16V idle rises and falls

[nearlytoooldtodub]

Hi, picked up my first Golf yesterday.  It's a 1994 2.0 16V and overall I'm very pleased with it.
The only thing I found while driving it back the 70 miles to home, is that the idle speed occasionally rises and falls on it's own between about 900 and 1500 rpm.

As I said, I'm new to Golfs (defected from aircooled) so I'm not sure where to start with this.  I've searched through the forum but can't find a specific answer.  Any help would be much appreciated.

[Christo77]

Hi there, You'll be lucky to find a specific answer..really what you need to do is spend some more time looking over all the posts relating to the 16v running issues and make a better guess at what to look at first, from that first check the things that aren't going to cost you too much money!
Your problem could be down to a number of different things, some of the common items to look at are the condition of vacuum lines, breathers, relays and sensors, these you can check or replace without too much cost depending on what you find on here and by process of elimination..
Hope that helps, see how you go.

Christo

[gazpowells]

Hi there, You'll be lucky to find a specific answer..really what you need to do is spend some more time looking over all the posts relating to the 16v running issues and make a better guess at what to look at first, from that first check the things that aren't going to cost you too much money!
Your problem could be down to a number of different things, some of the common items to look at are the condition of vacuum lines, breathers, relays and sensors, these you can check or replace without too much cost depending on what you find on here and by process of elimination..
Hope that helps, see how you go.

Christo

+1

just start with a good service

[chris231280]

Does this happen while you are stationary or moving. My old escort gti (and my mates astra sri) used to do it when we were parked at traffic lights, the revs would bounce up and down, and it would look like I was looking for a race or something when half the time there was a 70 year old lady in the lane next to me 

Our problems were down to the Idle control valve, these can be cleaned with (i think) brake cleaner, but usually need to be replaced in the long run.

But clean it first, it's free (apart from the cost of the brake cleaner) and if that doesn't work, nothing lost.

[tweed]

Does this happen while you are stationary or moving. My old escort gti (and my mates astra sri) used to do it when we were parked at traffic lights, the revs would bounce up and down, and it would look like I was looking for a race or something when half the time there was a 70 year old lady in the lane next to me 

Our problems were down to the Idle control valve, these can be cleaned with (i think) brake cleaner, but usually need to be replaced in the long run.

But clean it first, it's free (apart from the cost of the brake cleaner) and if that doesn't work, nothing lost.

I had to do that to my old saxo vts