December 2003
I\'m thinking of buying an A6 Avant 2.4 SE on an X with 31K miles . I\'ve longed like the look of them but can anyone advise on:
What to look out for
Service intervals and typical service costs?
thanks Read more
It is well known that the current 1.8 engine has had many failures. I believe that there is now a recall in place to replace them with an up-dated design.
I thought the 2.0 engine was immune to these problems (either because the coil design is different, or maybe because it no so highly stressed as in the turbo engine?). However, my Jan 2001 2.0 car recently had a coil fail.
Does anyone know how common coil failure is on the 2.0 engine? Are replacements a like-for like replacement or are they modified to eliminate future faults?
Thanks
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Had a coil pack go on my 2001 Golf 1.6 recently. It also has individual coil packs for each cylinder with not a spark plug or HT lead in sight. The car is an import and well out of warranty but VW replaced this free of charge without argument as it was a 'known fault'. Seems the coil pack issue extends well beyond just the 1.8 engines.
Yet again our vauxhall carlton! Had a new thermostat fitted last weekend and it has been leaking coolant externally since. I thought it was an airlock so I opened the expansion tank and ran the engine the coolant ran over, I sqeezed the pipes into and out of the radiator and it seemed ok for a day. Anyway its leaking coolant again, the temperature guage is running hotter than normal and the heaters are cold. I again tried to get rid of an airlock last night again the coolant in the bottle ran over but afterwards the heaters were working and the temperature guage was normal.
Is it that I didn't clear the entire airlock? Can airlocks be caused by something else? Or is there something wrong? Read more
look and see
why change themostat??
head gasket prob!!!air getting in to system water getting pushed out of expansion tank need to take head off and poss welding req and pressure test head!!
fbillytom@ntlworld.com
ex vaux tech
As the Paris to Dakar rally approachs, only the english could think of something like this, extreme Bangernomics:-)) Good luck to all of them.
www.plymouth-dakar.co.uk/ Read more
Yes i've looked at that site before, sounds like a great laugh - i'll note it down in the 'to do when retired' list
I'm about to look at at a 98 Punto, goining at a private sale, and looking at HJ's pointers, I'm stumped by the 'Red Key' issue. I've searched the forums, and can't get a clear answer as to how big an issue it is. Is it just to reset the radio or such, or is any car without it not worth touching? Thanks in advance
Chris Read more
oh!!
I found out why Fiat dealers charge £160.00 for a new blue key!!
£40.00 is for the cost of the key
£120.00 is for 2 hours labour @ £60.00 per hour
The job takes 7 minutes to do?
DONT FIGURE????????GREEDY PIGS!!
My 2001 Alhambra Td SE gives off huge clouds of paraffin-smelling smoke from under its nearside. I am told that this is a special heating device and "they all do it". But surely not after several minutes of running, and not so much it fills the car if a door is opened? I don't see other Alhambras billowing smoke like mine does!
Any ideas on what I say to the SEAT agent? He has given good service so far, but I suspect something isn't working right.
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Fuel consumption is dependant on many variables... my Passat 110 seemed to have a lesser spread of mfg figures than my current Golf 110, which seems to be be affected more by wet weather and increased average speeds (areodynamics?)than the Passat. I, poor anorak, am trying to monitor the computer ave mpg over the same 33 mile ish section of road (30 miles on cruise control on motorway at 70 mph) in the Golf, currently varying between 56 and 62 mpg at what I would have imagined were 'identical' speeds.
The computer ave mpg is pretty accurate compared to the brim-to-brim litres/mileometer mpg figures...
As it has been said many times before on this site, you must check over many tankfuls to make a comparison...
I have a 406 with a radio/cd player (I believe it is an Orion) which has a disc jammed in it. It will not eject and will not register the tracks etc but you can hear the mechanism trying to do something. Unfortunately the manual is not much use and I have to assume that the unit is a combined radio/cd player. As it will not eject the logic would be to remove the unit, open it up and remove the disc manually, but I don't have a radio code.Is there any way I can get the player to eject the disc without opening the unit? If I have to open the unit how can I get the reactivation code? I believe that this units maybe coded for this car only. If this is the case will it automatically reactivate when reconnected to the power supply?
Any advice would be gratefully accepted as this is beginning to irritate me Read more
If it is coded try and get the code if possible.some cd/radios when power is disconnected then after a couple of minutes reconnect may reset.what happens is the cd is being read.But if the player is unable to read the disc.This can be caused by a finger mark/minor dirt/scratch on the disc.It will retry during which time you want to eject the disc.You won`t be able to untill the player gives up trying to read the disc and that could take age`s.will the unit pull out from dash easily or not?
my daughters 106 diesel is suffering from misfire/power loss and chucking a load of smoke out of exhaust,anyone offer suggestion to problem please? Read more
Has it been regularly serviced?
Check oil condition
Air filter (could be blocked)
Fuel filter
Then if all OK..
go to Peugeot garage...
madf
A colleague was pulled up and breathalysed last night for driving with fog lights. He was asked the inevitable question to which there is no acceptable answer - "do you know it's an offence to use foglights in these conditions?"
Yes, there are more dangerous pastimes such as tailgating, but it's a start. Read more
For the ordinary lights, my Leon and Passat both have the rather shrill "lights on" warning, which sounds if the door is opened once the engine is turned off, even if the key is still in the ignition. If the fogs are also on, they switch off automatically as soon as the main light switch is turned off, and don't come on again unless you specifically pull out the headlamp switch. But I do like the idea of foglights that would self-cancel after ten or fifteen minutes of driving, so long as there was enough advance warning.
andymc
I noticed when I was working for Toyota motor manufacturing that the crash bars inside the doors were set very low in relation to the cars waistline, particularly so in the Corolla. then I noticed that the from structural member of the car )basically an "O" section beam behid the front bumper plastics was set at a much higher level. This seems all wrong because I saw a programme not long ago which stated that crash bars used to be situated much higher in the doors but a change in EU rules governing side impact testing had changed. So basically what im suggesting is that low set crash beams are pretty useless in side impacts because, and to contradict the EU the first part of a car to strike another cars side is most certainly NOT the metal pressing underneath the radiator its the "bumper iron"which is a lot higher. Only Volvo seem to have retained a much higher crash beam. I know this because whilst out in my support van last week I came across an accident where a Volvo HGV Artic had overshot a roundabout and hit the side of (ironically) a Volvo V40 estate . the cars side was flattened but the high set thick tubular door crash bars had stopped any intrusion. I was most impressed as the V40 driver was unhurt, but any lower set bars would have been useless and would have allowed the doors to move inwards causing injury to occupants, yet there is a move away from high set bars to meet EU regs which seem to be putting us all at risk! Read more
On the newer HDI powered Citroen C5, the reverse was moved to next to 1st gear. When reverse is selected, a bong noise is made to alert you. It was annoying at first, but is quite an interesting point for passengers, they always comment.
Browse
Just FYI, the 2.5 TDI in your 94M TDI is a straight 5, not the V6 as used in the modern A6. Great engine though.