TRADEALONE
11-05-2014, 07:47 PM
Firstly an apology as my daily driver for the last few years has been a mercedes c180, but i have been lured back to the vw world by a little 2001 2.0se cabrio which has ben unloved by the previous owner and needed my rescue.
She has the 2.0 AWG engine, has not been serviced really for the last 30k miles or so and has been dormant for the last 7 months or so. She has covered 117k miles and was taken off the road so I was told due to the rear caliper sticking and a stuttering / lack of power.
Now I don't really trust the previous owner as he was a bit of a numpty and just drove the cabrio, and lied about the mot different story, so here I will describe the issues and see what my learned friends suggest.
She starts on the second turn of the key and ticks over at around the 1000 rpm to 1100rpm mark with no fuss or protest. If you leave her running she will tick over happily with no major fluctuation and the temp gauge happily rises to normal and if it goes any further the fan kicks in and cools her down.
If you start her up and press the accelerator she will happily rev straight away with no hesitation, release the pedal and rev again no problem.
However if you start her up, don't rev or rev for about 10-20 seconds after that if you blip or bury the go pedal she wil sound like she is struggling for air won't increase the revs and eventually the engine will die. If you gradually increase the go pedal she will rev up and not stall.
I've had a number of mk3 gti's in the past, one would stall at junctions which was down to a slightly damaged wire on the crank shaft sensor but this seems to be a whole new realm to me. I have checked previous "similar" threads and problems range from throttle bodies to cracked cylinder heads.
Here is my plan. I don't want to spend a fortune so will be doing the following first in an attempt to narrow down the issue. I have unplugged the sensor on the airbox (MAF i think) makes no difference.
Where next?
I will be cleaning the throttle bodies this week, together with cleaning and checking the plugs and do an ignition timing check.
I don't have access to diagnostic reads, and can't afford to get the little one towed to somewhere that can read it unless I have to. The previous owner said he had a diagnostic read but found nothing, then again the numpty shouldn't have been allowed near a tractor let alone a VW.
So any help and pointers would be grateful as these MK3.5 Cabrios are getting rarer by the day and I want to save this one from any breakers yard.
She has the 2.0 AWG engine, has not been serviced really for the last 30k miles or so and has been dormant for the last 7 months or so. She has covered 117k miles and was taken off the road so I was told due to the rear caliper sticking and a stuttering / lack of power.
Now I don't really trust the previous owner as he was a bit of a numpty and just drove the cabrio, and lied about the mot different story, so here I will describe the issues and see what my learned friends suggest.
She starts on the second turn of the key and ticks over at around the 1000 rpm to 1100rpm mark with no fuss or protest. If you leave her running she will tick over happily with no major fluctuation and the temp gauge happily rises to normal and if it goes any further the fan kicks in and cools her down.
If you start her up and press the accelerator she will happily rev straight away with no hesitation, release the pedal and rev again no problem.
However if you start her up, don't rev or rev for about 10-20 seconds after that if you blip or bury the go pedal she wil sound like she is struggling for air won't increase the revs and eventually the engine will die. If you gradually increase the go pedal she will rev up and not stall.
I've had a number of mk3 gti's in the past, one would stall at junctions which was down to a slightly damaged wire on the crank shaft sensor but this seems to be a whole new realm to me. I have checked previous "similar" threads and problems range from throttle bodies to cracked cylinder heads.
Here is my plan. I don't want to spend a fortune so will be doing the following first in an attempt to narrow down the issue. I have unplugged the sensor on the airbox (MAF i think) makes no difference.
Where next?
I will be cleaning the throttle bodies this week, together with cleaning and checking the plugs and do an ignition timing check.
I don't have access to diagnostic reads, and can't afford to get the little one towed to somewhere that can read it unless I have to. The previous owner said he had a diagnostic read but found nothing, then again the numpty shouldn't have been allowed near a tractor let alone a VW.
So any help and pointers would be grateful as these MK3.5 Cabrios are getting rarer by the day and I want to save this one from any breakers yard.