Simonbt

Edit: Sold elsewhere.

I've just had the £150 remap from Awesome done on my A3 1.9TDI (8P) yesterday. Its a very progressive map, quite smooth in the power delivery which I really like. Makes motorway driving a pleasure, on the hour and a 1/2 drive back it was very noticable how you don't need to change gear at much to achieve the same. Also got 52mpg driving there, and 58mpg driving back - Sheffield to manchester (m1 -> m62 -> m60) and considering driving back was with the remap I'm sure you can imagine I wasn't exactly driving normally And no smoke! For the first time in 4-5 years of having a car with this engine not mapped I actually went out in it last night just for a drive about! Oh, probably the more important thing for me - no smoke! Only downside is there's no rolling road of your car, so you don't know the numbers before and after. Personally how it drove for me was more important (even though I would liked to have known what it produced!) Also, 30 day money back guarentee - You don't like the map, they will take it off your car and refund within the 30 days. Good job Awesome!

Sold to dodger21! A pleasure to do business with you, enjoy the new found grip

As per the title I'm looking to sell my wheels and tyres from my old Mk1 Fabia. I've recently bought myself an A3 so have no use for these wheels/tires any more. The tires have done about 900 motorway miles so they are pretty much as new, fitted to a set of black Mk1 VRS alloys. These tyres are amazing, If i could put them on the Audi i would in a heart beat! The wheels are a little scuffed in places (not much though), no gouges or damage. I'm looking for £330 - I paid more than that for the tyres on their own, so you're getting the wheels for nowt! There's no close up photos at the moment, but new tires are new tires - Please note, the wheels are black! Attached is a picture I've found of the wheels on my old car. I'm based in Sheffield, and happy to deliver up to about 70 miles away or meet somewhere - Courier can also be arranged. £330 --==Edit==-- As several people have asked for pictures, here they are - Two wheels are pretty much perfect, the other two have a bit of kerbing and scuffs (the white and dark on the spokes is plastic which will likely come off with some thinners). Wheels are straight and true, but could do with a bit of a clean. The wheels aren't cosmetically perfect, which is why you're pretty much getting them for free with the tires - Did i mention how awesome these tires are?!

Well, mines not the VRS but the TDI so almost the same I'm on 149k at the moment, but mines been garaged for the past three months as I've had a company van to drive around. Just getting it all sorted to get it back on the road, with a 100mile a day round trip commute and a fair amount of business miles I imagine I'll hit the 200k mark by the end of the year/mid next year. I got the car at about 100k and the previous owner used it mostly motorways and used to take it to a Skoda dealership and just say "do whatever it needs" - Had a couple of thousand spent on it over its life with her just on (pointless) maintainance. Myself, I've replaced tie rods, trackrod ends, front springs, ARB bushes and drop links and wishbone bushes and tbh it drives like new.

Pretty much exactly what I said mate, it's fine if you're inconciderate and they should fail an MOT - if you get your car inspected somewhere that will pass HIDS without beam control, washers and levellers I'm sure they won't appreciate you broadcasting it on a public forum. I just hope for your sake that if your dangerous lights do cause someone to have an accident due to not being able to see anything it doesn't have a family in it. Your choice if you wanna be that guy - at least you're willing to publicly announce you don't care

If youre inconciderate and like blinding other road users then definately worth it =P Remember that for this reason they are not for road use and will fail an MOT. (just so you have all the information)

Changing out the console bushes for something harder (there's hundreds of threads about doing it) and checking the TRE's and tie rods don't have any play in them. Also overinflated and worn tires will cause that sort of feeling on the roads at speed.

Recently been on a two week holiday camping and I've had the car sat with its stereo running for a good couple of hours without any noticable difference in battery strength when started - but with amps and subs you'll probably run into problems/

Black or anthracite 16" standard vRS alloys will transform the car - should be able to pick a decent set up with tires for around the £200 mark

Just thought i would update this as I actually managed to get round to doing this yesterday. I bought the tierods and trackrod ends from GSF for 29.99 a side (ish), got the car up onto axle stands and wheels off. Remove the clips for the rubber boot onto the steering rack and turn the steering full lock so it pokes the steering rack out as far as it can (turn the wheel the to the other side to which you are working on, also make sure the engine is running). You can just about get mole grips onto the rounded part of the ball joint housing, to get enough grip i had to really have them tight. Then a huge amount of effort and it will unscrew off. Its a normal thread, and pretty tight (took a chunk of skin off my arm on both sides when it turned) but not so tight as to be un-removable without the crowsfoot spanner or proper tie rod removal tool. Mines done 138k miles so wasn't expecting to be able to remove them but did and was able to change both of them in under an hour. Changing them has solved my high speed steering shake too which is a bonus Just for anyone else who's thinking about changing these, it is actually very doable on your driveway! Just remember to put the boot back on (could reuse the small clip, but not the large one - tie wrap it instead) and get your car tracked afterwards.

My steering wheel shakes during braking too - it used to do it at any speed and got much worse when the brakes got hot (going over Snake pass sheff-manc for example!) - I changed my discs and pads and it solved the low speed shakes but i've kept the shakes above 60mph. Turns out my inner tie rods (between TRE's and the steering rack) are worn. Gonna change them today if i can get them off, and hopefully this will solve it all. Just be aware its not only the discs that can cause steering shake, so get it checked over before spending pennies

I can only really see three obvious ones there: SMIC = Side Mounted Intercooler FMIC = Front Mounted Intercooler DMF = Dual Mass Flywheel SMF = Single Mass Flywheel Any others you're wondering about? ps. on the vRS the SMIC and DMF are standards.

Mines the TDi Comfort, and it really a decent car. I drive about 100miles a day, 60 of those on a motorway and average 54mpg (again through mileage v actual diesel used). Mines a bit newer than yours (2003) but has 135k miles on the clock. Engine wise its never missed a beat, nothing remotely showing a problem. There's some issues with front suspension/ARB bushes which I've had replaced but this is normal for these cars. The car is plenty quick enough in town, and has enough poke on the motorway (still accelerates quite well from 70+). Also being the TDi you'll have the option of remapping it upto 130ish bhp if you want something a bit nippier (not done it myself, but plan on doing). As long as its got a full service history (at least had regular oil / cambelt changes) the engine should be fine. I'm convinced my car will fall apart before the engine gives way

I got just the one i needed from GSF for under a tenner (if i remember correctly!)

Any idea what size the nut is on the end of the inner tie rod? Gonna look at getting a crows foot spanner for it, i'm warey about getting it dismatled and not being able to get that bolt off.

Hi all! I've got a loose tie rod ball and its causing one of the wheels to have a bit of play in it (shakes a bit when braking from 70-80mph) and pretty much a certain MOT failure (due in sept). Is this something that i can realistically switch out on my driveway? Anyone had any experience? Any idea what specific tool I'll need to take the tie rod itself off? ps. this is the part inbetween the trackrod end and the steering rack (to save any confusion) Thanks!

1:05 - i used my ears :p (even though the tacho also seems to be working in that portion anyways) He can drive however he likes, i'm not judging - but saying that ABS is a requirement for driving over potholes and that Kent has the worst potholes in the UK is asking for at least a little bit of internet flamage

Most people wouldn't go over potholes at a speed that would require any form of emergency braking procedure! Trust me, when you have horrific potholes, and live in a city with as many stupidly steep hills as i do you'll get to learn that potholes = slow. One hint (well two) - If your ABS triggers constantly take it as a hint that you are driving too fast for the road surfaces. Secondly, you activly promote your own driving abilities - the 'bouncing off the limiter whilst driving a clearly screwed car' video shows it, as does your signature (not to mention a lot of your posts) - Don't be upset when other people bring it up as well - remember this is the interwebz, there is always someone who will try and flame/troll you and they love it when people get childish in response

I've concidered doing this but afaik its not quite as simple as switching over the turbos - you'll need different manifolds, possibly injectors to cope a remap to utilise it - probably looking at edging a grand to get it done right. Possibly not worth it if you think about what that money, including what you'll get for your tdi put towards getting a vRS devonutopia is the guy to speak to though - he's converted his TDI into a bit of a beast.

The ARB bushes only require you to remove the front wheels to change, where as the other bushes need the wishbone etc removing - Obviously going to be more expensive, but its not going to save you much by getting them done now - or later. However the feel of the car after upgrading the old style bushes even to the newer ones is pretty different (tighter, all be it more noisy - i get more noise over the rougher motorway sections now)

It sounds like your new payment system will cause more problems if it holds the money in a merchant bank for 5 days after a declined attempt because ECP don't want their staff to check the failed orders to see if there if it is a simple formatting error. Not everyone is going to have that buffer of cash in their accounts to fall back on - and if the declined amount is £500+ you're going to get some very angry customers clogging up your phone lines wanting answers. The bottom line is customer's don't want some rubbish about declined payments not actually being declined. I don't go into a shop and each time i enter my pin incorrectly it declines but still charges me, only to be refunded for it 5 days later.... If EPC want to be stringent about delivery addresses to cover themselves then that's fine, but EPC needs to realise that it is going to take a little more work than just letting some algorithm decide yes/no and if the answer is no, take no action and just wait for the charge request to time out instead of actually cancelling it at the merchant. I'm 30, I've always bought goods online and I've had payments declined before because of incorrect addresses. Wanna guess how many times I've had the hassle that I've had with EPC? I'll let you guess (its a very small number, looks like a donut!)

So, just to keep updated: I've actually been charged one of the amounts (which is £30 more than should have been charged), the second £90odd still hasn't been cancelled and is still showing against my account. Even after being assured yesterday that the refund has been processed, i get told today that it hasn't - then i get left on hold whilst the agent finds me someone else to speak to (hearing over and over again how they are the number one parts company - pfff) and eventually have to hang up. So still out of pocket over £100, no idea when I'm likely to get it back. Looks like I'll have to speak to my bank and dispute the payment that's gone out of my account in full - Eurocarparts will find it much easier to get the CORRECT money off me. At least i got my parts when promised, but highly doubt I'll ever use them again - and recommend others do the same (unless you fancy getting charged three times the amount you expected). But i suppose any company can appear good when all is going well, its when the **** hits the fan that you really see what they are made off, unfortunatly it seems like Eurocarparts are seriously letting themselves down in this respect

Thanks Dilip, i genuinely appreciate your response here - You'll have to excuse my frustration with this but its kinda a big mess up for my first time dealing with the company - it was just lucky that i had extra funds in my account as a buffer for this as someone could have quite easily been left with nothing. Unfortunately with this sort of thing with a company putting through a request to the bank it actually ties the funds up, so my account is £120 lighter than it should be at the moment. On a plus point, thanks for showing your interest on these forums and explaining the issue - regardless of the problems I've suffered, that shows you have a certain type of customer service I think a lot of companies are lacking! Just make sure i get my discs & pads tomorrow! - the scary brakes are doing my head in! :p

Yeh, i used the 30% code that was posted on here yesterday. I've managed to get through to a lad who really didn't know anything. Apparently his team leader 'just' told him some orders have glitched and have done this. He basically has no idea what is going to happen, no idea when he will call me back and no clue when I'll get my money back or even if I'll still get my discs & pads tomorrow. For the first time using this company, its not exactly great when I'm getting charged 3 times what i should be. He can't even guarantee that I'm not going to also get charged the £62 they should have cost me on top of the £180 I've already paid.... Bank is next to useless in this situation too.