November 2006
a relatives vectra failed the emissions test the readings were fast idle test co =0.68 fail also second test co=0.77.
we changed the lambda sensor ,oil,all filters and plugs.
the cats not that old (less than a year)
what now?are them universal cats any good?
would additives make any difference or are these figures too high for additives or an itailian tune up.
cheers. Read more
the car now a fault of appearing to run on three cylinders, espicially when depressing the accelerator. On closer inspection found that when I removed the 2nd spark plug lead (2nd from distributor end of the engine) there was no effect on the overall running. Removing any other lead caused the car to splutter a lot more. I checked the spark from the plug of this second lead and it appears ok. Now thinking the second cylinder has lost compression (I haven`t got a tester) Not sure if this is someting do with the valves/tappetts or someting more serious. If it is could be the end for this car. Not really sure on how to proceed. There is no oil or smoke water coming out the exhaust. Does anyone have any ideas? Read more
Thanks for responses. Forgot to add that the suspect cylinders spark plug is more oiled up but not excessively so. Forgot about mesuring the resistance of the plug leads. I have multimeter so that should be no problem although i guess it will not show if lead is breaking down under load. The distributor cap/leads/rotor arm and spark plugs were all changed a couple of months ago and less than 500 miles ago but that does not make them fault free
Reading one of the other threads about car colours got me thinking. A lot of people think that white is a 'boring' car colour. I'm not saying that white is my favorite colour (It's coming back in fashion again) but I certainly don't think it's the most boring car colour.
So what is the most boring colour? It's got to be grey! On my drive in this morning I noticed that the most common colour was metallic grey (some people call it silver?). How boring and dull. Everyone has one, it's un-original and dull. Kinda fits quite nicely for the UK I suppose with our grey skies!
To me grey says battlehsip grey, grey skies, doom and gloom, grey suits, dirty etc. And no, a bit of metallic thrown in doesn't help, it just makes it metallic grey...
Of course it's a personal choice and I'm sure many will disagree with me, personally I don't like to be part of the herd.
So just for the record here's a list of the colours of all the various cars and motorbikes I've owned over the years:
White(TS50ER), red(XL125), red(Mk2 Escort), white(Lancia), orange(Fiesta), black(DT125), red(BMW), metallic green(Audi), metallic blue(Renault), red(Audi), white(Supra)
Anyone else care to share their 'colour history'? Read more
BTW, what exactly is Coventry Fire Engine Yellow?
See the following extract from a website I found.
"A few years back (well, 40 or so -- I'm dating myself again here), Coventry Fire Brigade decided that "fire-engine red" had become so common a colour that its appliances no longer stood out when attempting to speed through congested traffic (old playground joke: "Why are fire engines red?" / "Because they're always rushin'"), and so they adopted a particularly vile greeny-yellow which they figured no-one else would ever willingly wish to adorn anything with. Well, they were wrong because at Red Hill, half way between Alcester and Stratford, is a pub (called The Stag, I believe, though that may have changed) painted in exactly that shade of bilious puke yellow. Going east, it's on the right: you can't miss it, but you'll probably wish you had."
I would have said it was 30 years The colour was so striking that some people felt physically sick if they stared at it long enough.
The colour was accorded BSI recognition and given a BS number but I can't trace it. Eventually Coventry fire appliances had to be repainted red because the government decreed that all local authority fire appliances used on public roads had to be red.
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L\'escargot.
Hi
I bought a 1996 Audi A4 recently.Its been giving abit of trouble since he got it.
The radiater fan always comes on even first thing in the morning when the car is cold. Yesterday morning the car cut out after about 10 minutes driving and would not start for about 15 minutes
Also while driving it takes ages for the temp gauge to move to the middle (it never goes to the red) and stays and usually goes back on cold after a while.
Any ideas whats causing this and why would the rad fan be contantly on?
Thanks in advance Read more
Are you sure its the rad fan, could be the climate control fan?
Browse
found out some of the pipes towarsds the back of the engine are fitted wrong.
i think they are breathers or vacumm pipes.
allso got a fault code 0230 which is fuel pump.
is there a diagram that i could get so i could trace the pipes?
the haynes manual isnt all that clear.
thanks