water is not a problem. Obviously you want to stop and allow the water to cool at 100, cos otherwise it's just going to increase *pressure* instead, which will cause water loss to accelerate drastically, but if you're maintaining this sequence then hopefully you'll be able to limp through till Friday. When my top hose went, the water warning light came on, but I think it's pressure based, not level, so it only comes on when the pressure in the system drops too far.

And to follow up the other point made - the spoiler is active simply because rearward visibility is flippin' AWFUL with the spoiler extended. VW management already didn't like the fact that the spoiler got in the way, but accepted that it was necessary for high speed driving, so insisted that it get itself OUT of the way when you're trying to reverse parallel park... Drag from the spoiler is pretty much negligible compared to transmission losses, dragging brake pads etc etc at low speeds, so it's purely for convenience, iirc. Give in, kev! Do it now! Before you get so far in you run out of escape routes! ;) ;)

Consensus of opinion seems to be that the 2.0 is more torquey, but overall power is about the same, due to the CAT.

HPI it if you're still thinking about it. Take a note of the chassis and engine numbers too. It being stolen is the least of your worries though...

.. and another issue there is that if you then cancel you *were never covered* for those 14 days.. Not an issue in practice, unless you do something silly like getting a speeding ticket come through the post *after* you cancel the policy.. Could get messy.

big advantage of the mk4 is they're all alloy, apparently no rusting, no seizing of the damn handbrake mechnsm. Unfortunately you also need a convertor brake line to attach a mk 4 caliper to a mk3-type fitting. Apparently the attachment is larger.

Fortunately VW were clever enough to make sure that you can't manually lower the spoiler when you're above the "raising" trigger speed. On the basis that suddenly swapping ends is not a good thing, on the whole... :)