dr_mat

I've seen engines tapping badly when the oil light hasn't come on yet (it would come on if you corner or something). It almost always goes away when you top it up TO THE LINE. Whatever you do, don't overfill just because it still taps. If it's still tapping and there's plenty of oil you have something wrong, not a shortage of oil!

Repeat after me: "You always get this if the engine isn't running when you scan it." Ignore it. VERY common question.. You have a faulty MAF, or faulty wiring to the MAF.

Easier to buy new wishbones probably, and not much more expensive..

I think that's usually the case, yes, so you'll probably need more oil in it!

Noting that when you fit an oil cooler you've increased the capacity of your oil system, so I hope you topped it up AFTER it reached temperature... (i.e. when the sandwich plate opened and allowed oil to flow into the cooler).

Eggy smell is a poorly catalyst usually, but it could just as easily have been the car in front..? I don't really understand now. You lost coolant, then checked again that afternoon and found that it had come back?!? Coolant can enter the oil via the oil cooler too. But I've been round this loop - "oh no, mayo under the filler cap, must have a screwed HG", then a good long drive later having rebuilt confidence in the car and it's all gone - so you'll excuse me being sceptical.

Relevant facts you forgot to mention! ;) I dunno, 1.5cm of water loss isn't much really, and if your gasket was so bad you lost all power I'd expect rather more than that to have gone missing, and I'd also have expected you to cause an accident with the amount of steam coming out the back .. particularly in this cold weather! Back to the subject of mush .. has the car been up to an oil temp > 100 degrees recently? For a good long period of time? This is a requirement for boiling all the dissolved condensation out of the oil in the head. Eggy smell is catalysts..

Then it is working perfectly. Move on with your life ....!

I *think* it only runs with the fans during after-run. But I didn't sit there and watch ...

White mush is a regular occurrence in cold weather on a car that doesn't get up to temperature much. It doesn't indicate a failed HG. You may have other problems causing your loss of power. (One cylinder down you'd barely notice.)

I don't think that poll goes HIGH enough .. ! Need more brackets above £500. I was quoted £2500 once..

Lucky you! On some cars that would just twist the bolt till it sheared and leave you having to carefully drill out the rest from the captive bolts in the subframe ...

Sounds like a MAF sensor fault to me. And a faulty CAPS LOCK too..! ;)

The car won't splutter and stall if you unplug the MAF on a late VR, even if the MAF is working 100%. You'll likely not notice it's unplugged till you try and rev it.. when it will splutter and cough.

We should have let you replace the head gasket for a laugh, then tell you afterwards that it's the temp sensor .. ;)

A puff of smoke on gearchanges when you're pushing it hard isn't really a surprise. Be concerned if the car is failing MOTs due to emissions, or if it's using significant quantities of oil, but otherwise just ignore it.

Trickiest bit is getting the bolts out in the first place. They've often seized in ..

All VR6 Corrados have EDL, as do Golf GTi mk3 and Golf VR6 mk3 which share that same unit. You need the one that looks like the auction above. The part number itself is written on the one in your car ... ;)

It's one of these: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... 0177627802

Yes, the payment they make you is supposed to represent the replacement cost of the car, no matter what they then do with the car. If you buy it back from them you're buying it for scrap value, to save them the hassle of disposing of it. If they just gave you the car, you'd have: a broken car and no money. Somewhat missing the point of insurance eh? You won't get any credits for the £600 service, other than being able to use it as evidence that the car was well maintained when it comes to bumping up the final value.

2 hours labour tops. If you keep getting a B12+ low voltage warning when you HAVEN'T disconnected the battery, you ought to check the ABS control relays too.

Nice, imho this is the way to go when your 12v dies. Glad to hear it doesn't require giving Vince £10k to sort it all out .. ! :)

It could also be the belt slipping, make sure it's in good condition and correctly tensioned.

Braking would do it, yes ... You car lowered Jim? The rear brake compensator valve is actually very reliable, they rarely seize completely (it's a very simple object, obviously), so you can probably resurrect it if it's dodgy. Secondly, it would need to be calibrated if the suspension is lowered. I've had this a few times though, wound up on full opposite lock once (hit the rack end stop pretty hard), and that wasn't *quite* enough so I had to dump it into 2nd and welly it too to pull out of it..! Generally it was a sign that a) I was being a prat and b) my back tyres were so dead it's just not true..

You can probably at least sanity check the sensors with a multi-meter first, but something like that you could be chasing your tail forever when all you have to do is ask the ECU and it'll tell you where it hurts ...