GolfGTIforum.co.uk
Model specific boards => Golf mk3 => Topic started by: achilles130 on 07 April 2005, 19:18
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Hi All,
I have recently purchased a 1995 Golf GTI 8V 5 Door :smiley:. This is my first Golf and i have really taken to the car quickly!
However there seems to be a problem!
1) The car actually idles a little funny (slightly up and down) when stationary and also when having to stop while on the road driving. On two occasions the car has just cut out while stationary. :sad:
2) When parking the car after a some driving there seems to be a funny sort of smell comming from somewhere and its not inside the car. And I dont think its comming from the engine either, however not to sure.
The Golf is a little lowered and at first i thought it could be the mudguards as they are clearly getting scraped on the floor and upon closer inspection i dont believe the scraped mudguards are causing the smell. Someone said to me that it could be your cat? The car still drives great though!
Can anybody shed any light on either of the above mentioned problems? Has anybody experienced problems with these sypmtom before? Or am i being a little over cautious as i am extremely fond of the car? Any help and guidance would be much appreciated.
Thanks All
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if you have a read on here you'll see the stalling is probably either relay or throttle body related.
If the smell is of farts/eggs its your cat. not a problem, just unburnt fuel i think.
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yeah i've been told that if your CAT smells.. its a good thing.. and that its actually doing its job well..
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Thanks for the reassurance. feel better! :smiley:
Upon closer inspection (after a good old booting) i noticed that the smell was of burning plastic and it was comming from a wheel arch where the tyre slightly scrapes the plastic when going over bumps and drains etc! As you the car is lowered. Dont think it will be a major problem.
Its booked in tomorrow for a cambelt and tensioner change. And as far as the stalling and eratic idling is concernmed i am going to have to ask the mechanic to put it on the diagnostics machine as i have read on this forum that it could be anything from air blockage, dirty idle valves, throttle body related, distributor cap, ht leads, hall sender etc! So hope all goes well tomorrow with the German specialist!
I put in 35 squids worth of unleaded in on Saturday and its done 200 miles and iam thinking that is a little expensive as the needle has nearly reached the red zone! I am also assuming that the car is running rich on petrol and maybe somekind of sensor or relay is gone? As the cat seems to be smelling regularly! I.E more fuel being pumped in then normal? Or am i being a little over cautious! Your help again would be much appreciated.
Cheers :smiley:
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1 UK Gallon = 4.546 litres
£35 of optimax at roughly 90p a litre will give you 39 litres/9 gallons approximatley your 8v should be running at at around 35mpg on a good trip and even less around town lets say 20-25mpg once up to temp so £35 would get you roughly 315 miles on a good run but on a shorter stop start affair running at 25mpg this would prob be in the region of around 225miles for a £35 tank of fuel hope this helps.. :smiley:
Next time you go on a run have a look at what the multi function indicator is telling you about you average fuel consumption for the distances you are travelling set to position 1 and press the mfa button 4 tiimes to bring up the average mpg.. :smiley:
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those mpg figures ring true. I've got about 1/4 tank left doing 90% very short( less than 4 mile) runs with 225 miles on the mfa. that is granny driving most of the time too.
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Yup the mpg aint great round town on a mk3 GTi, but i can easily get 38mpg on a long run if I dont hammer it :grin:
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mines was cutting out aswell :sad:, i gave the throttle body a quick wipe yesterday and so far it hasn't cut out once yet & it feels more responsive :grin:, try cleaning your t/b.
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going down to newquay last year i had 47 to the gallon on my 1997 8v doing 65mph ,and around town i get 32mpg which i think is brill
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Hi All,
Many thanks for the responses.
Got the car back from the German specialist this afternoon, he changed the cambelt and cleaned the air flow pipe! He said there the pipe was quite dirty and he gave it a good old clean. He said the car was running fine and is as should be as the diagnostics machine did not come up with any faults what so ever! So i took it on a test run! And........................its safe to say there is no more eratic idling and it actually feels more responsive. :cool:
I stopped at the garage and checked the tyre pressue (fuel cap states that front should be 29 psi and back should be 26). The front ones were actually on 18 and 19 psi! and the back ones were on 20 and 22 psi! Thus i hurried and bought them back to the manufactures standard!
After filling the tyres with the correct amount of air i stopped and checked the milage on the trip since putting £35 squids worth in! It was on 233 miles! So i guess that aint to bad with tyres on low air coupled with some thrashing of the car and this all in my local area which is town driving thus alot of stop starts!.
Now that the air pipe (the one from the air filter to the engine) is cleaned, have a new cambelt, tyres are back up to pressure i should get some good economy! Well i hope so, will see how it goes? Also changing the sparkies, oil, air, and fuel filter tomorrow. Oh and the oil with some fully synthetic valvoline!
Once again thanks for the information especially the responses regarding the fuel consumption.
Cheers All
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The economy on the 8 valve is hopeless when you consider the limited performance.
You'll do well to average mid 30's overall - I could eek mine to high 30's on a long wafting trip cruising at 50-55, but as soon as you hit traffic, it'll head back to 30mpg. And my GTi ran perfectly with none of the associated idling faults
Contrast that with my trusty old rusty TDi 90 (mk3) - I've done 235 miles when it reaches 3 quarters and no matter how hard I drive it, I can't get it less than 56mpg over a tankful. Oh - and unless you thrash the Gti, the TDi is actually quicker.
I now have a new Boxster 2.7, and I'm averaging 30.5 mpg - or 1.5 worse than my GTi and I give the porker more welly. Our old Boxster often returned 36mpg on a non thrashed trip.
Economy isn't the 8 valve's strong point - why on earth they reintroduced it to AUdi / VW / Seat is beyond me. It must have been a purely financial decision - or they didn't have sufficient capacity at the 20v engine plant.
The upside of the 8 valve is nippy performance at low revs (it feels like it gonna be quick till 3000 revs!) it makes quite a nice rorty noise and they are pretty damn reliable - after all it is a 20+ years old design.
I think we'd enjoy the car much more if the MFA was disconnected - I've found that with all my cars, the presence of an MFA guage tends to bring the Granny out in me!
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Hi All,
Since i got my last problems fixed, i have now encountered a strange noise comming from the engine area! ARGHHH!
When i start the car in the mornings it is fine and sounds okay. Its just after driving (when its stationary and engine is running) there is a strange sort of rattling/hissing noise comming from the cambelt/pully/belts area? (and the cambelt was changed about 500miles ago!
At first i thought there may be a whole in the manifold? How do i check that? But when opening the hood and reving the engine slightly it really looks as though the rattling/hissing noise is comming from that area.
I hope you guys can shed some light on the matter just as you provided the vital info previously for my other problems. :embarassed:
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Check the heatshield.
:wink:
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Hi All,
After reading some of the forums and finding people describing some of the symptoms my car has had i decided to go to VW this morning to get a fresh ECU relay!
There was a slight hising noise comming from the cambelt/tensioner area and the engine was running a little lumpy! I have to be honestand say that i didnt think that this would make a difference but i have to sincerly admit that the car is running smoother! :smiley:
The car is idling/ruuning and sounds smoother than ever (loving it). When speaking to the VW guy he also said that the rattling noise may be your heatshield so after replacing the ecu i drove down to my local tyre centre and they placed the car on the ramp, had a look and said that the heatshield is a little loose! I believe the heatshield was on the downpipe and he secured it with some jublee clips!
I have to say by replacing the ecu relay really has done wonders! And all credit goes to this forum as without it i would have never known about the ecu relay! (the gremlin).
Can someone tell me what exactly the ecu relay does and how it operates?
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*cough - cough*
:tongue: