MrT

Hi, There have been hundreds of posts here over the past decade on air conditioning issues. The main one on early Mk2s was the failing of the condenser inside the top under the plastic cap due to corrosion. This leak can be so small it is almost impossible to find. So far in 13 years I have been through one replacement condenser and two compressors.

What seems to have cleared the fault, I have no idea for how long or why, was to put it in Tiptronic which selected "4", clear the fault using VAG-COM which changed the gear to "1" with a bump, then turn the engine off whilst still in tiptronic first gear. On restarting the fault did not re-occur. One thing I noticed was that when the fault occurred and the car was in drive, every gearbox number (DPNR54321) was highlighted on the dash when normally only the selected gear is. Thanks for the reply and lets hope the fault has gone.

I have not used the old GAL for a year, started it up today as it needs its MOT and it seems to have an auto transmission problem and is (electronically) stuck in failsafe 4th gear. I get the following error in VAG COM. 00258 - Solenoid Valve 1 (N88) 30-00 - Open or Short to B+ which also leads to engine fault: 18032 - MIL Request Signal Active (Check TCM for errors too!) P1624 - 35-10 - - - Intermittent Resetting the code just brings it back again. Disconnecting the battery for a couple of minutes also does not clear or enable the error to be cleared. If I put it in tiptronic gear mode, then clear the fault it changes to first gear, but on putting it back into drive the fault instantly reappears. I have a feeling that this is going to be too expensive a repair on a 13 year old car, which is a shame as it was otherwise immaculate and has not yet done 40K miles. (Galaxy 2.8i Auto)

It is not just distance, my split after only 35K but 10 years old, dried out and took the CV joint out. Still on the original tyres, lets hope they don't do the same as they cost more than a drive shaft each.

There may be more than just a melted coil pack to this. I have had a coil pack split in half before and the car carried on running albeit a little rough on the other five cylinders. The coil packs themselves are not expensive but if the wiring loom has been damaged this is very expensive to replace. I would not have thought an electrical fault would have melted the coil pack, especially the part the fits over the spark plug in the hole as this appears to be made of metal and ceramic.

Hi, it sounds like your CV joint on the driveshaft has gone. This happened to me. It is worse on long mototway uphill inclines about 55-65mph and when accelerating in this speed range. It also gets worse with distance as the CV joint heats up. On may car it felt like the rear end was wagging or a bit like a speedboat in choppy water.

Somewhere on this forum about 7 or 8 years ago, I posted some stuff about a similar issue. Mine was caused by an aftermarket MAF which gave readings which the engine management system reported as "implausible reading" and also something along the lines of "over-torque reading". This made the engine go into limp mode and also put the gearbox into limp mode which I think locked it into third gear. I think this also put unusual warning lights on as well. Replacing the original MAF (still working after 11 years) and resetting the fault codes fixed this. When my faulty manufactured coil packs went that also brought the enginer management light on the fault reported was "misfire on cylinder X". Thirdly a nearly dead battery can give all sorts of odd warning lights as well. I suggest you either borrow an engine code reader or ask a garage to read your fault codes. Remember this requires a VAG (ODB2) not Ford codes to be read on this model as the engine and managment systme are Volkswagen.

I am curious about the "pull chord". Was this fitted in such a way that is looked like a saw tooth blade, sort of straight out, then diagonal in the staight out again? If was I might have been wrong about the stitching as I thought the picture was a blow up of fine stitching, but it could have been a pull chord in a large stitch pattern.

Hi, I had a similar noise and it was the bearing on the drivers side shaft. The bearing had worn as the gaitor had a tiny split allowing the inner CV to leak grease and wear out which in turn put a lot of force on the bearing. As this happened gradually I was not aware of it until I started feeling a wobble when accelerating at mid speeds up slight inclines after driving for around 40-50 miles and it was the wobble I took it to the garage to sort out. The reduction is noise was very noticeable after a complete shaft assembly was fitted.

Two things have caused this for me in the past, failing air con and also leaves building up under the bonnet each side at the bottom of the windscreen. If the leaves are left here they form a mulch which blocks the drainpipes at the back of this area which run down to the wheel arches. If you have climate control, it must be on auto as in econ mode it will not clear the windows at this time of year.

You could test two things with a meter. The first is to check that there is voltage to the seat connector, if there isn't then you can start looking at the controls, fuses etc. You could measure the resistance of the seat pad as if it has failed it will be open circuit - but I am not 100% sure on this but there could be two pads in the seat, one in the back and one on the cushion, so if only one had gone you could still have resistance. Seats with heaters varied between models, not all had them.

There is not just the cost of the heat pad to worry about, it is a major job to fit it as you have to unpick the winding or stitching around the bottom of the seat to remove the cloth then it all has to be "sewn" up again. I had this done under warranty and there were several hours work involved. Care also has to be taken on some models seats as there are airbags in the side of the backs.

There was someone a week ago saying you cuold get the whole driveshaft for

I had this shake on my Gal and it was a dry CV joint caused by a tiny hole in the boot. It needed an expensive new shaft to fix it. It only happened when the enginer was hot and I assume that the CV joint was also becoming hot at the same time from driving and causing the vibration. When my poorly made coils went a few years ago, this misfire was picked up by the engine management system and brought on the yellow engine warning light. The misfires were recorded on individual cylinders and readable by VagCom.

This warning is usually caused by a break in the circuits to the pads. The first thing is always to check the pads on both sides of the disks, which you have done. Check that the trailing wire connectors with fairly large plugs behind each wheel are firmly pushed together, they often are not after work has been done on the brakes but may appear to be, just not fully pushed together. There is also the possibility that the pads fitted do not have sensors (they should) or the fine wires to them were damaged in the installation. On my car when I have left it for a long time without using it, this warning has happened but after a few hard uses of the brake, it has cleared. I suspect this was related to leaving the handbrake on when it was not being used which stuck the pads with disk rust.

This happened on mine when the refrigerant level was too low. It also happened to me today then the f**ing clutch packed in on the compressor. I have checked the 12V to which is present when its required and it still will turn by hand, but I reckon it is cheaper to replace the compressor than the clutch.

Yep, the inner CV joint on the drivers side had gone. There was just a tiny hole in the rubber that was nearly too small to see but the joint had dried out and worn out. There apparently was some bearing on the shaft that had also nearly totally gone. Too much for me to do myself nowadays, so it cost me

I have a new condensor and re-manufactured compressor and the air-con works at its best when the engine revs between 2000 and 6250rpm (V6 with dual system climate control), the output reduces at idle - about 650rpm. I am sure the original when it was working worked better below 2000rpm. Anyway on a warm day around 25C I get about 6C from the centre vents and yesterday when the car said the temp in my drive was 32C, I was getting about 10C from the vents. If you have climate control and VAG-COM you can read the temperatures of the cabin, external and vents (not sure which vents) from the car.

I changed mine around 7 years ago and I seem to remember that I had to change the washer jets as the originals no longer fitted.

It is not that simple as the climate control has many electronically controlled motor driven vent flaps and sensors that direct the air to where it is needed and these are not in the manual controlled version.

I have noticed something odd on my Galaxy that only seems to happen on long motorway drives when everything gets hot, if I accelerate above 50mph but below 80mph if feels like a vibration or a rocking wobble. I feel it through the seat and it is not felt at all through the steering wheel. My garage could not find any trace of it on their rolling road or any problems when they serviced and MoTed it. There is no sign of it when not accelerating or outside of the 50-80 speed range and it makes no difference what gear I am in. There are no other odd noises or any visible sign of anything wrong. The car is getting old but it has done less than 40K miles. Any ideas where I should be looking?

My compressor and fans do not run continually when in Auto, it only runs when the climate control thinks it is needed or when the demist function is selected. The gas pressure can drop enough for the aircon not to work efficiently but still enough pressure not to trigger the cut-out switch and flashing display. I had that then when I had the leak at the top of the drier on the front of thcondenseror under the plastic cap and I had similar symptoms to you. There is also a small possibility that when you lost you gas, the compressor seized and the shaft broke inside, the clutch will still spin but nothing is turning inside. Again there the compressor could be damaged from when it had no gas and now cannot create the pressure to work. If you have either of these, there will be little effect on the engine when the clutch engages, if the compressor is working, you can hear the load on the engine as it cuts in and out. In VAG-COM you can get more readings on what is happening in the climate control system such as the vents and temperature at different points in the system.

All 2.8 Galaxies have been V6 engines, even though the V is a very small angle. Mine is also a 2001 (Mk2) and the early Mk2s had a problem with the coil packs (6 of them, each directly mounted on the spark plugs) breaking down. There were many posts on this around 5-6 years ago including some where I detailed the specific batches of coils that were breaking down. However it would be unusual for all 6 to suddenly go at once, so you could have a crankshaft sensor or sensor wiring issue. Often with recorded errors when cleared they can go away and not re-occur as they were temporary faults or bad readings, so clear the errors and see which ones re-appear.

Motor Climate UK or Compressortech and this was 5 years ago and still going strong.

I found a re-manufactured compressor cheaper than just a new clutch pulley when mine failed several years ago.