MrT

Another issue that you should be aware of is, if like me, you by habit lock the door with the fob when leaving the car. If you do this with the family inside, realise then unlock it again and walk away, the doors will automatically re-lock on deadlock after a minute or so then set off the alarm with the family locked in and unable to get out. This could be dangerous, especially when uncaging an angry other-half that has had half the car park amused at their predicament. You must open a door after unlocking it with ther fob or the car thinks you accidentally unlocked it and locks itself.

You can nearly always get cheap second hand bars on ebay and with the galaxy having roof rails, the fitting is fairly standard. I have bought Thule Aero bars from here. Again the same for second hand roof boxes, I got a Thule Vision 850 from ebay. With this large box on the roof I can also fit a bike carrier alongside. One thing to consider with the galaxy is the loading, the roof can take a maximum of 75Kg including the bars and the box. To keep the weight down, you should pack everything in soft or laundry bags. Being so high up, it can cause roll in the galaxy when overloaded. You also need to consider the lifting of the box onto the roof bars remembering the height of the galaxy, it can be tricky outside in a strong wind! Also if you are using ferries or Eurotunnel the total height of the vehicle with the roofbox, when mine is fully loaded with box and bikes, I have to book it on as a large vehicle which can cost a lot more. The choice of matched locks can be of use when you have many locks on bars, boxes and bike carriers. I have often used Roofbox for various bits and it they also have a goof informative site. They often have seconds for sale.

If you mean a beep from the horn when you lock/unlock the car, yes you can. If you see the thread on auto locking the galaxy in this "questions about the galaxy" part of this forum and look at my last post you are most of the way there. Auto Locking.

Finally I have got this to work. Adaptation in VAG-COM or any other program will not work on my car. The only way I could do this was to directly write to the EPROM of the controller 09 Cent Elec using VDS-Pro (A DOS based program that does not work under Windows) and my VagCom lead To access the EPROM you need a suitable program and need to login to the unit using code 21318 The address you need to write to is 61002 where the default code is 160. BIT 0 (add 1 to default 160) enables some sort of automatic locking but I am not sure what. BIT 1 (add 2) enables the automatic locking above a certain speed BIT 2 (add 4) enables automatic unlocking when removing the key after the engine has been run BIT 3 (add 8) does something with the alarm but I dont know what BIT 4 (add 16) enables a brief horn beep when locking BIT 5 (add 32) enables "intermittentes" closing but I am not sure what this is BIT 6 (add 64) enables a brief horn beep when unlocking BIT 7 (add 128) enables "intermittentes" opening but I am not sure what this is The speed at which the door locks in Km/h is at address 60993 and the default value is 14. If anyone can clarify the unknowns it would be of use to me.

I think premium mats are what I have in my Galaxy, they are basically a second layer of identical fitted carpet that totally covers the front footwells, and the area of floor between the front and middle seats.

It does not talk to controller "35-Centr Locks" as shown on the Vag-Com screen but through "09 Cent. Elec." where it can see the status of the doors etc. Maybe this is the problem, I should be talking to 35 which I cannot?

The Bosch Aero blades are better than the Fords. However you may find you could need to change the arms as well as the blades as the fittings may be different. I needed to change the arms and blades on mine around three years ago but the aero blades may come with more fittings nowadays.

Is this possible using Vag-Com? When I look at channel 3 & channel 4 in adaptation it shows channel not available? I have seen some references to VDS-Pro but I would prefer not to buy another software package and I do not clearly understand the instructions in german or spanish. Is there a simple guide on how to do this?

When my battery was just about to give up everything else appeared fine but nothing happened when I turned the key. Normally with a dead battery when you turn the key everything else dims or stops but oddly this did not happen. I also had odd behaviour from the brake pad warning light. My interlock between the autobox and ignition key appears to be a mechanical cable link, the key will not turn and you cannot remove it, if you are in a gear. There is also an electrical link where you cannot move the gear lever out of park unless you press the brake pedal first.

If it is just a small pushed in part of the panel without any creases, a kids toy arrow with a sucker on the end will work, for slightly bigger - a kitchen suction hook for hanging tea towels on works as does a windscreen suction licence holder. If you have a small dent without any creases or deep scratches in the paint, you are relatively lucky.

To put it simply the energy needed to extract hydrogen from water is greater than the energy you get back when you burn the hydrogen. Another manifestation of perpetual motion.

Be careful about buying MAFs from unknown sources. There are large number of Chinese manufactured equivalents around that even have the Bosch part number stamped on them and advertised similar to "for Bosch part number ******", so look for "genuine bosch" or similar when buying. The Chinese "Bosch" equivalent in an unbranded box did not work properly in my car.

My Gal is solid black and the primer used is white so guess what every chip on the bonnet looks like. My Focus is sort of metallic pearlescent black and this does not show every mark or the direction you polished in that the Gal does. The solid black Gal takes so much cleaning and polishing to get it to look good, but it looks great when done. Needless to say, salt on the roads in winter makes a horrible mess of it, silver would be a lot easier. The old Gal will probably stay in the garage for most of the winter unless the other half decides to go away for the weekend and we need to take the contents of the house just in case we need them.

Have you any engine management light warnings? When my Galaxy MAF had a dodgy replacement which gave impossible readings the engine management light came on, the gearbox dropped a gear or two and then stuck in that gear until the MAF error and also a gearbox "torque out of range" error (no logical idea why the MAF made this appear but it was repeatable) was cleared from the ECU. Alternatively on our Focus auto, if we red-line it away from a junction in first gear, it decides a low gear is required and it can take some time before it will change up to the higher gears in urban traffic, meaning you are driving around at 4000rpm in second gear for about a minute until it realises you are not going to be driving in that style or until you manually overide it.

I had a similar experience a few years ago. The engine management light would come on occaisionally when using normal unleaded and on super unleaded it did not come on as much. My engine management light was coming on due to the ECU picking up a misfire. The misfire was on two cylinders and could be moved by swapping the coil packs from one cylinder to another. Eventually I lost one cylinder altogether. Assuming you have a 2001 Mk2, you may well have the same problems as I did. It turns out the 2000-2002 Mk2s have the one coil per cylinder as some VW VR6 engined cars and these coils were the subject of a recall in the USA but not the UK. The faulty coils can be identified by the number on the black plastic bit at the top "022 905 100A". This was discussed in detail on some VW forums such as VWvortex Forums. I changed all 6 out and it ran sweet as a nut after then. Be very careful on removing the wiring plug from the coil pack, if you break the plug you cannot buy a new one from Ford except as part of the whole engine wiring harness.

I have thought at night that when dazzled by other cars headlights that there is a slight difference with almost like a starburst lens effect but it could be down to only having it on in poor weather/visbility conditions.

As far as I know 11463 is for activating the cruise control and the question of how to enable the light when the cruise control is already enabled has never been answered. I really would like to know after all these years how it can be done.

This was discussed on the forum a long time ago and if I remember, the early Mk2s had the warning light fitted and it was meant work (my 2.8 is in this state) but was disabled but it should be possible to enable it with VAG-COM. I don't think exactly how to enable it was ever posted. If anyone has worked out how to do this I would love to know.

I always thought that the traction control operates by applying pressure to the brakes whilst the ABS only reduces pressure. I would have thought that an ABS device would not normally be able to apply pressure on its own, but then again Ford could have used the unit that does both for reasons of commonality. On mine the engine also reduces power, but this could be a function of the ESP. I would much prefer to have ESP and ABS and I never rely on them, they are there for the day I make an error, which no doubt will happen. Oddly enough I have had the ESP warning light come on on my other half's Focus when losing grip on pulling off fast with the front wheels at a slight angle. Normal behaviour you may say, but she does not have ESP on her Focus, that is unless it was fitted without the ESP switch.

Anything to do with your air-con? The fans run when the air-con compressor turned on.

Here are the pictures of the damage. It is small, but I am concerned how significant it is.

I kept getting this problem with new pads. I thought my problem was because I leave the Gal for a few weeks at a time in the garage and when I start off there is a jump as the brake pads free themselves from the disks and the warning then comes on. I thoroughly checked the wiring and could not find any problem. Then my battery suddenly failed and after replacing it, I have never had the problem again. I wondered if the battery voltage being low had caused the sensors to think that the pads were out of limits?

If you are looking at the V6 auto and have sufficient funds, I would recommend considering the Mk2 over the Mk1. There was a substantial engine change going from a 12V 178bhp engine to a 24V 204bhp. The later engine is also more economical. The gearbox also improved from a four speed to a five speed with a tiptronic style change. I have had both and certainly noticed the difference when I upgraded.

Not my Gal but the other half's Focus has had something sharp spike the sidewall of the tyre leaving a piece of rubber missing approx 8mm long and about 3mm (max) diameter. The Ford dealer said it was not neccessary to replace the tyre as the damage had not punctured, reached or exposed the chords in the sidewall. Is this good advice, I don't want to have to spend about

This does sound like the pressure switch, it will allow about three errors before switching the air con system off. The system unfortunately does not tell you if it is an over pressure or an under pressure. I believe there is a single switch that detects over and under pressure. My system exhibited this behaviour when I it had a leak and lost pressure and also when I overfilled it. You can get low pressure gauges that fit to the low pressure air con pipe for around