aclwalker

Hi, I'm going to tackle this job (thermostat replacement plus full housing and sensors etc) when I get some free time over the holidays. Anything to watch out for? Did you replace the housing at all? If so, did you use any kind of additional sealant over and above the seal provided? I've heard people suggest using blue (I think) gasket sealant where it touches the block but am not sure if it's really necessary. Thanks Alan

Cheers guys. Sounds like exactly the same process I did on the old Golf. Made a big difference. I hope I don't snap a spanner this time trying to undo the plug. Had a sore elbow for ages after that...

I replaced my hall sender a while back (VR6) and it cleared the majority of my hesitation problems (blue coolant sensor sorted the remaining uneveness). If you have the distributor version (of the VR6 (early models), and presumably the other models) then I believe there's a hall sender inside the distributor. I replaced this on my old Golf years ago and it sorted its "all or nothing" running. I'm assuming that the distributor Corrados have distributors which are serviceable. Curiously my dad's Polo's distributer was not serviceable and when it needed a new hall sender we had to replace the whole distributor. There was some sort of rivet or something preventing disassembly if I remember correctly. Anyway, with the coil pack version of the VR6 (not sure if any other Corrados have coil packs?) there's still a hall sender but it's a separate component attached onto the engine block near the coilpack. This cost about £35 IIRC and it's one of the easiest repairs I've done on the car. It only took about 15 minutes and made an incredible difference to the running. No matter where the hall sender is, it is designed to detect the camshaft position to control spark timing. It works via magnets and, on the late VR6s, I believe, it detects gaps in the camshaft sprocket wheel. Every VW I've owned or driven seems to have needed this component replaced so if you have running problems then it's a strong possiblity. Interestingly, I believe the VR6 can compensate for a broken hall sender signal by using other sensors and I think this is what happened with mine because I could feel it retarding and advancing the ignition as if it was sometimes getting the signal and sometimes not, especially when accelerating. With the old Golf, however, there were no other sensors to rely on so as far as it was concerned, the camshaft had stopped so it would not spark, hence the car would just coast to a halt until it detected it again. Very worrying on the motorway! Alan

LOL! I've got a 100,000 photo of my old Golf and I'm sure I got one too at 123,456 and had to pull into the hard shoulder or side of the road or whatever. I've only got 12,000 or so to go for the big 200,000 in the Corrado and then the next milestone is the distance to the moon which is around 238,000 if I remember correctly! However, since I no longer commute to work, it's going to take ages to get there. Anybody with true astronomical mileages on their Corrado?

At my last MOT, my VR6 failed on rear brakes. I was not surprised as the pistons were quite obviously seizing. I've never done the brakes on this car before and was in urgent need of an MOT so I got the guy to do it. However, he broke my ABS. I had never seen the light come on since I had the car, and the ABS worked perfectly. From the day of the repairs to pass the MOT, the light would come on at exactly the same motorway speed. Now it is on constantly. I keep meaning to have a quick look, as I doubt the sensors broke coincidentally that day. I've been told it's likely to be either dirt on one of the sensors or a loose "ABS cage". I think this is a perforated wheel which breaks a beam of light which the sensor picks up while the wheel is turning. If the wheel locks then this is detected by a lack of, er, beam breaking. I've never got round to fixing it yet but I'm hoping it's quite easy. I'm interested but not surprised to hear that if the light comes on during the test then it's a fail. What I did notice a while back, however, was that the last time my spoiler blew its fuse (does this about once a year), the ABS light went OFF. It turns out it's the same fuse for the spoiler as for the ABS warning light (and probably other warning lights). Question is, if the ABS warning light wasn't working would it be noticed that the car has ABS that is not working? Do they actually test for function of the ABS system? Or is it just a test for a lack of fault warnings?

Hi, I have noticed that my gears are decidedly harder to engage (but by no means impossible) on these cold days when the engine/gearbox are cold and it gets easier as the car warms up. I'm wondering if the gearbox oil drains out when the clutch is renewed and perhaps it hasn't been filled up properly when this was done before I bought the car. Does a clutch replacement necessitate draining the gearbox? I had this problem with my old Golf and I solved it by topping up the gear oil via the top 17 mm hex plug. The cause was that the mechanic who fitted my replacement engine (water pump seizure, stripping every tooth off the timing belt at 70 mph (belt never snapped though!)), must have let some of the gear oil drain away while doing this, and/or never refilled it properly. My dad was skeptical at the time but I did it anyway and confirmed that there was a good 1 cm or so drop in the level (about half a litre of gear oil perhaps). I filled this back up and the problem immediately went away. Do any of you VR6 gearbox experts think I'm onto something? Is it worth my while investigating further? Is it easy enough to check the level and top up if necessary? (I already have the 17 mm hex key from the Golf days). Thanks Alan

Well, I collected all the parts on Saturday and sure enough the sensors are not the same colour but they look the same pin-wise (is that a word?). I'm going to leave the job until the Christmas holidays I think because the overheating's not dangerous yet and I'm only using the car at weekends now. I noticed the other day that I didn't get the overheating problem but it did come back later. This sounds to me like a sticking thermostat. I've not done the bottom hose test yet though. I think it defintely pays to keep an eye on the temps. I'm a bit paranoid about it and probably check too often, but I've had the car two years now and the temperatures were always very consistent and so I noticed this change in behaviour straight away. Hopefully all these bits sorts the problem out.

I had this same problem when I first got the car nearly two years ago. A guy on the Yahoo group told me to feel around at the top of the back of the fuse box (under the steering wheel) and try to click a connector back in. Sure enough, I heard and felt a click and had reseated something. I never had any more problems with it from then on. Lying on your back with your head right under and a torch will help you see what you're doing but once you know where everything is you should be able to feel for it. It's worth a go. It has been one of only two free Corrado repairs I've done! The other was cutting an inch off the coolant hose at the back of the engine (VR6) and refitting to sort a leak. I believe this is a common fault and is caused by stress put on the hose by a shoogly engine due to worn mounts. My mounts were indeed very worn, the gearbox one having actually 'burst', but I digress. Hope this helps you out. Alan

Hi guys, Thanks for all the replies. I haven't actually dismantled my old housing yet and I've just ordered the parts yesterday and will get them in a few days. He definately ordered the correct ones as per their position. I saw the ETKA screen and the items he listed. Also, I too have the black sensor (far right) fitted but don't have air con. I was under the impression that the black one (far right) was the temp sensor, the blue one (middle) was for the engine management (fuelling etc.) and the yellow one (far left) was for the auxiliary pump and fan, even though the fan has its own sensor on the radiator. But U have heard conflicting reports too. Hence, I'm replacing them all!!! I replaced the blue one a while back and this solved my hesitation problems (along with the camshaft position sensor which mostly fixed this problem). Judging from everyone's replies, I probably don't have anything to worry about. I'll check the part numbers when I do the job. It's expensive though. All the parts cost £100 in total. I'm not sure if I could have got any of these parts cheaper elsewhere. I got the thermostat and the blue sensor from GSF. Hopefully all this solves my temperature problems before it gets too serious. Alan

Hi all, I've decided to tackle my overheating problem by replacing the thermostat, all the housing parts (they're bound to be brittle), the radiator temp switch and the two remaining temp sensors. I tested the fan and the auxiliary water pump and they're both working. I replaced the main water pump last year myself too. I replaced the blue one a while back and got far better running and fueling. Now I'm replacing the yellow one and the black one. However, in the local dealer, their ETKA only lists a green/black 4 pin sensor instead of my yellow one. ALso, where my black one is, they have a blue/black one listed. They could not find any yellow sensor or black only sensor, so ordered these different coloured ones. Do you think these are the wrong sensors I've been given? Thanks Alan

Hi all, Apologies if this has been asked a million times. I've done a search and read a bit but can't see a problem the same as mine. Basically, I have had jerking acceleration problems for long enough which I finally sorted by changing the camshaft position sensor and the blue temp sensor which I think is the one that deals with the fueling for the engine management. I'm not sure if the problem is related to the above, but a few weeks later my oil temp is now creeping up to almost 130C and the coolant is sitting a good 10C higher than normal. I am not hammering it either, this is standard motorway speeds. I changed the oil (was slightly overdue) and got the level right and this has still not solved it. Any ideas what could be causing this? I'm thinking thermostat, auxilary water pump or fan thermo switch. Am I right in thinking that any of these items failing could cause the oil temps to rise substantially since the coolant will be unable to take heat from the oil via the oil cooler? Could these temp rises by due to me changing the blue temp sensor and getting a leaner (and therefore hotter, I believe) burn? 20-30C oil temp increase seems way too much for this. I'm thinking there must be a failure somewhere since the temp rise is quite substantial. It used to always stay around 100-104 for the oil and 90 for the coolant, whereas it's easily reeaching 124 or higher for the oil, and staying between 95 and 100 for the coolant, even at motorway speeds. I have seen the fan come on but I'm not sure whether both speeds are working. Any easy tests to try before dismantling the thermostat housing etc? Thanks Alan

I would agree. 90C on coolant is ideal while moving. It rises in traffic because you no longer have the ram-effect of the air flowing past the radiator. The fan will come on somewhere around 100 or maybe slightly more to cool it down and 'simulate' the effect of moving through the air. With oil, I like 100, but mine normally cools to around 96ish in traffic but can rise to 106 or more with hard driving. It's kinda the opposite from the coolant. I have just had a problem where my temps were up around 95-100 for the coolant and up to 120 for the oil. I was due an oil change (actually a bit overdue) and did this yesterday. My temps are away back down to 90 for coolant and 100ish for oil once more. So, if you have the levels right for the fluids and you have slightly high temps then check to see you aren't due an oil change. Old oil doesn't lubricate as well, therefore more friction, therefore more heat. I have also noticed in my Corrado driving experience, that low oil, even when still in the safe range can have quite an effect on the temps. I like to keep mine towards the max. This not only lowers the temps but makes the engine much quieter and is therefore reducing wear. I guess it's because there's more oil around the top of the engine where all the rattley parts are. Corrado's (VR6s at least) DO burn oil, even when not worn, so it's important to check oil regularly between services and top up accordingly. The handbook even says, if I remember correctly, that 1 litre of oil per 1000km (i.e. 600ish miles) is quite normal depending on how you drive. Don't just rely on your annual service to keep you right with oil. I personally have an oil consumption problem in cylinder 6 which accelerates my oil usage but it has done 188,500 miles now. Even with that, I probably put around half a litre in every 500-600 miles roughly but I do notice that bouts of hard driving can easily knock down the level. My old Mk II Golf burnt hardly any oil in comparison.

Hi, I just posted about this a day or so ago and got some responses: http://the-corrado.net/.archive/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12927 I haven't had a chance to look at mine yet though. Alan

Thanks dazzy. Is this fixable? Does it require to be dismantled again to fix it? Alan

Hi, In order to pass an MOT I had to get my rear brake calipers unseized. Since I had all the parts to replace all my brakes waiting to be fitted and having never done this before on this car I decided to let the mechanic do it. So I got all four discs replaced along with the pads and rear wheel bearings. The braking is vastly improved, however, when I reach a certain motorway speed the ABS light comes on and stays on. It seems to be the same speed each time regardless of whether this speed is reached 'enthusiastically' or sedately. Before this work, my ABS light had never come on (except during the test sequence on startup). Any ideas what this could be before I take it back to the garage? EDIT: Forgot to say, it's a 94 VR6 Thanks Alan

I'm thinking of getting VAG-COM to use on my 1994 VR6. Any advice on where to get a suitable cable? I've seen cables on http://www.skpang.co.uk? Anybody have any experience of these? They sell a kit to make it yourself too. Anybody got experience of this? Any other recommendations? Thanks

There are two types. The filter and housing for the VR6 engine was revised and appears to have been done after production of the Corrado ceased, therefore it is never listed for the Corrado. However, if your housing has ever been replaced (like mine), then it is likely that the revised one has been fitted which needs the new filter. The part numbers are identical except the original one has an "A" on the end and the new one has a "B". The two filters are NOT compatible. The new one has a much bigger cylindrical central channel and so the original filter will not fit on this. Buy both filters on the understanding that you can return the one that's not required or alternatively, drain the filter housing, remove the filter and see which one you have. Hope this helps. Alan

This could be the bearing in the alternator belt tensioner. Does it sound like a chirping grating noise? This tensioner is around £100 from VW but you can actually buy it from Ford for around £75. Ford can supply this because the VR6 engine was used in the Galaxy/Sharan which was a joint venture of Ford and VW. As far as I'm aware it makes no difference that it's the 2.8 litre version. Also, you can actually buy the bearing yourself from a bearing supplier like BSL. It's a 6203LH, but they didn't know what the LH meant so they gave me a different version of the 6203. It cost me £12. I have yet to fit it so I don't know the success of it. I believe it requires some cutting of the original roller in order to get the old bearing out and then a glue job to keep the new new bearing in. Alan

I had the same problem with my Corrado. All I would get was erratic readings for the oil temp. Everything else worked. Someone told me about a possible loose connection and this was the problem. It now works correctly. Remove the plastic cover for the fusebox in the driver's leg bay. Feel around the back of the fusebox roughly in the middle. You might feel that one of these connectors is lose. Click it back in if it is. This solved my problem. You may need to look up a diagram of the fusebox to see exactly which one you're trying to locate. Hope this helps.