I have a 2000 MY berlingo 1.4 multispace which has a dashboard electrical problem that I am hoping someone out there knows how to cure.
The rev counter gave up a few month ago but now the dash lights up whenever the ignition is off, and the speedo oscillates between 0 and 10 mph, ultimately this drains the battery.
I getting a bit fed up with disconnecting and reconnecting the battery whenever I leave the car for more than a few hours, so does anybody have any ideas on this. The main dealer recommended changing the dash pod to cure the faulty rev counter but didn't know if this would cure the electrical fault and all at a cost of £260+ fitting.
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Morning all

I'm considering buying a new shape Audi A4 1.9TDi so thought I'd do a bit of research into servicing etc. Had a test drive on Saturday - very nice btw - so thought i'd question the salesman. He told me the first service is at 18000 miles and then every 18000 after that and that it would cost between 500 and 600 quid.
I thought all new cars needed a 8000 ish mile first service so have just phoned the service guy at my local Audi garage.
He told me that the car tells you when it neeed servicing!! I quized him on this and was told it depends how it's driven etc and it will be somewhere between 20000 and 30000 miles. He couldn't tell me the exact cost because I didnt have the reg number of the car!! it all seems very wierd to me, unknown service mileage and costs! anyone had any experiance of this? Read more

I've just acquired a 4 door M reg 306XND. Lift the for handle to open the door, and the handle stays in the 'up' position, i.e. hoizontal. All 4 behave in this way.
You have to manually push them down again.

Has anyone seen this problem? I've not taken a door trim off yet to investigate.

Thanks for any help
Stokie Read more

I've got a 2003 Renault Scenic 1.6 and I'm having this intermitent fault that seems to be happening more and more regularly.

Every now and again the car seems to have no response at all when I try and start the car. When I walk away and leave the car for 20 minutes and try again it usually starts first time. The battery seems to be strong, as lights, radio and central locking all work perfectly however the starter motor doesn't turn over at all.

My first thought was that the immobiliser was faulty but the AA say thats not the case. They've taken meter readings from around the starter motor and they say that its getting the necessary charge but even so they witnessed the fault and were at a loss as to what was wrong.

I've noticed others have had problems with Renaults that look similar. I've checked and cleaned the battery connections but this has had no effect. Does anyone have any other suggestions ? Read more

I bought a VW Golf 1 year ago - along with a 'pay monthly' servicing & maintenance plan. The salesman sold me this plan on the basic that the £16/month payments would accrue to less than the total amount of the yearly/10,000 mile services (which ever comes first - you get the picture). The maths seemed quite straight forward - £16 * 36 months = £576 i.e. less than the normal £200 * 3 years which we were told it would cost if we were to pay for services as and when they were due...

Simple enough you might think - here comes the twist (say with me)... VW's 'long life servicing', a regime whereby the vehicle no longer necessarily comes in at the 1 year / 10,000 mile point, only when the newly developed long life oil is deemed to need changing via some engine management system. This apparently could take you all the way up to 20,000 miles/ 2 years if you are that type of driver (i.e. not the stop start stuff) - see: www.volkswagen.co.uk/services/servicing/longlife_s...e

Anyway, so at the one year point I get a letter from the dealer informing me that the car needed to be brought in for servicing (with some blurb stressing the importance of regular servicing in order to maintain safety, reliability and re-sale value), no problem I thought given I had already paid for it. Imagine my confusion after I had dropped off the car at the garage to return home to an answering machine message from the dealer informing me that the car wasn't due a service and I should come back and pick it up. When I returned to the garage I was then given this spiel about the long life servicing. Should I have known the whole plan pivoted on the risk of when this oil management system started to flash I wouldn't have touched it with a barge pole.

So now I find myself 1 year and £192 into this agreement only to find out that it may only pay for one extremely expensive service (i.e. if the car only needs a service once every two years the next one will be due 4 years down the line and well out of the scope of this 3 year plan). I could cancel the plan now and loose the £192, or continue probably for another year until I had paid £384 for 1 service (any which way I seem doomed to loose a fair amount of money).

I was more astounded to find out that a friend who also bought her car from the same dealer at around the same time (who didn't allow herself to get roped into this scam), had her 'long life' service facility disabled by the dealer, meaning she would have to go and have her car serviced annually (long life oil or not) !!!

It would appear to me that the dealer is using the good technology that has been developed by VW (which should be of benerfit to the buyer) to make considerable amounts of money off trusting customers like myself.

Is anyone else in the same predicament? Is there anything that can be done about this?

Bob.

(Edited by HJ to remove all refernce to the dealer's name.)
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