Author Topic: My Corrado VR6  (Read 12105 times)

Offline toledo

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My Corrado VR6
« on: 26 June 2011, 14:58 »
Due to pressure from a couple of people i have decided to write this record of my Corrado VR6 purchase and ownership.
In April i discovered the listing for a 1994 L Corrado Vr6 in turquoise ! ( actually Ice Grey Violet Pearl ) having covered 104,000 miles with fsh , all working electrics and was described as being in immaculate condition as well as having 7 months tax and MOT.
I emailed the seller to ask some pertinent questions about things like timing chains, service history and if he had any reciepts for major work like the chains, clutch , gearbox etc.
This was his reply :
No resprays or damage, all original
No rust
No driving issues, new clutch 28/02/04, gears & steering ok
No chain rattle, far left windscreen control a little stiff but works ok, new matrix 12/02/10, sunroof & spoiler ok

Services:-
24/03/94 26 miles
06/07/95 7317 miles
24/07/96 14270 miles
18/01/97 17416 miles
21/01/98 23047 miles
03/12/98 27238 miles
11/03/00 32595 miles
04/08/01 41527 miles
20/07/02 49264 miles
01/02/03 53166 miles
19/07/03 56886 miles
14/02/04 61447 miles
07/08/04 64769 miles
05/02/05 68132 miles
09/07/05 71144 miles
11/03/06 75931 miles
08/07/06 78370 miles
10/02/07 82382 miles
11/08/07 85545 miles
02/02/08 88347 miles
20/07/08 91737 miles
31/01/09 95008 miles
08/08/09 98398 miles
06/03/10 101173 miles
14/08/10 102593 miles

If you were to come and view, you won’t be disappointed


In fact in a further email he informed me that the only fault on the car was :
The far left swivel control on the heater control, where you can change the air flow from windscreen to feet, to main dash blower etc.

As it was  in the midlands and i was in France due to relocate back to the uk in the following fortnight, i couldn't go view the car and when i did move back i would be an hour n half away .
Anyway following the above information given by the seller on the car i felt as comfortable as you can be to bid on it, it started at £1750 and didn't move until very late on but i won it at £2008 which i thought to be a bit of a bargain!
I then arranged with a mate to go down with him ( a mechanic ) in his recovery truck to collect the Rado ( this would mean one lot of fuel and no risk of uncovering any faults that may have left me stranded by the side of the road on way back home with it ).
We got there and proceded to inspect her, it was obvious to me that the front end had been blown over by a bodyshop, the colour match was great and the depth of finish was good but there were dirt inclusions in the paint and the stone chips typical of a car of this mileage were painted over ( the chips were still there but recovered in paint )- so much for the original paint - no resprays !!    :angry:
Also when i opened the fuel flap i was greeted by the beginnings of the dreaded rust round the filler neck as well as a un-treated stone chip on the rear arch that had blebbed up - so much for the No Rust !   :cry:
So we went for a test drive, she squeaked and rattled along and had a very hard ride even though it was running on standard suspension, despite this the Magnex made a nice subtle noise and she went well and there were no coolant temp concerns or stalling / misfiring issues and the oil  covering the engine appeared to be old oil rather than from a major leak or anything.
I estimated that the front brakes discs were thin, it was due a service and the shockers probably needed replacing plus the paintwork clearly needed a bit of work .
So i asked the seller to help me out on the price as i felt it was not as described, ' oh no ' he said ' i wanted £2500 for it so i won't budge on price ' he clearly had no real conscience as regards his decription of the car and the true condition and the fact that we had travelled a distance on the back of his description. Lets face it Rado vr6's are not too hard to buy at the moment !
So i had to make a decision on the spot which wasn't helped by my mate telling me to buy it ,buy it , buy it ,he had not thought to tell his missus what we were doing on his day off so she had booked an appointment with a wedding planner so he was in a seriously mad rush to get back ( this wasn't helped by the fact that he turned up late to pick me up either ! )
I decided to go for it and asked my mate mate to take the front spoiler off before he loaded it onto the truck to avoid damaging the spoiler, he promply ignored me and split it at the corner, when we later unloaded it he produced some blocks of wood that prevented the spoiler catching the truck , these can't have been available when loading obviously !  :grin:
Here she is


By toledo7175 at 2011-06-26
By toledo7175 at 2011-06-26
 

Offline Wayne

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Re: My Corrado VR6
« Reply #1 on: 26 June 2011, 14:59 »
 :cool: don't see many in that colour

Offline toledo

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Re: My Corrado VR6
« Reply #2 on: 26 June 2011, 15:15 »
First jobs :
I replaced the front indicators that were both cracked, i arrived off fleabay covered in red overspray ! The seller refunded me a part of the price so i am ok with it especially as i managed to remove it although the rubbing has left a slight dullness to lens, i will polish this out when / if i get the time.

I bought a new engine cover as some muppet had previously forced the cover off without undoing the hex bolts that hold it on !! This was probably the same rough arse who'd had the door cards off and not put them back properly, refitting this cured many of the rattles, also unscrewing the rubber tailgate rubbers cured the loud squeak from the rear, i love free fixes, they make you feel very clever i find   :wink:
Anyway the engine cover had been chucked around by postman pat so had a chunk broken off the edge of it  :angry: , this has glued back on but the glue is just visible.
The oil cleaned off the engine with several attacks with Bilt-Hamber Surfex HD which is a fantastic product for those of you that haven't tried it, it is a degreaser that can be diluted according to application and is bio-degradeable so you can spray away knowing that it won't accelarate the end of days  :laugh:
On this note the engine breather looks recent and i wonder if this was the cause of all the oil and gunk over the engine, there doesn't appear to be any other suspect although the sump gasket is a little weepy ( have u seen the price of 'em  :shocked: )
I also discovered that the rear calipers are suffering from seizures and are very rusty so have planned to replace these when i can.
Next i discovered on this rather good forum ( GolfGTI.co.uk of course ) a posting advertising the scrapping of two late Mk3 Valvers with the 288mm brakes , so i negotiated to buy the complete hubs set up with balljoints, hoses, calipers , drilled & grooved discs and pads showing very little wear.One of the balljoints is split and the hoses look a bit tired but what can you expect for £45 posted eh ?  :grin:




These will be fitted when split , re-painted and lubed up. The pads appear to be coming away from their backing plates which is probably to be expected as they are cheap pads ( apec ) to be used with these kind of discs.


Gavv8

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Re: My Corrado VR6
« Reply #3 on: 26 June 2011, 15:18 »
Looks very smart, even if you do have to do some tidying work it's still worth the money i think.

Offline toledo

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Re: My Corrado VR6
« Reply #4 on: 26 June 2011, 15:21 »
here are the brakes undergoing their renovation :



By toledo7175 at 2011-06-26
I have used Bilt-Hamber ( i'm hoping that if i mention their stuff enough times they might want to send me some free samples ) hydrate 80 which is a rust converter prior to hammeriting them.
Sorry the photos are poor , i will try take some more and post them asap.

Offline toledo

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Re: My Corrado VR6
« Reply #5 on: 26 June 2011, 15:28 »
Looks very smart, even if you do have to do some tidying work it's still worth the money i think.

Yeah i think you're right i am more annoyed at the deception though, i am a yorkshireman after all !!
I expected to buy a 17 yr old car with faults both obvious and hidden to be discovered afterwards but the lies / deception get my goat 
What i forgot to mention was that on getting home and showing it to our kid and the mrs i realised that it was only t&t'd until august making it 4 months and not 7 months as advertised  :angry:
Having been a car salesman for 20 years and been accused of all sorts of underhand behaviour by everyone i meet , it annoys to me to say that i have never misled or lied to a customer but i've been lied to many a  time, one owner cars turning into 2 or 3 , service historys that never turn up , spare wheels and radios removed from trade-in in between valuation and new car collection day..... i could go on

Gavv8

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Re: My Corrado VR6
« Reply #6 on: 26 June 2011, 15:49 »
If i had a pound for every 'ebay' story i hear like that mate  :angry:, the upside is that you've got a very nice car that needs a little tlc and once the niggles are sorted will stand out a mile amongst all the eurojunk around these days, the seller was obviously a t**t but karma will catch up with him one day and you can sleep at night.

Offline toledo

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Re: My Corrado VR6
« Reply #7 on: 26 June 2011, 16:59 »
That is the beauty of Fleabay , i don't know if i'd call the seller a t**t but we obviously have a different definition of immaculate, i despise the spray painter who turned out a job so covered in dirt inclusions , didn't even take the fogs out before painting bumper and oversprayed the wheel arch liner. Also every time i go near my wheelnuts with a wrench the wheels shed paint from the boltholes so these must have been cheaply blown over at the same time.
Anyway that is that topic covered, on reading this i don't imagine the seller will contact me and offer me a few quid as recompense so no point getting heated about it  :rolleyes:
YEAH !!! Just won a mint standard steering wheel on the dreaded fleabay.  :smug:

Offline toledo

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Re: My Corrado VR6
« Reply #8 on: 26 June 2011, 17:08 »
right next update.
I decided i'd rather take the rado over to york where my mate has his dealership and change the oil & filters whilst on a ramp and at the same time delve further into my firm ride which i had sussed actually came from the rear of car and i suspected the axle bushes, these were confirmed as completely sha**ed ,i was able to ascertain that there are a few small patches of flaking underseal but otherwise underneath include jacking points are all good.
So new vw oil filter , Quantum semi-synth, vw fuel filter were all replaced and we determined that after a visual check the 2000 mile/6 month old air filter and spark plugs were left alone ( i have since purchased some new NGK's for later )
I have also now bought some Powerflex axle bushes off this forum and am waiting for them to arrive.
I then set off back on the M62 with the motor running like a dream with oil & coolant staying in the right area on the guages.
Until i was a couple of miles from home ( thank god ) when she starting making a metallic noise from the engine bay which gained volume and the coolant guage hitting 115° . My water pump had failed probably due to the fact that the car had been unused for over 6 months when the previous owner had purchased his R32 to replace it.
So a new genuine water pump was ordered at TPS ( this was before they started messing me around and i still used them ), this duly arrived with a plastic impeller  :huh:

I then googled the pump replacement and was delighted to see what is involved due to the pump being where it is, i decided to replace the crack pipe, thermostat housings and topr radiator flange as this had a weep when pressurised when i bought it and would leave a pink trace of G12+ down the flange after a run.This flange had been made obselete two weeks earlier and i was told there were no more in stock, despite this i found one at TPS liverpool and after arguing the toss they agreed to post it to my mates dealership who had the account with TPS leeds.I  then ordered the two bolts that usually sieze into the metal collars in the top of the radiator and if you are unlucky you snap the top of radiator off when trying to undo the bolts leading to a new rad  :shocked:
« Last Edit: 26 June 2011, 17:24 by toledo »

Offline toledo

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Re: My Corrado VR6
« Reply #9 on: 26 June 2011, 17:32 »

This is why it is a royal pita to change the pump on a rado vr6
Not a lot of room to squeeze your socket set down there eh ?

So it is off with the wheel arch liners, off with bumper



Then the grille, headlamps and slam panel, radiator