I think most of the Royal haters on here seem to think that the Royals are looking down from their ivory towers and life of luxury. I wouldn’t swop for one minute. I can go to the shops when I want, buy what I want. See who I want, we have relative freedom. Every aspect of their lives is controlled, checked and vetted. No thanks. Subjugation I don’t think so, maybe during the medieval period. I don’t give them much thought really other than thinking that Wills and Harry seem like a couple of good lads that have been through a load of sh!t that would test any bodies sanity. You haters are almost subjugating yourselves with your bitterness.
Lighten up chaps.

Somafunk are you sure it was Vatanen’s Quattro as he never drove for Audi apart from a demonstration run in Australia. He drove for Ford then Opel then Peugeot.

Keep us informed how it goes. Still deciding if I am going to go diesel or petrol. Might go for an old knacker and keep something back for repairs. Thinking cheap lexus sportback 3.0 Auto. Will look into coding of injectors. Still not convinced about code for injector rather than car. Why would the codes be on the rocker cover ie each cylinder. Have you used the code supplied with the injector or the original one?

We are all just here for a very short time. Do it waste the money enjoy it, then sell it on. Then you can say ” I had one of those!” Can’t take it with you.

1400 quid. They are having a laugh mate. Take it off and clean it. Or at least get a specialist to have a look. Get some quotes at least. Robbing barstools.

Well done mate good effort. For what its worth when I’m tensioning belts I always pick a point halfway on the longest run between cogs and set the tension so I can just rotate the belt at 90 degs. Not very scientific I know but I don’t have a tensioning guage and it’s never let me down. Yet! Read that in a really old Haynes manual when they were proper workshop manuals, think it was for an Audi 80.

I think you will only get a fault code if the exhaust oxygen sensor picks up the mixture leaning off to much or it senses a pressure fluctuation in the common rail.

Northwind I thought the code was to match the injector to the car, ie all the injectors are the same and the code is to suit the individual car/cylinder characteristics which would bear out the fact that it runs better with the original code. The injector may just be out of spec a bit.

That suspension is a simpler system using oil filled sachs dampers. Seems to be a good choice much better than the allroad system. £550 quid a side fitted by VW though so check for leaking oil from the shocker if you decide to go down that route. I agree with the interior aspect they are superb, not sure its worth putting up with everything else though. Think i’ll probably go down the Honda Accord estate petrol route. Dull but reliable.

Molgrips the most unreliable 4×4 is the Audi Allroad based on the A6. Why? It’s the self levelling suspension, it’s a major problem and a must to have replaced before you buy one. I assume it’s the same system on the Passat. Good luck with that one. 🙂

I think that with the increase in manufacturers going towards small turbo charged petrol engines the writing is on the wall for the diesel engine. Maybe that will be a good thing for all of us.

17-7-2012: DPFs of 2.2 diesel continuing to fail, resulting in total engine failure if the oil/fuel level in the engine is not checked and addressed. Today had notification of another 2.2 diesel engine failure at 36,500, but at the time of failure the engine contained 8.5 litres of fuel/oil mixture so the driver had obviously not checked the oil level.

From Honest John’s site. Seems the closed loop system on the 2.2D regen system is not infallible.

Mr Overshoot “And its not diesel leaking into the engine, the regen cycle on lots of engines if not completed dumps the fuel/shite mixture back into the sump.” That to me is fuel getting into the engine, the last time I checked my sump where the oil is was part of the engine. It may be the case with lots of engines but that doesn’t mean its a good method of regeneration for the dpf. I guess in the effort to sell cars the dealers aren’t being honest with Joe public and telling them that going to the shops and doing the school run isn’t the best environment for their diesel engine.

Molgrips if they ever come out with VW tinted cycling glasses you’ll be first in the queue. I understand where you are coming from. I had a number of Audi 5cylinder coupes, Audi 80 sport, Audi 100 estate with the 5cyl 2.5 TDI. Lovely cars that could be home maintained and capable of stellar mileages. That era has long gone. Ford trounces VAG cars in every reliability survey there is. That really annoys me as the early stuff was superb. At least with Skoda the dealers are better when you take your car in for repair! I’m in the market for a newish car and I simply don’t know what to get.

I would hope its just a dodgy sensor. I know the older Mazda 2.2 D had major problems with their re gens of the dpf. Urban use wrecked the engine because of the fuel used to force the re gen diluted the engine oil. The cars if used for motorway use were unaffected. I would of hoped that Mazda would have sorted this problem by now. Well documented on many car forums. Hope you get it sorted, if not get shot. Sale of goods act etc.

I was advised by a mate not to put reconned injectors in. When they tried to put them in a customers car they never worked he’s a jag mechanic, same engine as the mondeo. One of the cars leaked a load of diesel into the cylinder so much in fact that it hydro locked and wrote the engine off. The life of a Delphi injector is about 80 to 120k, depends I suppose on use ie urban or motorway miles. Bite the bullet and put a new one in. I think you need to code it because each cylinder has a different firing characteristic because of the exhaust manifold and inlet but also because of the heating and cooling of the engine block. The codes are normally on the rocker cover. Sounds to me like a faulty injector. I exhausted all my options with my mondeo, loved that car but I had to let it go, just to expensive to put right, and the new ones have crappy dpf’s and additive fluid tanks and cambelts!

I think its a U shaped clip that slides at 90 degrees to the pipe. A bit like the connections to the fuel filter I think. If not will need to check with mr Haynes.

The diesel in the end bottle is from the overflow which means that no 1 is restricting the flow to the cylinder. Ie more diesel in the bottle than the others. A leak off test is done from the return off the injector.

The egr blanking on the mk3 won’t trigger the EML. I was quoted near on 1k to get the injectors fixed. Damn shame as it was a great car. Buy newer sell sooner is my new motto.

My dads focus 1.8 tdci would start with all the glow plugs knackered. The injection system is so accurate it still starts but runs like a bag of hammers till it warms up. It would still easily start on one or two plugs but the unburnt diesel would come out as white smoke. Check the wiring they can draw quite a lot of current. Check for signs of burning of the wiring.

The 2.2 is a ford unit completely different from the pug/Citroen unit. Wish I’d got the 2.2 I may have kept mine and replaced the injectors.

At about 70k on my Mondeo 2.0 tdci 130 there were similar probs turned out to be a common rail pressure sensor playing up. I would of thought that the ECU would have picked this up though. Could be an injector playing up. This doesn’t necessarily cause a fault code unless the mixture leans off and is read by the oxygen sensor. Could it be a couple of heater plugs playing up. Ie faulty wiring, they do help the cold running for a bit until the engine warms up.

This thread is dangerous. I thought the Vrs was plenty fast enough but I’m a bit underwhelmed by the handling. Now I’m finding myself looking for 330 petrol Tourers. Must resist!!!!

My mate told his wife that he didn’t like the long sausage rolls that she was buying him for his packed lunch.
So next day he opens his lunch box and there are sat two sausage rolls.
She’d cut them in half thinking that he didn’t like them because they were too long.
Gotta love a woman’s logic! Oh how we laughed!!!!

Went from a Scudo 2.0 jtd to a focus estate. Bike wise it was catastrophic. The van was ace in every way. Regret it every bloody day!

Wouldn’t touch a connect at that milage. I’d be after a Scudo with less miles with the JTD engine.

Sounds like you’re handling this really well. Better than I would be. Put the kids first and everything else will in time sort it’s self out. Good luck. Don’t move out, this is her problem not yours. Be with your kids etc If she isn’t happy get her to move out and share the kids.

Don’t use postcrete. It makes the post too rigid and so susceptible to snapping when it weakens with age. Then you have to try and dig the bugger out to replace it. I use broken bricks and rubble, this allows the post to give a little bit but also the water can drain away if we ever get dry day. I used 4 x 3 inch posts. No sign of movement yet after 2 yrs. Easy to dig the rubble out to replace the post if it does snap.

Blanchland,Edmundbyers and Chopwell, then there is Thrunton and Rothbury. Keilder is up the road. It’s less than a hour to the Lakes. Forty five minutes to Kildale and Guisborough. No need just yet to go to Glentress. Hexhamshire common has loads of routes around Allenheads to Whitley Chapel.

Maybe they aren’t as awesome as you are!!! 😯

You don’t happen to work in the marketing dept in one of the MTB mags do you. If I wanted outright speed and an easy ride I’d buy a motorbike. All my mates ride 26 bikes cos they have loads of spares and bits and cos they ride to keep fit, not to post a fastest time on strava. You enjoy your clown bike, each to their own.

What are you going for? Log burner or open fire. I’m very jealous. We are thinking of moving so we can have a log burner amongst other things.

I think this goes to show that a mixed healthy diet is the key. A lot of absorption of vitamins and minerals only happens when food is combined naturally. Never taken a supplement. Eat oily fish twice a week and a bit of veg and mainly chicken and the odd bit of steak as a treat. Interesting study that one.

The estate has better rear suspension. The petrol’s are very reliable. The plenum chambers can get gunked up and the egr’s can stick. Other than that great cars, no cam belts and the clutches last much longer on the petrols. Prefer the zetec to the ghia, plastic wood looks a bit naff.

This is the last thing we built for fun. Mini Minus kit car. 1380cc A series heavily modified with a straight cut box and fully adjustable suspension. It’s not particularly powerful compared to today’s hatches but it’s light (fibreglass shell) and handles well. Bloody good fun as well.

Mate has a 2.0 D4D and it is on it’s second clutch and that is on it’s way out. So I can’t imagine the 2.2 will be any better in that respect cos it has a lot more Torques. Other than that it’s been very reliable seeing as it’s hit most of Cheshire.

What yr did the focus change to a mk 2. Think the mk 2s were chain driven. Think the problem is hopefully just the emission control engine breathing pulling oil from the crankcase and burning it. Where else can that quantity of oil go. It can’t be leaking you’d see it on the engine.

The 1.8 in the focus is a belt driven engine, the one in the Mondeo is a chain cam engine. We had the belt driven 1.8 110 bhp in our focus. Then they brought out a 125 bhp model a few months later. Don’t know of any generic problems with this engine. We had ours for 8yrs up to 103 k. Only problem was crap in the plenum and a sticky egr valve. I suspect the problem lies here. Could it be the breather pipes sucking oil into the inlet side. Ours was absolutely blocked solid. The only other thing is the oil control rings on the pistons. Very unusual this though.

There is a slightly cheaper version of muckboots called buckler buckbootz. Neoprene lined with a slightly more flexible sole. I bought these for walking the dog about 30 quid cheaper than muckboots. Was advised by our local farmer to get a pair and they have proved superb.