raphael46

And any clues as to what needs sorting? Quote from my tame and normally very helpful mechanic: "Hmmm. That could take three days to track down"

OK, OK, I can't stand it any longer. How did your MOT go?

Sorry, this is going to be no help whatsoever but I can sympathise with the racket made by the fans on full-speed. Mine came on full speed in a traffic jam in the heat on Tuesday night for, I guess, the first time since I've owned it. Thought the air-con compressor was to blame and about to seize, the whole car was buzzing when it cut in and it sounded like I should have been on the tarmac at Heathrow. Pulled to the side of the road with pound signs flashing before my eyes. Opened the bonnet and realised it was the fans. Should they really be that noisy on full speed? They don't make anything

My 96 OBD11 VR6 unmodified (apart from a panel air filter anyway) Golf has just failed the MOT on emissions. The CO reading on idle was massive - 5.7 or so. Put it on Vagcom and there's a fault code - "O2 sensor short to ground" Seems obvious enough, the O2 sensor is duff, but it was only replaced a few weeks ago, with the correct Bosch one, following the discovery on Vagcom that the original was produscing no signal at all. The replacement seemed to be working fine at the time. Emissions test at 2500 rpm (or whatever the MOT calls for) is perfectly OK and, of course, it drives happily O2 sens

As the others said, the VR6 doesn't have a cam belt, they're driven by chains. There's no service interval for them, as far as I know. As Gavin says, they tend to get changed when they get noisy and it's an expensive job to get done, I've seen £600 or so quoted a few times. Getting the clutch replaced at the same time seems worthwhile too, since the gearbox has to come off anyway - I think Stealth will do the lot for about £700. The belt you can see drives the water pump, alternator, PAS and a/c compressor if you've got it. Changing it is a pretty easy job, if a bit fiddly - there's a crankc

Cheers guys. I did wonder if I was asking a dummy question! I'm clearly suffering with VR6 paranoia at the moment. What I don't understand is why I've never noticed it before, given the amount of time I've spent with my head under the bonnet with the engine running in the last few weeks, particularly when you think how visible G12 is!

Ok, sorry if this has an obvious answer but why have I got a constant flow of coolant back into the expansion bottle when the engine is running? There's no bubbling from the bottom of the bottle, just a contast flow from the pipe at the top, so right at the moment I'm not suspecting a blown head gasket but I stand to be corrected. Any ideas?

How tasteless - a Range Rover? How could you?!

The Ford part number 7364573, it's a Galaxy Crankcase Ventilation Valve. Just had to order one myself, £23 with p&p. Too lazy to find a local Ford parts dealer!

Don't know whether anybody's interested but it turned out to be the aircon compressor - the clutch had an unbelievable amount of play on it. Wish it had been the water pump, it would have been a good deal cheaper to sort out. At least I know how the front end comes off now! Took the opportunity to replace the belt and grease the tensioner pulley too, so now I can hear the noisy tappets a treat. "Persuading" the alternator to come off is fun, isn't it? Just need to get the aircon system recharged now. Wonder what will go next?

Thnaks for the response Gavin. It is looking suspiciously like the water pump. Haven't had the time to take the belt off to check it properly but it did look like there was some runout on the pump pulley when I did a quick visual check with the engine running. Why do these things always happen when you don't really have the time to sort them?

Hi All, My 96 golf VR6 has just developed a knocking noise from the left hand end of the engine. Sounds like it's coming from the belt tensioner area but it's hard to tell for sure. It's louder at low revs/idle and seems to go away at higher revs but to be fair I've been a bit nervous of pushing it too much to make completely sure. Could it be the belt tensioner? Any other suggestions? Help!