pete_griff

oh, and welcome to the forum :)

you need to be a bit more specific so we can help you buddy - front/rear wheels? does it happen all the time at low speeds, only when turning? etc............. could be your brakes, but then it could also be lots of things... possibly best to start at the brakes. chances are wd40 won't help things much! if you're not mechanically minded, get a friend who is to help you out

if you are anywhere near birmingham, there's a place called longbridge gearbox centre to the south and they are pretty good there - might be worth taking it there for an opinion...

just looked at the other boot pics - thought one might be a return - why does he have three lines though? - what's the third one for and what has he done with the FPR?

damn it i can't look at youtube/photobucket at work - looking at the engine bay pic though - that looks flippin bonkers! :shock: and what's going on with his fuel rail - does he have x3 feeds to it or something daft??? love the way it looks like a sleeper from the outside though 8) (well, if it didn't have the vinyl all over it anyway...)

must get round to ordering one of these off you 'just in case' mine are yet to break on me, however you can guarantee that if i don't buy some, then they will break before long! any chance you could PM me with how you want to be paid etc... thanks very much :)

Although not all £1K Rado's are nails, I paid that for mine and while it's certainly no minter it's not a complete shed either. In answer to the OP's question no it's not, not by a long shot. The most unreliable car I've had was a 1983 Mini City that once broke down 7 times in 24hrs, a NYE and NYD I will never forget. I've also had Golfs, Fiats and Fords that have been more unreliable. It isn't my most reliable car either though, that accolade goes to my VW T25 Campervan which has never required an AA call out in the 3 years I've had it. In about 4 months of Rado ownership I have had to call the AA once (wouldn't start), fix an oil leak, fix the heater blower and change the thermostat on top of service items like oil and filter change. The real difference is with past cars I'd lose my temper with them. My last Golf GTI went because it wouldn't start one morning and I lost my rag and sold it. MY Golf GTI before that went becuase it had a few niggles and it did my head in. When the Corrado does something wrong I just shrug, open my toolbox and get busy without really complaining. My wife says it must be love. Nick there is definitely something about the corrado which means you don't mind fixing it as much as other cars somehow... mine was reliable for about 6 months after i bought it. after that the front brakes seized on me, then the head-gasket went (probably as a result of it being sat out in sub zero temps for a long long time despite having antifreeze in...) i can live with that though as brakes seizing is a common occurance on older cars. my friend drives an x-reg focus with only 60k on the clock and the same thing happened to him. if you can find a car as old as the corrado that is as solid as the corrado (or vag equivalent) then i think you would be doing well. how many F - M plate cars do you see on the road now really when you think about it that aren't complete sheds... the thing is as everyone has mentioned before - they are now old cars and you have to expect things to go wrong. provided you do preventative maintenance and get on top of faults straight away as soon as they happen, you should have no dramas with it at all - the same as anything really - if you look after it, it will look after you! :)

unfortunately not! - still waiting... he's still waiting on this bloke to write the code he needs. he is chasing him for me, it was hopefully going to be yesterday, i guess maybe i'll get it today.... - don't know! i've given up getting anxious now - it's just very frustrating not having any transport i'm almost glad i didn't have to go and get it last night i was feeling proper rough - my girlfriend has had a cold/chest infection which she has incubated, mutated and then given to me - i've had horrific man-flu crossed with aids! :gag: that's what i thought - but according to the bloke who's doing my wiring (who really does seem to know his onions), that's how they are as standard (provided i'm not mis-remembering what he said...)

just checked out the dvla site now, cheers. i'll just have to wait and see what arrives back in the post... as for the sva - i'm familiarish with what goes on; as i went down and went through the whole proceedure to get a kit car on the road that i helped a friend of mine build.

All vehicles must have side repeaters if built after 1973 (I think it's 73 anyway), you should fail without but some MOT testers are a little slack/forgiving. As the new MOT rules ar eintroduced more and more of these little mods will be picked up on the vehicle failed. For instance engine swaps now require a letter from the garage that installed it or engine manufacturer stating mileage, CC and fuel type. WIthout this the DVLA will not update your V5. Then when you MOT your car and the computer sees two diferent engine numbers the car will be failed at best, at worst VOSA will be called to inspect the car to decided if it needs an SVA test and a Q plate. There was an update this week on exhausts. When revved for emmisions testing it should not be louder than standard ones in average condition. Fail if it is. Shouldn't really effect many folks as I assume, like me, most know their MOT tester well and he'll use his discretion. All this however is a sig that bit by bit moddified cars will be legislated off the road. Nick i didn't know that - about declaring the mileage etc of the new engine. i've recently sent my v5 off to the dvla for the change of engine in my car (just stated the new engine number, fuel type and new cc) - hope they don't return it or anything gay like that. i've got no problems whatsoever putting my car through an inspection or even an sva - i'm confident it would pass. but what a complete ball ache just for swapping what is a very similar engine :?

according to the guy whos sorting the wiring for me now - it only uses approx 1/3 of the entire pedal travel before you are on full throttle - that sounds a bit excessive to me. it's nice to regulate corner entry/exit on the throttle - i'm sure you could easily learn to do it with the much shorter travel, but surely it would be easier to modulate if the pedal was mapped for the whole of the travel....

Last time I spoke to Stealth, Vince had mapped out the over sensitive throttle. Might be an idea if you wanted to sort it. i'm getting the car mapped at stealth (hopefully the end of this week if all comes good) so when it gets done i'll get that orted. the vag-doc who's doing the wiring offered to map it for me and he said that he could sort out the sensitive throttle as well. i guess it's reasonably easy to do now as more and more vag cars go drive by wire... anyway - i'm waiting to hear back from him; but fingers crossed - i might be going to pick it up tonight...

hey gents - thanks again for all the encouraging words - needless to say i still haven't got it back yet. the vag-doc has phoned a couple of his friends who he knows through various remapping forums etc and one of them is currently writing some code specially to get my car running! all the wiring etc is all done now, new alarm is in and all is good to go as soon as the code arrives. hopefully it should be ready all mot'd etc so i can drive it away tomorrow night after i've finished work... naturally i'll keep you all updated. karl - sorry i never replied to your text buddy - i'll try and give you a shout a bit kater tonight - been ill and hungover most of the weekend!

i'm down in cardiff every so often (via newport) to see friends/go out on the lash - gimme a pm sometime :)

aaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhh - it's still not ready!!!!!!!!! there's a chance it might be ready tomorrow....... according to the vag-doc, my ecu is very very late and the immobiliser e-prom on it has changed as is no longer a bosch chip. this means that his normal codes etc that he flashes on to remove the immobiliser aren't working... he's said that he knows someone who says they can tell him exactly what codes etc he needs to flash on and that they will hopefully get back to him tomorrow morning.... so i'm playing the waiting game now! everything else is done - new alarm fitted, all wiring done etc - really all good to go now, just this fecking immobiliser. fair play; he's kept me really really well updated as to progress as the car has come along which is good (save me ringing him all the time! :lol:) the factory immobiliser lets the car start for approx 1 second and then cuts it out. so he's had it running for all of 1 second each time, and he said that when it starts it sounds like the end of the world! :crazyeyes: that's really not the angle i was going for, so i really hope it's quieter once idling and running correctly etc it looks like i will be having to whack another silencer in the exhaust system sharpish! :lol: really really hope it all comes together for tomorrow now though - all i can do right now is wait to hear from him tomorrow morning - much frustration! :scatter:

i have a friend with an evo 4 whos rad went. they are not only rare, but horrificly expensive - i think his had plastic ends on (not certain, but from what i remember...) and my friend at the above mentioned place, re-cored it with no dramas... edit - i lied - it was a celica gt4, not an evo

d'oh - beaten to it by the toad!

where abouts in the country are you - if you're anywhere near me (hereford) i have a good relationship with a shop that specialises in fuel tanks and radiators... if not, when you do the thermostat, it might be worth budgeting to do the housing at the same time. depending on how old your car is/mileage etc - they get brittle and crack with age, so if you go taking it apart, then it may well break. i'm not sure how much they cost to replace, but it might be worth doing anyway to to avoid any future issues...

speak to besian on here - he's currently breaking a VR unsure exactly what he has left, but check out his thread - you might get lucky...

just quickly got onto a computer that will allow me to see stuff - it looks like the standard oem bushes leave a gap either side - the poly powerflex jobs fitted in the gap snugly (IIRC), so there would be no need to pre-tension them as you apparently need to do with the oem items

you should check the sunroof first - easy to check - just slide it back (if it still slides and hasn't broken) and get a jug of water and carefully empty it into the drip tray. you should be able to watch it go down all four holes without sitting in the tray. if it doesn't then you have a blockage somewhere. also if it does go down nice and easily that doesn't still mean all is well. sit inside the car and see if you can see any obvious signs of water ingress. i have seen (for whatever reason...) the 4 water hoses come lose and not hold the water on it's way out as they should - another one to check. also just because the front carpets aren't wet, doesn't mean it's not getting in at the front - it could be getting in at the front and then running towards the back and collecting there (is your car parked on a slight slope?). by the time you get out to the car the fronts could have dried out and the rears will still be wet where it has collected... i would suspect the matrix before the sunroof if it has never been done, but the sunroof is (hopefully) as fairly easy one to see if it's leaking or not. the best way you can tell with the matrix (short of getting the carpets up) is to monitor the amount of coolant your car is using. hope you get it sorted :)

how much coolant does your car use - have you checked the level recently. mine didn't use all that much even when my matrix was leaking, but it was still enough to make a nice wet mess inside the car. might be worth investigating that - corrados are unfortunately prone to suffering from heater matrix issues as they get older. if it is the matrix then it is possible to change it with the dash still in the car (depending on how handy you are with the spanners) but be warned - it's a pig of a job!

i didn't take the brackets off the car when i did mine - i didn't see the need to.... as long as your brackets aren't horribly rusty, i would leave them where they are so you don't have any alignment issues afterwards... corrados don't have rear wheel steer - they only have a small amount of flex that comes as a result of the design of the beam and where the pivot/bushes are. yes you can feel this when going round corners, but (as far a i'm aware) there wasn't any specific engineering to give the corrado passive rear steer (unlike what performance car magazine said- some tosh about unique bearings...) i need to get home and have a look and my bentley manual and see what they're on about as i can't see the pics here at work

i have just phoned the guy - not actually interested in the car, but i'm interested in the doorcards! i've got some cloth doorcards which i would like to swap for leather ones! - if you do buy it then i'll happily send you my doorcards plus £100 in exchange for the leather ones the guy seemed genuine enough - apparently he's got an rx-7 and his mrs won't let him keep both! :lol: anyway - if you could please please bear me in mind if you do buy the car - really after the leather doorcards! (07888701877 - Pete) thanks very much :D

now there's a good excuse to do clutch/chains/tensioners and the head gasket all at the same time :D what more do you need?!? :lol: