1996 Golf GTi Diagnostics

[bobfrankish]

Hi Everyone. Been a long time since I was on the forum, had a lot of illness unfortunately. Anyhow, my car has an intermittent fault whereby it cuts out after it has been running perfectly for about 2 hours on tickover. I have not been able to work on it for at least a year, but I would like to get it fixed and possibly sell it. With the correct scan tool, what level of diagnostics could I expect to be able to read? A couple of people have said that I will not be able to look at any live data and will only be able to read DTC's, is that correct?

[Crasher]

Drop the fuse box cover down and look at the main board of the relay carrier. The relays are numbered 1 to 12 top left to bottom right. At the top left 3 in, is relay 3 and this has the number 30 on top, if it is black, take it out and look for the manufacturing country and date. If it was made in the Philippines and in the mid 90's it is almost certainly faulty but German and Portuguese versions also fail. The replacements are a light tan colour and are VW part number 165 906 381. Quite worryingly I didn't have to look any of that up!

[bobfrankish]

Drop the fuse box cover down and look at the main board of the relay carrier. The relays are numbered 1 to 12 top left to bottom right. At the top left 3 in, is relay 3 and this has the number 30 on top, if it is black, take it out and look for the manufacturing country and date. If it was made in the Philippines and in the mid 90's it is almost certainly faulty but German and Portuguese versions also fail. The replacements are a light tan colour and are VW part number 165 906 381. Quite worryingly I didn't have to look any of that up!

Wow Crasher! You're still out there! You have kindly advised me before on this issue. Unfortunately, all suspect relays have been replaced at least once, the ECU relay twice I think, fault still remains. Can you please set me right on the diagnostic question? Many thanks again for replying. Cheers, Bob.

[Crasher]

Wow Crasher! You're still out there!

I have been "out there" for a long time... The 96 AGG engine ECU has 10 blocks of live data in measuring blocks 00 but you need to interpret the, from memory VDCS does this and there is other data such as in 007 where you can see the phasing of the crank G28 and cam G40 sensors.

[bobfrankish]

Thanks Crasher. I am definitely "out there"! Bad choice of phrasing I guess. Anyhow, should have mentioned, my car has the ADY engine not the AGG, and I believe it uses the Simos ECU if that helps? According to my ETOS, the ECU part code is either 037906025P or maybe 050109101A

[Crasher]

I think you will find you car is a 95 as VW stopped using the ADY in the Golf 3 on 07-95, post the VIN and I can check its DOB. The ADY and AGG are identical except they had a very slightly different piston design (replaced by the AGG version only) and the camshaft was a different profile which on the ADY caused a poor idle problem, this was cured by fitting the AGG cam (050 109 101 A) and a special ECU 037 906 025 Q to replace 037 906 025 P, I did loads of these in the late 90's.

[bobfrankish]

Thanks Crasher. You certainly know you sh*t! VIN no. is WVWZZZ1HZTW016201, Engine no. ADY096933. According to V5, car first registered 02/96, so probably built in '95.