1995 Golf GTI 8V (87K) - HELP, HELP, HELP

[achilles130]

Hi All,

I have recently purchased a 1995 Golf GTI 8V 5 Door  . 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. 

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

[monkeyalan]

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.

[Overseer]

yeah i've been told that if your CAT smells.. its a good thing.. and that its actually doing its job well..

[achilles130]

Thanks for the reassurance. feel better! 

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

[redcarboy]

1 UK Gallon = 4.546 litres

 Ãƒâ€šÃ‚£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..

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..

[monkeyalan]

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.

[mrwotto]

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

[kr1s77]

mines was cutting out aswell  , i gave the throttle body a quick wipe yesterday and so far it hasn't cut out once yet & it feels more responsive , try cleaning your t/b.

[carl]

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

[achilles130]

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. 

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