dr_mat

GSF also sell the bosch silvers. About the ~£50 mark should be right for a good battery. But are you sure the old one is dead? That's the first thing to check. It's actually pretty hard to kill a battery, it's a very very simple device. As long as the cells are not sulphated up, and they have sufficient acid concentration, then it can be restored.

So, no service history for 25k miles.. But still, got to be a decent buy for that kind of cash. Why do people sell cars on ebay? They have to be in such perfect condition to reach market value it's just not worth it otherwise.

LOL "not normal"??? No shit sherlock! That sounds like something is loose, plain and simple. It might not even be broken, it's just loose.

If the wheel is moving relative to the brake caliper, your wheel bearing or the lower part of the hub itself has disintegrated. I'd get it towed to wherever it's going to be fixed asap. I'd even be wanting to get the weight off the wheel before it falls off! Does the wheel show any movement when you move the steering wheel?

Jeez, confusing with two threads on the same subject. Well that proves your crank sensor is fine. If you have spark then crank sensor is working perfectly. Change the FPR or look at your plugs see if any are flooded with fuel after you've left the car standing a while. Sounds like fuel supply probs, as you say.

Sigh, sounds like you are YET another victim of the OBD1-always-reports-crank-sensor-fault scam. Your garage should have been aware that if the engine is NOT TURNING it will always report "no signal" for the crank sensor. An expensive mistake to make.

I think if it's a 1990 you should be ok, but later cars would struggle to pass emissions tests with carbs I think.

As usual the guy at VW should have found the "sleeve" part number and sold you that at the same time. There is a specific component that you use to re-join the two parts of the exhaust after cutting it. VW should be able to supply it. And yeah, you should be able to lower the axle just enough to get the exhaust through without having to remove it completely if you don't want to cut it. (Fair enough, I didn't.)

The biggest problems I've had with all these is finding a place to fit the tyres once you've got 'em. Most local places just won't fit tyres you bring along yourself. You have little choice but to buy an inclusive fitting service unless you "know someone".

Like anywhere with average to poor customer service, if they have your stuff in stock they are perfectly good at taking your money and shipping it to you. Most people have no trouble.

That's why they're cheap. They have no customer service. I had the same problem with them, the tyres I ordered were not in stock, but they don't tell you that when you order, they just make you wait. What's wrong with calling your local tyre fitter and asking them to quote? They have access to the same national distributors as the online places (though you might need to beat the price down a smidge..).

Yeah, that was an obvious possibility.

Got a piggy-back ECU? Anything else that might get in the way of the crank sensor signal to the ECU? Otherwise go with the suggestions above..

I have the same problem. I already paid for a replacement boot lock from someone on this 'ere very forum and it never showed up.. :? I didn't do anything silly like delocking my main door handles though ... !

Was going to say - doesn't really sound like fuel supply. More like it's bogging down at low revs, which is subtle fuelling issues, not gross fuelling issues. Check all the hoses, the error codes and reset the ECU.

Sad but true, these cars are worth less than the sum of their components...

Yes. Paint colours are subtractive, but light colours are additive. If you mix red, yellow and blue paint you get "black" (more or less), but if you add red, green and blue LIGHT together you get white (more or less).. The problem here is that you have a white bulb and coloured filters (subtractive). If you shine white light through a red filter, you get red light out. A green light bulb is a white bulb with a green filter on it.. So if you add a red and green filter (both of which are not perfect filters) you get an orangey light out, but it's much dimmer than normal. Really what you want is a material that has a red outer surface (so looks red when light reflects off it), but actually passes red and green light through it (so it looks orangey when lit up). This is how they do it now.

Pity there isn't an "obsolete parts list" somewhere ... (subtitled "bits you'd better not break").

Yes you can buy the wishbone with bushes pre-fitted, OR you can buy the bushes seperately if you prefer. It would be easier to buy the whole thing and you get the bottom ball joint with it too ..

Oiling up all six is unusual. Do you have any detailed history on the engine? 60k miles is a very short lifetime to wind up burning that much oil. I would guess, but it's just a guess, that the problem is just the head, but without further info (compression and leak down tests..) you can't really say for sure. You are certain it's oil and not petrol foulling the plugs? A simple engine sensor fault can cause petrol foulling in all 6.

Hmm. Dodgy loom and you want to double the current it's carrying? Doesn't strike me as a good idea. Sounds like you'd be better off replacing or resilvering the reflectors.

You are having no luck mate, that's a real bummer.. :( I guess the fate of that engine can only be decided when you know how much damage there is. :-\

The jump from 2nd to 3rd takes you from about 6k rpm in 2nd at ~62 mph to 4k rpm in 3rd. That's right back in the power band, and it's even easier if you have a schrick/VSR because you have a full 3k rpm of power band instead of the standard 2k to play with. Sure, if you happen to find yourself in a corner doing between 50 and 70 you're going to be constantly swapping cogs (unless you have a VSR), but hey, the VR wasn't designed as a track car, and it was released at a time when 6-speed boxes were unheard of, and therefore they had to fit 5 gears in between trickling about town and 150mph on the autobahn.

A fully charged battery should produce 12.6 volts. 12.2 means it's only about 65% charged they will drop to 11.6 volts or so when they're about empty. Any lower than that and likely you have a dry cell and the battery is in trouble. It's important to remember that a good but discharged battery will still start the car even when it's showing only 11.8 volts or so.. Of course, a battery that has been on charge and still won't produce 12.2 volts (after a rest time) is probably a gonner.

I meant the ECU, not just the chip. Though I guess the chip might have a bad map for cylinders 2 and 5 I find it unlikely.