sepulchrave

Lol @ mk2vr6 :D Jeez, I regularly drive a LWB 3.5 Ton Van fully laden with tools and gear all over the country to remote hilltop locations and I can categorically tell you that if you use satnav in this way you WILL do the damage you have described, I have recently been working at the top of Caradon Hill on Bodmin Moor and the types of road you describe are easily avoided. Get a nice shiny new AA GB road atlas and plan ahead, use ONLY motorways and major A roads to get close to your destination, then do a short hop to the horrible place on the horrible roads. In my case this meant the A30 to Launceston, the A388 to Callington, the A390 toward Liskeard and finally jumping off onto local roads for only the last couple of miles. You'll do more miles but use less fuel, minimise wear and tear on your vehicle and caravan, massively reduce the likelihood of an accident and arrive at your destination more relaxed, more quickly and less tired. I ONLY use pratnav for alien town/city centres where it is actually useful, this also means that my sense of direction remains unimpaired and I get to see all the landmarks etc. I've seen people who rely on pratnav, and after only a few months they get lost in their local Sainsburys! Change the way you drive or your nice new car will die screaming horribly. :D

That'll be because you have experienced that rare thing on this forum, a problem no-one else has had before. I'll take a stab that it's the spark breaking down since 4000 rpm is where you're just coming on the cam and your effective C/R is increasing putting the ignition under additional pressure. Replace the plugs first unless you know they're newish, after that one of your coil packs may be deteriorating, this is difficult to test for TBH but look for one of your plugs being slightly darker than the rest for a clue as to which cylinders pack may be failing, buy a new coil pack and swap it out but keep the old one to swap with the other cylinders until the problem goes away. It's somewhere to start.

You can't really get it wrong TBH, you simply need a long M8 bolt threaded all the way down to release the tensioner spring. Once you have the belt off you can remove the tensioner assembly and service it, loosen the bolt holding the pulley by undoing it CLOCKWISE as it has a left hand thread, remove the whole tensioner assembly and remove the pulley having already preloosened the bolt, then simpy pry the seals carefully off the bearing in the centre of the pulley, wash it out thouroughly and repack it with fresh grease, replace the seals, refit the pulley remembering to tighten the bolt ANTICLOCKWISE then refit the tensioner, belt and retorque the pulley centre bolt. Finally don't forget to remove the M8 bolt you wound in to release the spring tension. Voila, tens of thousands more miles of trouble free motoring and

Where is that fitted on an old tech diesel then?

Since there is only one 'drive belt' on a VR6 I cannot imagine that the HT leads would be disturbed by changing it since it is at the opposite end of the engine to the coil pack. It's a coincidence. Yours is a 1997 car and will likely be on about its fifth set of leads so is about due the next set now. Unless you've changed the plugs and leads recently I strongly suggest you do the lot before your coil pack gets damaged, the engine itself will be fine.

SPOOKY OR WHAT! :D

You need to get a diagnostic scan, the fault(s) should show up quite clearly.

Yours is definitely an immobiliser issue, not a relay 30 issue: RELAY 30 ONLY AFFECTS THE 2.3 I4 ENGINED FORD GALAXIES!!!! For gods sake someone do a sticky in the FAQ's to this effect. Have you checked the key for the PATS chip falling out, did you drop the keys in Tescos? Have you got the master key or a coded spare to try out?

Shurely shome mishtake here: http://www.tradingstandards.gov.uk/ Personally I'd go over the dealers head directly to the manufacturer first and if that fails then try here: http://www.smmt.co.uk/home.cfm

Yes, that'll be the problem then, your fan is knackered.

There is indeed a switch on the clutch pedal and I suspect that this is the cause of your problem. Solution: Replace the switch.

Took you five weeks to stop digging then....... :) Why not buy a good engine WITH a turbo still hanging off it?

It is more likely to be a coolant leak from the thermostat housing than head gasket failure and the misfire will probably be the the plugs/leads/coilpack. Suggest you remove the undertray, refill the cooling system, plug all the plugs back in and look for the leak under the car or from the expansion tank overflow. 2 + 2 <> 5

Please be serious! It's a SCAM not an urban legend! Water injection is not the same thing at all and it is of NO benefit to N/A petrol engines whatsoever.

Cooling fan failure?

Strut top bearing seized?

Negative. Damaged camlobe will be for valve actuation running on a collapsed or heavily spalled hydraulic bucket. Camlobe for unit injector runs on large overhead roller rocker which in turn actuates injector, roller may be scored but will almost certainly be reusable.

It is possible that you fitted the switch incorrectly, check the FAQ's for the correct procedure.

Thanks for all the additional info there. I was really only referring to things relevant to the OP's question about the cylinder heads. I am certain I am right about that since I have supplied many such heads on an exchange basis for a wide variety of VW based vehicles. I was not aware that the unit injectors themselves were different since we simply bolt the existing ones into the new head casting, I was aware that there were many detail differences between the powertrains of the engine variants but didn't want to muddy the waters since it was outside the scope of the reply needed. Those of us with knowledge to share with members really need to stick to solving those problems rather than overcomplicating matters and losing the focus of the thread. Please do point out if any of the advice I freely give misleads the OP in solving his particular problem, you will find that I do not tend to bother posting in most threads unless I have something useful to contribute, hence my lowish post count. Anyway, back on topic here, I stand by my assertion that you can use any PD head on your engine, and maintain that you will be better off fitting a completely remanufactured head which comes complete with new cam and followers already installed, you will need new stretch bolts for the unit injectors and head fitment and a new top gasket set.

For a petrol 2.3 brand is not that important, for a diesel which is WAY harder to crank then brand becomes much more important. Stick to 60 Ah rather than 50 Ah. If you're that hard up for munny go and get a decent secondhand battery from a knackers yard, buy one from a beemer and you'll get a really good quality beemer branded Varta battery. Remember: Buy cheap, buy twice. Cars cost munny to run, it's an inescapable fact.

possible PATS chip alert.

Yes, all the VW 1.9 PD heads are the same casting etc. I believe that they are all interchangeable irrespective of which VW, Seat, Skoda they come from. The BHP differences are entirely down to turbo boost and mapping which is why chip changes are so spectacularly successful with these engines. You would be better advised to fit a remanufactured head complete with cam from someone like: http://www.ivorsearle.co.uk/public/index.asp They are not very expensive and you get a good guarantee to boot.

There is a 2.0 version of this engine, although most of the dizzy lumps will be early 8-valve Sierra type I4 units, some have a single coil pack with all four leads coming out of it. AFAIK all the later 16-valve variants are coil pack engines from 2.0 Mondeos or 2.3 Galaxies, and there are some mechanical differences. Anything is possible but you can't really use a dizzy with the Gals ECU since you'll have nothing to plug into it. IIRC Someone here fitted a 2.0 16-valve I4 Mondeo unit to their dead 2.3 but it was a big job for an experienced motor engineer, seek and ye shall find.

In a word. No. They HAVE to fit it to beat tighter emissions regs. in other marketplaces. The combustion chamber cooling effect is a non-isusse in an oil burner, it is really only relevant for modern high compression ultra-lean burn petrol engines.

Loss of servo assistance through vacuum leak etc. does not result in any loss of braking power, you simply have to press the pedal harder in order to achieve it, so it may be a simple vacuum leak. I had a 'bubble' of air sitting somewhere above the ABS modulator which produced exactly the symptoms you describe and I too suspected a vacuum leak but couldn't find one, pedal felt completely normal but would suddenly briefly dip with accompanying loss of braking, ABS would also sometimes give a brief thump. I eventually swapped out all the brake fluid at service time and hey presto, problem solved. I have absolutely no idea how the air could have got there and it was very intermittant and therefore very hard to trace.