You do realise that when theres a snow coating on the ground a 4wd system with winter tyres is more secure/predicatable dont you?

Yes, but a 4×4 on road tyres (not all terrains) is still going to get whipped by a FWD car on winter tyres, all things being equal. Until you reach the point where ground clearance becomes an issue.

Once you get to the proper kit like Defenders you have the massive advantage of diff locks & the fact that they generally have at least all terrain tyres, whilst most road cars don't even come with an LSD.

How does gym pricing work? Apart from uni gyms, they all seem to have websites that say "We have GREAT low prices. Telephone or call in so that we can assess your net worth and give you the hard sell".

I would reckon £200-£300 quid. Still worth doing as I'd imagine the car is worth approx £1500-£2k.

When there's someone tailgating me in the snow, I pull in at the next junction, do a quick U turn and pull out behind them. Saves all the stress and aggro of having them behind you, and you get to do a quick handbrake turn :lol:

Extension cable and a battery charger. The only thing that might go wrong with the car is that the battery will run flat.

The coolant can also pressurise and bubble due to simple overheating. When it's all under pressure, everything's fine. As soon as you remove the cap, the pressure drops and the water boils, spewing straight out of the top of the tank. Same principle as water boiling at a lower temperature when you're up a mountain. Been there done that with several cars.

Only time I've ever had headgasket problems was when I had a cracked head on a GTI – went from absolutely flying up the road to clouds of white smoke from the exhaust and zero power in about 5 seconds.

I imagine that if you nip over to Land Rover Liker GRIPPED! LETS OFF ROAD! Forums they're probably all posting about having passed many a stuck eco warrior in turbo diesel hatchbacks.

Rear wheel drive cars aren't as good as front wheel drive cars in the snow. Almost all premium & sports cars are RWD – Merc, BMW, Jag, RX8, MX5, MR2, 350Z, etc. Neither are wide tyres with large tread blocks, which is what tends to be fitted to these cars. They're the first cars you'll see being abandoned in the snow, with the exception of RWD and rear engined kit like Beetles and Porsches – they have better traction than anything apart from a 4×4, given the right tyres.

On the other hand, RWD and wide tyres is a lot more pleasant than FWD and narrow tyres for the other 350+ days of the year.

And FWD and narrow tyres is a lot more pleasant than a Land Rover 90 with its rock hard suspension, tall tyres and squirmy tread blocks.

And all of the above are considerably better than walking.

As for leaving the stat out first to test it – when you're paying £85 an hour for labour, it's a lot cheaper just to change it and bleed the coolant system once. Takes about half an hour.

Thermostats cost £10-£15 from the VW parts desk. Fitting a thermostat on some golfs is a real doddle (1.6 and 1.4 AEE/AEX engines in particular) as it's in a housing on top of the engine. That means you lose barely any coolant. Other models based on the big block (possibly some 1.6s, all the 1.8s and 2.0s) will most likely need the water pump off to change the stat. Which means you lose all the coolant.

Coolant is about £10 a bottle and they'll need two or three.

Time should be around an hour for a reasonably competent person.

So yes, they're damned pricey. There's no reason to be taking a 5 year old car to a dealer.

As for what the problem is, there are lots of options.

Worst case scenario is that the car's losing coolant because of a blown head gasket, and the bubbling is due to the coolant pressurising. Think £300+ at an independent garage. Head gasket issues are fairly rare on VWs.

Best case is one or several of the following: the rad has frozen, or the air intakes have been blocked by snow, or the thermostat is dead, or the water pump is dead, and that's caused a simple overheat, and the head gasket is undamaged. Diagnosing and fixing that should be a £100 – £200 problem. £200 being new radiator, thermostat and water pump, and a cam-belt for good measure if they've got to take that off too.

The car is most likely losing water because one of the plastic water elbows has warped and is weeping slightly – every hose that comes off the engine block is attached by a bolted on plastic elbow which is sealed by a rubber o-ring. These can warp and lose a little coolant. Another £50 to trace this fault and replace the part.

Whoever does the job, I would recommend specifying they use the correct coolant – you can buy a copy of the VW stuff from factors, or just get it from VW. VW parts are surprisingly cheap, and I'd suggest they get an independent to do it with VW or OEM parts.