MrT

Assuming that you are on a flat surface, if the back drivers side of the car is down compared to the back passengers side, the front passengers side must be up or the drivers front side must also be down, otherwise the whole car would be twisted. Take a look at the other corners and see which other one is not as expected and the problem could lie there.

I have not used the Gal for about six weeks and as usual when first moving off there is a jolt as the pads move on the rusted discs. I have had the brake pad warning before in this situation but normally it clears after the first use of the brakes. However this time the "check brake pad" message keeps coming and going. The pads are relatively new and have about 2000 miles of use. There are no signs of loose wires and because it only seems to appear when driving I cannot trace which set of pads is setting it off. I assumed that it would create an alarm in the management module for the brakes but this is showing no faults at all, I have skimmed through the measurement blocks in the module and there is nothing here either. It does seem odd that the brake pads warning is separate from the brake, ABS and stability management system. Is there anything obvious I should be looking for before shorting out the wiring piece by piece until the intermittent fault is traced?

On my Galaxy where I have Electronic Stability Program (ESP) as opposed to traction control, when I had a new but faulty MAF sensor, when this gave an odd reading and triggered the engine management warning light, put the auto box in 4th and the ESP warning would come on as well (I posted on this here around 3rd week in November 2006). The reason for the ESP warning coming on due to a MAF fault was never really understood by me. VAG COM will help you pinpoint what casued the problem

Mine has heated and swivelling seats. It also has a big spring for height adjustment to ensure that the seat hits you in the face when you pull the wrong lever bending over the drivers seat to try and swivel it without catching the steering wheel.

I changed to the Bosch aerotwin type blades by buying two new arms and the blades on ebay for

A common fault is that the earth makes poor contact at the top of the screen just above the internal roof trim, especially when a new screen has been fitted, my was stuck on with mastic! There are two live feeds at either side of the screen, half way up, it's easy the first time to assume one is live and one is ground. On mine the heated screen will only work when the engine is actually running, it won't work with just the ignition turned on.

I think you will find there is little difference in cost between a clutch and a remanufactured pump. You need to work out why the clutch failed, if it was just the field coils then a new clutch would be a solution. Clutches often fail due to the pump seizing which burns out the clutch. You would also need a range of spaces to get the correct air gap in the clutch.

"Galaxy Gals" is a worrying thought as the Galaxy is big model that can fit seven people at a time!

Ford at one stage started to name their cars after porny mags such as Fiesta and Escort.

The thing that annoys me about my Galaxy is that you have to turn the front fog lights on before you can put the rear on. I have only once needed the front fog lights and have needed the rear around a dozen. I think it would be very rare to need front and not rear fog lights and not so rare for rear and not the front. After all if my rear fogs are dazzling the car behind me in thick fog, they should not be driving so close! I have changed the wiring on my rotary-pull switch so that the rears can be truned on without the front.

I thought burning veggie oil produced the same volume of C02 (greenhouse gases) as normal diesel and in doing so was just of much as of a pollutant? Do people actually declare to the taxman every litre of veggie oil they put in their car? I am sure many people inadvertently overlook a few.

I have had this thump at low speeds after coasting then accelerating. It feels like a slack chain on a motorbike. It has happened since new but only once or twice a year, so I have never regarded it as serious. I have tried to reproduce it many times but never managed to. When I had a dodgy MAF the gearbox would drop down a gear to 4th at high speeds and the engine go into limp mode. The gearbox would report a torque limit error (or something similar). This nearly caused someone to go into the back of me as it was like slamming on the brakes. The same happens if you lose electrical power, so never cut the ignition when driving to try and reset anything.

My pads warning light came on yesterday as I had washed the car and put it in the garage around a month ago and left it. The pads had seized (or frozen) to the discs but after one good application of the discs the check pads warning went as soon as I turned the engine off and on again. The pads have only done 1000 miles, so I knew something was odd.

I would suggest clearing the fault codes then reading them again. Most of those were caused by your mates incompetence and should not come back unless a real fault exists. It could be that the "shorts" have locked up the ECU rather than damaging the sensor inputs, so a total reset by disconnecting the battery for a while could reset it. It could be that a short remains where you friend was fiddling so recheck what he did and remove any wires he added. He may have connected the power to a sensor rather than a power lead. I cannot see how anyone wiring up a stereo (the wires are there in the dash) can connect to a MAF.

You will have to clear your EPC warning light with either VAG-COM or another engine code tool. I am not sure if disconnecting the battery for a while will reset it or not. Your engine and car could well be stuck in limp home mode now. No doubt the lack of MAF had triggered this alarm.

All you have checked with one lead is that the lead you disconnected works and that part of the coil pack is producing a spark. It does not prove the other 5 leads and other parts of the coil pack are working. You need to check these. If you removed a lead from a cylinder I would expect that plug to get covered in fuel. By removing the lead from a plug then running the engine you would be pumping fuel and air into that cylinder and as there was no spark to ignite it, the fuel would be deposited in the cylinder and the plug. Some fuel/air would also be pumped into the exhaust where it could ignite. Petrol turns to vapour, very quickly in a warm engine, so I would not worry about that. If you had lost one or more cylinders due to an HT problem you car would get very thirsty as it uses 6 units of fuel for every two revs but only outputs one power stroke for each remaining working cylinder for every two revs. So if you lose one cylinder, your consumption will be approximately 120% of normal and for two cylinders 150%. I would still suspect an HT problem on your car.

I assume that you checked there is a large spark on every lead, not just one of them? The lead with the petroled plug sounds like the one that seriously needs checking. You really need to check this lead and also make sure that if it does produce a large spark to earth that there is no damage on the cable where it normally lies. You also need to check this spark plug, whilst a spark may jump from the body of the plug to to earth, can you see the spark coming from the electrode as well, it may jump from the centre electrode to earth or you may just see the spark jumping from the plug body to earth. The plug itself may have a centre electrode to earth path that means it is not sparking where it is meant to. This really does sound like an HT problem.

A lot of MAFs for sale on ebay and online shops are not original manufacturers parts or even reconditioned by the manufacturer. These MAFS even though they have an original manufacturers part number on them are made in China, although there is no reason why they should not work as it is a simple technology and the Chinese are now good at manufacturing. They are sold (typically) as "MAF Bosch Part No ABC1234546" which would make you think you are buying the genuine manufacturers item. Unless it is stated as "genuine Bosch" or similar, I would not recommend buying. My experience with aftermarket MAFs is that they don't work well and I was fortunate that I had my laptop and VAGCOM lead left in the car on a long journey and was able to reset my engine management system. I for one would now only buy a genuine manufacturers item, new or reconditioned. The reconditioned items are a new sensor in a used (but good condition) housing. I think for your particular model, the 2.0l engine is the Ford engine and that will probably use a Ford MAF rather than a Bosch MAF and as such you will only get a MAF from Ford or an aftermarket copy. For the VW based engines a Bosch MAF is used and these models are used on other models of car as well which is why they are commonly available. Are you sure your MAF sensor has gone, there is a lot of discussion on this forum about MAFs, but it tends to be the diesels that are sensitive to MAFs, on mine it makes little difference between no MAF and a good MAF, whilst driving, but a MAF giving wildly incorrect readings puts the car into limp home mode.

I believe the belt in the roof idea is that you are held in place by the car body rather than held in by the seat which if you had not pushed fully down after tilting fowards and the back floor clips engaged, would hinge forwards in an impact with you in it.

When I said in this thread earlier that the hyperlink function was not working in IE7, what I was referring to was when you are replying, you click on the "Insert Link" in the toolbar, (picture of the World with the paper clip on it) which used to bring up a dialog box asking you the enter the title then the URL (or the other way around), now when I click on the icon it brings up an message box saying "Error, You must enter a title. You must enter a URL". Typing in a URL into the message and clicking on it to navigate there works. Navigating from other peoples URLs in a message works, I just cannot use the "Insert Link" tool anymore.

I got a remanufactured (supposedly better than reconditioned) one for

There is the snowflake at the bottom of the red led screen when the temperature is at or below 4C, the bong happens as the temperature drops below 4C. The bong is very quiet in my car and easily missed. I seem to remember some message appearing as well, but it has been nearly a year since I last had the warning. so I may be wrong.

Another bit of experience with the Galaxy windscreen is that repairers that come to you or roadside repairers will not do the Galaxy outside of a garage due to the size of the glass and the fitting. The easiest way to break a Galaxy windscreen is to remove the wiper blade then let go of the wiper arm and as it springs back against the window it breaks it. Seen to it happen to a work colleagues car. Cannot remember who it was who did my screen (they were on the Triumph Trading Estate in Edmonton) but they sheared the earth lug off behind the courtesy light and stuck the heated screen earth to the body with black mastic.

Why make such a fuss, anyone can download radio code generators, they are all over the internet? A thief is not going to come to a forum and ask for a code for a stolen radio, they will know where to get the codes from. Then again why ask for a code here when you can get it from the internet yourself. Seems a lot of tub thumping going on here.

If you are having this done under insurance and have later problems, you could always take it up with your insurance company, they will have a lot more influence over the workshops than you could. If the workshop loses one customer who may well never visit again, it does not affect them much, if major insurers refuse to use them they could go out of business.