MrT

Its probably why it is an exchange item, they take away the old complete item and put a new cartridge in it.

I have had mine gassed again by the works transport department and I have lost a lot of gas and dye. They emptied it, vacuumed it weighed it and refilled it, put it on a overnight pressure test and not a drop was lost. They even left it running. They went through everything, under the car removed part of the dash, no sign of any dye leaks* and in the end they gave up saying they could not find the leak and advised me to go to an air-con specialist. They only charged me half an hours labour which is cheaper than a regas and I suppose is fair as now I have a system that is working for the moment. I don't know whether to go to a specialist and spend a lot of money or just keep it topped up with cans from Halfords. (*The only sign of dye was the filler of the low pressure pipe.)

Yeah take off a car door and take it in the house. If it gets too hot you can wind down the window. :(

Apparently it is there but disabled for safety reasons. It can probably be enabled using VAG-COM.

What are the better easier fitting beam deflectors for the Galaxy Mk2? I know tape works, but would prefer an easy clip on device.

On my 2.8 the taxable rate was 35% of the value due to its high emissions. Buying it from the company and running it myself worked out far cheaper, although I could have an expensive air-con repair coming soon.

I believe that only the HID lamps have this facility on the Galaxy.

I have recently had such a problem in that the engine would start and idle, although it seemed a bit lumpy. Under heavy load (full car + bikes on back and roof) the car seemed harsh and used more petrol. Under driving on the flat at 70mph, it seemed that nothing was wrong. The car was drivable with one cylinder not working properly. Basically the problems seemed the same as yours except my engine management was detecting a misfire. The warning light would come on, go off and flash. This turned out to be a faulty coil, my model which appears to be later than yours, has one coil per cylinder mounted directly on the spark plugs. However as the symptoms are so similar, I would suggest that you have a problem somewhere in your coil or plug leads. Mine was not related to being wet, the coil was breaking down inside. You could remove each HT lead in turn (obviously have the engine/ignition off when you unclip it) and see if one cylinder is misfiring as when you remove the lead from the faulty cylinder, the problem will not get worse. If you have lost a cylinder, don't drive to far as the unburnt petrol could damage your catalytic converter.

A bit off topic here but does anyone know how to make or repair the type of white ceramic insulator you get on the spark end of a spark plug? I ask as the spark plugs on my BBQ and also on my kitchen hob have cracked and cannot be replaced as they are both obsolete. They are placed in the flames so epoxy cannot be used.

The M1 for the next few years has a 40mph restriction between J10 (Luton) and the J6A (M25) whilst it is widened to 4 lanes and on a normal weekday without the roadworks this part is virtually stationary Southbound from around 6:00am to 10:00am. There are also roadworks starting on 6th May at M25 J25 to widen the Holmesdale Tunnel which is a bottleneck on the M25.

If your employer gives you a fully maintained car you cannot claim back the extra mileage rate from the tax man over what they pay you, you can only do this for your own car or possibly in some self-employed or contractor status. The additional rate is meant to cover depreciation and other costs which you don't pay for with a company car. When I had a company 2.8 Galaxy I got 19p a mile and now I have my own I only get the standard 12p per mile but the tax man now makes up the standard rate. Many companies now pay a standard mileage rate for all cars claiming that this is due to their consideration of the environment and encourages employees to run greener cars. I reckon it is more to do with lower costs. You can get far more details on taxation of cars and fuel at: Car & Fuel Tax The current advisory rates not attracting a taxable benefit are 9p per miles for a diesel under 2000cc.

There was a chap on the other thread listed above who had the autolocking on his 2.8V6, so is it model specific?

The drivers seat always wear first on a car as it is the most used. Have you checked the clothing that you usually wear for hard items, such as rivets in jeans or leather belts, these can all cause the rubbing away of fabric?

I had a V6 2.3 a fortnight ago, one of my six ignition coils had failed. It was not very smooth though B)

Maybe someone here can point you in the right direction or you can find it in the forum but if you have climate control, a certain combination of button presses can make it display the cars speed. If you can do this, you could see if the speed on the climate control display is erratic as well as the speedo. If both are erratic it is the sensor, if only the console is erratic the problem lies there. If you don't have climate control and your model is VAG COM compatible, you could find someone with VAG COM who would be able to read the live speed as you were driving.

I have a copy of Elsa Win but have never got around to installing it. However if you need a VIN and you have one near it from a similar model , you can go to a site on the web (cannot remember where but there are several) which fully explain how a VIN is constructed, some even have calculators. You can go from there and work out possible VINs for a vehicle for a particular build month. The majority of the codes do not change, e.g manufacturer, place of manufacture, type of vehicle, IIRC there are five digits you will have to guess but it does not take long. You will get a range of models and colours by changing the five digits, but eventually you will get one that works. I did this for mine for Microcat so I could look up the latest parts for later models.

Regularly turning the steering wheel whilst stationery can damage the outside edges of the front tyres, a habit than many drivers possess. Although if it is only happening on the passenger side, I would suspect the geometry. I don't believe that your average change-on-the-spot tyre depot fully understands steering geometry.

A pressure washer or hose with a nozzle through the grill under the bumper will usually blast anything off the undertray. This lower grill will usually pull out if necessary.

It was built in June 2001 and I paid

If you get one of these you can probably fit it on a Galaxy bike rack. You won't be able to open the tailgate though. Carry All

I use the older Thule Vision 850 which is 3cm shorter (90cm wide) and the only issue is I have to make sure it is mounted far enough forward so that the bike rack on the tailgate does not catch it when the tailgate is raised. I can also get a bike alongside this on the roof. It is the overall weight you have to watch. I also recommend putting soft stuff in the roof box or tying the contents down otherwise you will get a lot of banging and sliding around. If you are short, you may have problems loading and unloading it.

Put a new plug coil on to replace the broken one and boy what a difference and I don't mean to when it was running on 5 cylinders, but to when I thought it was running on six before. The performance difference is amazing, I must just have got used to the lack of power. Clearly the engine management system only picks it up when it is virtually dead or dying. The point where is failed is different on the replacement so I might as well replace the other five before they totally fail.

There appears to be two types of sensor in use on the galaxy range, one that looks like IR (really dark red glass) and another that looks like sonic (round tiny mesh effect). I don't believe you will hear any clicks from the dark red glass type, I certainly don't on mine and it is working. On VAG-COM I can see each of the sensors and they individually show the distance to the nearest object they detect.

I know, I have that problem at the moment!

That 180 psi is only on the high pressure side, the low pressure side can drop to zero with a leak and is only around 30 psi when normal, the pressure drops in the low pressure side when running. The R134A Refridgerant has an affinity for moisture.