AMD me

[CharlieC 0]

Thought I'd introduce myself with a post about my upcoming visit to Bicester. I bought a real nice M plate VR6 in March - it was finally time to treat myself to the car I've had a crush on since I was a teeny. She's dragon green, black leather, 80k.

 

First MOT was a snip at £100, and full service not scary at £150. However, I've been slightly put out by a small engine stutter since I've had her (beaten by a poxy Astra at the lights on one embarrassing occasion), and so took myself down to the stealers for diagnostics. Lambda Probe and Speed Sensor faults, along with ABS issues.

 

So, I decided to sort it properly, and having seen good things said about AMD, I'm off next week to get it sorted out. Maybe you could pitch in here - I'm kind of hoping for:

 

1) Engine stutter to get sorted

2) MPG improvements

3) More horses

 

Are these likely to happen? From what I've read on the forum, the stutter is likely to be caused by the lambda probe, but should I expect the other gains?

 

Also, to continue the waffle a bit further, I;ve done the Lupo wiper mod - it's a treat. If you try it, do get 2 driver side wipers - the offside is slightly too long.

 

One final question - Heater is sticking. Am going to get someone with smaller hands (not Beadle) to extricate it and refit the wiring. But will this solve the fact that when it's set to full blast, only the softest breeze attempts to cool me down?? The motor seems to be going well, but there's not much actually getting delivered.

 

Cheers amigos

[dr_mat 0]

You will probably find that the heater is happily blasting air at either the screen or your feet, but the feet/face flap is stuck or the control is broken. Common failing..

Careful of the VR6 "engine speed sensor - no signal" fault - that just means the engine isn't turning, not that the sensor has failed.

Bust lambda will result in "failsafe" fuelling map, however, so it'll be a long way from at it's best.

[Jim 2]

Welcome aboard :)

 

Well you're gonna get mixed reactions about AmD on here.. like so much in life, there are happy customers and unhappy customers, both with various tales to tell.

 

One company 99.9% of forum owners ARE happy to reccomend though is Stealth Racing who are about another hours drive from Bicester. Based up in Southam, there really isn't much about the VR6 engine (and VW's in general) that they don't know.. and they seem quite happy working on these older VW's still whereas AMD seem a little more keen to wash their hands of them.

 

Their website and contact details can be found at http://www.stealthracing.co.uk :)

[CharlieC 0]

Aha, thanks for the tip. I have subsequently moved the appointment to Stealth. I'm looking forward to having a smooth running motor again. I will post update on the service when I've been.

[anubis 0]

Good choice.....AMD are a bunch of bandits. :pirate:

[dr_mat 0]

Not that I have anything against Stealth racing (I will continue to use them myself), but I sometimes find the evangelism on the forum here is a little weird..! :)

Are we becoming the StealthRacing PR arm? (They don't seem to need it!)

 

And it's not very helpful (or legal, come to that) to state things like "XYZ are a bunch of bandits". Hardly going to stand up in a court of law when lawyers come knocking on Andi's inbox, is it? Careful what you say, eh?

[Jim 2]

Well I was careful what I said.. as obviously we don't want lawyers knocking on Andi's door.

 

The evangelism.. well.. from my point of view its simply because everyone I know who goes there walks out of the door happy. Its difficult to find garages that you trust without exception and with Stealth you get that. When a new member comes to the forum looking for advice on looking after their cars, they want to hear reccomendations on peoples experiences.. and thats exactly what i'm trying to do. I'm not stopping anyone from coming in to back up AmD - I know they're a very well respected garage! But going from my personal experience, I can't reccomend AmD as i've never been to them before apart from rolling road days!

 

Anyone I know with a VW, I always suggest they go to Stealth if they need work doing.

[CharlieC 0]

A fair point, well made.

 

I tell you what - in the interest of fairness, science and politics, I will use AMD for my next service / upgrade / tune / whatever, and compare the two.

 

With any luck they'll both do the business.

[anubis 0]

Only expressing my opinion, that from my own experience, I'll never be letting AMD touch my car again. I seriously doubt that anyone can get sued over someone sharing an opinon like that. Not as if Andi has put a banner across the top of the site saying they're rubbish or anything!

[Kevin Bacon 5]

Not that I have anything against Stealth racing (I will continue to use them myself), but I sometimes find the evangelism on the forum here is a little weird..! :)

Are we becoming the StealthRacing PR arm? (They don't seem to need it!)

 

And it's not very helpful (or legal, come to that) to state things like "XYZ are a bunch of bandits". Hardly going to stand up in a court of law when lawyers come knocking on Andi's inbox, is it? Careful what you say, eh?

 

Oh please..... you don't half talk a load of sh1t sometimes.

[dr_mat 0]

You don't have to read it, if you don't agree with it.

[Yandards 0]

dr_mat kev is a mod its kinda his responsibility to read it.. ahem.

 

Stealth gets my vote, not had a service but when you ring a company asking about an uprated clutch that they supply and they say get a VR one it's good up to 300bhp - in the process doing themselves out of some business.

[dr_mat 0]

Alright, that wasn't quite what I meant.

Never mind, who cares anyway?

[Kevin Bacon 5]

Stealth gets my vote, not had a service but when you ring a company asking about an uprated clutch that they supply and they say get a VR one it's good up to 300bhp - in the process doing themselves out of some business.

 

Yeah they don't sell you any stuff you don't need or want.... which is one reason why, Matt, we sing their praises. You rant on about how good Linux based stuff is given the oppurtunity (and how cr@p MS are) and we don't accuse you of being an Linux evangalist or tell you to watch it in case you're sued for libel / slander....

[dr_mat 0]

Yeah they don't sell you any stuff you don't need or want.... which is one reason why, Matt, we sing their praises. You rant on about how good Linux based stuff is given the oppurtunity (and how cr@p MS are) and we don't accuse you of being an Linux evangalist or tell you to watch it in case you're sued for libel / slander....

 

I never said anything against Stealth, check my post history. I like Stealth's attitude and will continue to use them, despite their location being miles away!

 

You do slag me off every time I say the L word, actually...

 

As for the slander/libel issues, recent news reports have shown that legal liability for postings on a forum such as this CAN cause problems for the owner/maintainer or the ISP. I don't believe it should, and think it's a stupid situation, but that's how it is right now. As usual, I'm just trying to help.

[Jim 2]

Damn this broken forum ;) Ignore this post. its just to make page2 work :)

[dr_mat 0]

I had a double posting (again), and had to delete the second, leaving a broken 2nd page maybe?

[Jim 2]

I think it happens when you submit a post, and it times out just leaving you on the same page. Its like it kinda makes a place holder in the database for your post but doesn't actually insert it? And then you get that 'no post exists for this topic' - like there is a phantom post that runs ahead of the previous that you can't see or delete.

[Henny 0]

nah, as mat says, it's when a post is the first post on a page and is then deleted... the database can't take a page off so you get a "post not found" error... ;)