UK-POLOS.NET - THE VW Polo Forum

well after selling my polo i got a 1.8t golf gti mk4 3 door black. went for the golf as i got it quite cheap with full service history and under 90000 miles.

now only after having it a week its decided to start giving me problems.

firstly the air bag light has come on which i had in my polo which never got it fixed as the polo was gonna cost £200 to get fixed. does n e one know wat the problem with the golf could be?

secondly was gonna go to guildford today to do a bit of shopping but things changed when my car started playing up. was going along about 65 and then the engine started loosing power so had to pull into a layby and wait. altho i think it was temporary as i waited in the layby for about half an hour and it was ok then.

the revs were moving between 8-10

the temp was between 80 and 90 but noticed when i had the heater on it made the temp slowly go down and when i turned it of the temp started going up. my car has that climatronic thing but think i was using the normal heater.

when i opened the engine bay i could feel a load of air blowing out the engine on the front right hand side (passenger side) towards me.

i told my cousin and he said it might be the pipe going to the turbo is split or come of or damaged.

n e ideas?

also the passenger side seat knocks a bit is this easy to fix? the driver side door has dropped and the engine cover isnt fixed properly. and the window control panel on the driver door which has the pull handle on it is loose and used to come of but hink its ok for now. maybe a broken clip?

think thats all the probs and symptons.

n e help much appreciated. thanks

Not sure about the airbag issue mate, never had anything like that on either of my 1.8T cupras. I'd get it plugged into VAG-COM to see what fault codes come up,

As for the loosing power at speed, could mean ALOT of things...first port of call with these engines is Coilpacks & MAF's, you mentioned it idles irratically? Try pulling the coilpacks one by one (only remove one at a time then replace), when you pull the first it should start running far more lumpy (obv as its on 3 cylinders), if you find that pulling one doesnt make a difference then you have a dead coilpack, these are around £20 from main dealer. Worth keeping one in the glove box just incase

You could also have an intermittent maf fault which means it reads airflow incorrectly for a few seconds or longer, this can cause loss of power or throw the car into 'limp mode' (basically no boost), when you say it fixed itself did you restart the car? depending on how serious the car thinks the fault is it can reset limp mode upon restart.

As for the coolant temp, this is another common issue, you need a new coolant temp sensor, they are about £60 as far as i remember. the fans kicking in sounds completely normal

And finally it wont be a loose/split hose because you would know about it...usually a large BANG followed by large plooms of black smoke and no power whatsoever..

Oh one last thing, get yourself an air filter/exhaust & a map, this will put you up to around 220-230bhp

i was thinking about a remap but att he mo wanna make sure it all works perfectly and get it through its mot in march befor i do n e thing to it.

i gave it to the garage and they had it for 5 days and finally figured the loss of power was the fuel pump relay i think it was.

am thinking of changing the maf as well as i heard these go and ive got a hunch this might be adding to the problems.

i think the airbag might be the seats where i moved them and it could be a loose connection.

where and wat are the coil packs? i wouldnt know where to start looking. went to get a haynes manual for the golf but they didnt have one for my car. might try again or see about getting it online.

If its the fuel pump then let them change it and see the outcome...as for the coilpacks:

As for the coilpacks, remove the plastic engine cover (usually a few torx head bolts) and on top of the rocker will be 4 plastic headed coilpacks that sit directly above each spark plug, if you look at the image below just behind & to the left of the oil filler cap you can see one of them:



There are two types, bolt down & push in...if its push in (pictured) then all you do is disconnect the lead & gently pull the pack away from the rocker cover revealing the sparkplug. As for bolt down it should be fairly obvious although i've never taken one of these out..

in this pic are u talking about a or b?



also at the front of the engine theres a thick pipe about 40mm wide goes from some sort of metal thing attached to the front of the car has a similar shape to a dump valve but isnt a dump valve and goes down near the bottom of the engine. do u know wat im talking about and wat it is? it has a cut in it but dont know if it goes allthe way through but doesnt seem to have air comign out of it i dont think and no liquid in it either.

also do u know where i can get a front arb and bushes from new oem ones?

which is better gsf or caf or vw dealer? i wanna see about getting a new maf sensor and fitting it myself.

A is the bit you are after.