ip

VW Mike is right. Symptoms are too vague. Could genuinley be any of: MAF, Lambda, Temp Sensors, Injector failure, coil failure, ecu failure, cam position sensor failure ....... Anything really! If you own, or have access to, a laptop. Buy a vagcom interface from ebay (about £20) and then you can read any fault codes directly off the car yourself. This will save you a huge amount of time/money and you'll be able to get much better responses from forum users. If you are planning to keep your car for any time at all it will pay for itself easily and is a peice of piss to use (just plug in and go

I did exactly that myself. However, was able to sell the new MAF on to someone else on the forum so recouped some of my loss. ip

Okay, a couple of thoughts: There are two coolant temp sensors, which did you replace (four wire yellow or two wire blue)? Whe my vr started to behave like yours I found it was the coilpack (even though it had no cracks at all and appeared to be in good condition). Coilpacks fail in one of two ways: 1. cracks form and allow arcing to occur. 2. the coil itself within the back breaks down and it's output impedance under load increases. This give a weak spark but no external sign of damage. My problem was number 2. Sadly, I was not able to find any test that would allow me to measure a problem wi

Thanks. It was actually a garage that told me it was seized. I guess they haven't had to work on MK3 hubs before. Do they sometimes become totally seized in place or are they generally okay to remove? ip

I've found outt hat my passenger side drive shaft has become seized into the hub. Rather than trying to force it out if/when the bearing fails, I thought I'd source a second hand hub carrier and drive shaft and just fit these instead. Just to clarify, by hub carrier I mean the cast iron part attached to the bottom of the shock absorber, and into which the bearings are pressed (and which also attaches to the top of the ball joint and to the track rod end). So, my quesiton is whether this is the same part for the GTI and VR6. I ask because a lot of GTI ones seem to come up on ebay. Cheers, ip

Last two posts make a good point. And just to clarify, I'd definitely agree that you should stick with VR rated shocks. It's just the GTI springs that I believe may be useable. Interesting that GSFstock the GTI and VR springs under the same part code, Eurocarparts does stock different springs for the VR ad GTI as do VW. Cheers, ip

Nice one. Looks ike I'll be changing my steering rack soon so I might do the same springs switch at the same time. Let us know how it goes. Cheers, ip

Don't be so quick to discount this one! In fact, the GTI and VR6 use the same rear springs already. The part numbers for shocks are the same to on sites like Euro car parts and GSF. The only real difference between them is the front springs which have to be beefed up to cope with the extra weight of the engine. Having said that, the VR6 only weighs 40kg more than the GTI 16V (according to Parkers) which is less than the weight of a very skinny passenger. So, it might sit just a little lower than the GTI but maybe that's no bad thing? I'm with warner on this one. I've got H&R 30mm drop spri

I've just read that there are two types of steering rack for the VR6. I've checked it out on EKTA and it agrees. Theres a ZF model with a waffle finish cast aluminium body and a TRW model with a smooth steel body. Acorrding to sites in the US, all VRs have the ZF aluminium type. I've just checked mine though and it has the TRW smooth steel type. Maybe they are different in the UK? Anyone heard of this? Cheers, ip

First check would be the blue temp sensor on the thermostat housing (front right hand side of engine, under coil pack). When I got my VR, it was doing 17mpg and smelled like a petrol station forecourt. If the blue temp sensor (G62) is giving a bad reading, the engine will ignore it and just default to cold start mode. This allows the car to start, but it is like driving with the choke on the whole time. Even if the temp gauge on the dash is reading 90 degrees, the blue sensor can still be broken. For some reason, VW decided to use a seperate temp sensor for the dash gauge and the ECU. For your

If you have extremely toe'd in steering (both wheels pointing in too much) plus a bit of negative camber you may not notice any pull when driving/accelerating but you will notice a little bit of extra understear and more than average tyre wear on the insides of the wheels. Also, if the coilies are set too low (wishbones sit below horizontal) then you may also get unpredictable handing and tyre wear. The Mk3 benefits from a little stiffening up of the shocks but doesn't like to ride too low! ip

Do they work? ip

Flying in the face of popular opinion here I know but...... I've tried FK Highsports and boge turbogas shocks with 30mm lowering H&R springs. Though they both did a lot for the appearance of the car (and improved roundabout antics) neither provide a really plush ride. Currently I am running boge shocks/standard springs on the back and H&R springs with boge shocks on the front with a raising top cups to get a 20mm lowering. This gives the car a nice profile and great handling even when loaded (at least as good as the FKs) but is still a bit crashy on Edinburgh's pot holed roads. However

Yes, a faulty MAF will do this. Worth getting a VAG-COM reading done (someone in the club should be able o help), it could also be the temp sensor but a reading will show this up. ip

I did this last summer and it was a brutal job. Not really because it's a VR6 but simply because the front bolts on my wishbones and the ball joint connections to the hubs had seized. In the end, I actually ripped the head off the passenger side front bolt and had to drive the car to a local garage (very gingerly) where they took a whole day to remove the shaft of the bolt from the subframe using oxy (had to cut the wishbone off and then weld a steel rod to the bolt so it could be turned without it's head). Very disappointing day. However, if you don't live in bonny Scotland with all the salt