Stevey Y

Hi over the last eighteen years I have used practically every type of disc/pad combination on the market I have actually used Pagid pads, as nearly all my cars have become a second skin after a year or so you tend to notice when something is not as you would wish I noticed yeah they stop ok but when pressed showed a slight fade tendency, if you bear in mind cab drivers live on their brakes they also wear a lot quicker, when I asked the local ECP why this was happening he suggested that I might want to upgrade to Brembo/Bosch as although they are twice the price would be more suitable for my type of use, any thing to do with ECP is suspect I have had at least two major bad experiences with them, one where they were selling EGR valves for MK4 Mondeos apparently Hella O.E., should have known when I picked the first one up as it wasn't even in a box which I questioned and the guy told me thats why they were cheap, by the time I was into my third valve that didn't work properly [couldn't even get it to code in], ECP refused to refund or give me another so I sent it to Ford at Daventry who came back a day later and said it was a fake, it had all the right casting numbers and the logo had been ground off, Ford were most keen to find out where I sourced the valve so I told them, funny thing is ECP withdrew the valves two days later so there was me £170.00 down so I bought a second hand valve from a low miler at the local breakers coded in first go and never gave a days trouble after that, the second was the HID fiasco my mate bought two Osram Night Breaker D1S that were stupidly cheap from them in the permanent sale they have on, I ran in to him one night as I was dropping his neighbour off, he was putting his car in the garage and stopped to talk, the first thing I said to him was I could smell burning and there was smoke coming out of the headlight, turns out the bulb had overheated and melted his headlamp, two days later Rogue traders did a program on fake bulbs and with trading standards did a bust on a lock up not two miles from my local ECP outlet, beginning to stink, there was every make of HID bulb, Phillips, Osram,Lucas ALL FAKE and if you don't believe me the video is on youtube somewhere. When you consider companies like Car Parts In motion who sell branded real parts with a guarantee exist why would you buy from ECP, like my rear discs and pads Bosch discs and Febi pads which have now done 50k and are still dandy at £130 the lot and the fronts VAG high carbon drilled discs with Don pads [TMG frictions house brand] £150 all in and currently at 80k, I rest my case, if any vehicle will murder brakes it will be a taxi. Steve.

Hi Jon any thing printed by ECP is about as believable as Boris, please note the beter and best are all with the exception of Pagid made by TMG friction who supply all OEM pads/discs to the manufacturers, TMG own the branding for all major brake manufacturers they are massive and it was their lobbying that bought about the E.U. regulations and testing for E11/E9 Google it. Steve.

Hi Simon wise decision and to be honest the full Audi service history is really not worth the paper its printed on as I have two Audis to look after, my A6 and my daughters Q3 BOTH HAD FULL HISTORY which didn't bear close scrutiny as in both cases they were both serviced before we bought them, I set about servicing both shortly after buying them and my daughters was the worst, they hadn't changed the air filter since the car was made 62,000 miles later it got changed, I was going to use the piece of paper the service history was printed on in our loo but the wife won't let me. If you ever see another you want to go for get an AA inspection not cheap but they look at everything and pick holes in anything they don't like the look of. Steve.

Hi best place to get brakes is eBay the front discs and pads for my A6 were from A-Z carparts and were £150 fitted them myself and they are just coming round to 80,000 mls going to replace them at 90,000 they still have a good five millimetre on the pads, just make sure you buy high carbon discs for the front the backs as in my case are Bosch all good and a sight cheaper than Euros, they always push Pagid as its their brand. You can't buy substandard pads as they all have to be E11 or E9 marked to be sold anywhere Europe. Steve.

Hi Gareth, you made me smile, some councils have no age limit on cabs but most its eight years, I can't think of any council that would licence an A3 as I don't believe the rear seat width would make the minimum requirement, the other give away would be the interior as that always gets hammered shredded carpets, holes in the plastic trim where data heads and coms have been fitted, holes around the rear bumper where the plate has been fixed, its easy enough to check through an insurance data base if its ever been insured for hire and reward, I suspect it probably was an ex fleet car but the price is very rich considering the amount of future parts you may have to buy because unless its had new suspension etc in the last nine years its not a cheap car, better to put another four grand to the money and get something with lower miles and longer legs.

Hi Roy makes me wonder what all these youngsters are going to do when all us oldies are gone along with the experience, as far as mobile phones go I can do what I need to do on them but I don't care if I never become a fully fledged member of the phone wizards, like you my head is too full of practical useful stuff. Steve.

Hi Roy for someone who claimed to be useless you have turned out positively sparkling, well done the old tricks are the Best. Steve.

Hi if you get the car scanned for faults my bet is they are all low voltage faults which would most likely be a battery going out as this type of multi fault situation is normally caused by this as the ECU will shut down various functions that use a lot of power to preserve battery function voltage, if you have to get a new battery it will have to be coded to the BEM module, its worth spending the extra for a good branded battery and my suggestion would be Halfords, all in price for fitting and coding, make sure they code it ! , Steve.

Hi Gareth, in a previous life I was a printer and one of the things I printed back in the eighties was an article which was a transcript of an interview with Anita Roddick AKA the founder of Body Shop, when asked why she had been so successful she replied her sales philosophy was, FIND OUT WHAT YOUR CUSTOMERS WANT AND GIVE IT TO THEM, these clowns just don't get it so they will continue to loose business unlike a Ford main dealers I used called Rates of Grays, because of the regularity of my parts purchase from them they would give me trade on most purchases and subject to a conversation with a Ford CEO I had in the car he admitted that although he was from the states he had heard of Rates as they had the highest turnover of parts in our area. Steve.

Hi it gets better, I have just forked out another £100 for the special tool to mount the new seal as the crank sensor ring which is the toothed bit has to sit at a precise position with the engine timing at TDC, it also has to sit at a precise level on the seal otherwise you will never get the car to start again and another bonus is if you ever want to take the crank sensor pick up out without removing the gearbox you have to remove the oil cooler assembly to get at it, I think our Teutonic friends have lost the plot with the quality issues, the latest being couple of my colleagues have bought new E220 Mercedes and were advised by the dealerships that the cam chain assemblies are suspect so anything after 40k would be a good time to get the upgraded chain kit fitted, after all the kit is only £1500+ labour and is guaranteed to do 250k, am I/we missing the point here, why not fit them to the engine when new, a couple of the boys I know in London have had the same issues with BMWs, at this rate next cab will be a Ford. Steve.

Hi I know what you meant its the lousy predictive spelling on the computer, its had me a few times, Ahhh the wonders of modern technology now you see why anybody who is informed is no fan of electric vehicles that have been rushed out to suit E.U. guidelines, the Butchers bill for the bank accounts has yet to be publicly realised. Steve.

Hi the added information is very useful as it gives the reader the chance to disseminate from the blog which part of the information may be relevant to their particular problem, on the other hand unfortunately most of the readers will be in a state of panic and won't have a clue what it means, but no doubt there will be more than enough readers that the information is invaluable to. Steve.

Hi just noticed this one and when you say BAG specialist are we talking Louis Vuitton or Michael Korrs.

Hi yes get a Nextbase unit they are not the cheapest but the recording quality is excellent and if you get the bundle with the hardwire kit they are easy to fit, about an hour. Steve.

Hi gents as the milage rolls up so do the problems, they had the gearbox out today to find out what the oil leak was about and it turns out the rear crank seal is giving up the ghost spraying engine oil all over the bell housing, while we were there they also noticed that the new radial shaft seal fitted to the slave cylinder was weeping gear oil all over the clutch assembly none of which is covered by the TPS warranty because the crank seal which was dry at the time wasn't replaced with the clutch, they wanted over £155.00 for the crank seal which I got from a local motor factors [Elring O.E.] for £55.00 and because my guy cancelled the TPS order they have told him they won't sell him anymore parts which considering they have already had about £650.00 out of me for the other bits new driven/ pressure plate and slave cylinder with associated seals is a bit rich, still wait till they clock on to the fact they are not getting his £20,000 a year for all their overpriced parts will soon bring the area manager down on a flying visit, but I honestly think this time the second word will be OFF as the local main dealer has already offered some very attractive prices. Steve.

Hi well done there is nothing like fighting a battle on the field of your choosing. Steve.

Hi I agree with Steve the data is useful from the point of the reduction in figures after the repair, but it was not a slight at you, sorry if you took it that way, even if you had found something like this its only a slim chance it would of been of any use to you as the variables on this subject are immense as the final analysis is driving styles, fuel and distances covered between regenerations, the other thing is static regenerations when stationary don't work very well unless its a forced regeneration as the ECU will stop the process when the minimum acceptable load is reached because of the temperature issues if it goes the whole ten rounds, if it starts a regeneration just before stopping if feasible run it round for another fifteen mins as the higher exhaust gas pressures make for a more thorough job. Steve.

Hi as long as it looks identical to the original and all the plug parts are the same the letter in the part number is for the year produced, similar won't work it has to look the same but will still need coding to the body control. Steve.

Hi it won't matter which car you get it from as long as the part number is more or less the same, eBay is a good source, but the end result is the same it will need coding to the car as they are not plug in and play as the immobiliser is built in to the dash. Steve.

Hi its probably the fan control unit on the fanpack at the front by the radiator its 1-2 silver boxes on the cowling with electrical plugs, if you bridge the plugs live and earth and the fan comes on its the control packs but the easiest way is to turn on the airconditiong and watch the fan for movement it could well be that its not getting hot enough for the fan to work, the only other component to look at is the coolant temperature sensor. Steve.

Hi yes you need a copy of the codes that he reads and preferably take a picture of the screen and post it on here, should he refuse find someone else to scan it, the codes are the key to fixing your problems and believe me anything is curable from that information thats why we have fault codes. Steve.

Hi try using a company called ECU Testing they specialise in fixing faults on dash pods and will test yours and tell you if its repairable, one of the guys on here was told his unit was beyond repair but they managed to recode a second hand donor unit he got from a breakers, I think it was a few hundred quid but the option was a new one from Audi which with the recoding was a few grand. Steve.

Hi sorry I am not quite sure of the point of this exercise is it to prove that the cooler and new valve cut the ash/soot loadings. Steve.

Hi Paddy, if you can publish the codes that have come up that would give a vast insight in to whats going on, the term DPF issues is a broad church and I agree with you not going down the delete route as it will definitely come back and savage your backside and your wallet at a later date so please, please, codes then we can very possibly aim you down the cheaper more practical route, DO NOT GO TO AUDI, unless you want to remortgage your house and sell the wife and kids to a white slave trader. Steve.

Hi with that sort of milage it should have been changed about 100k ago, there is no way of testing them other than with a crowbar underneath them to see if it moves up and down but considering the price of a new one just changing it would be better policy, the outer ring of the pulley is bonded to the inner with high shore rubber which when it deteriorates allows movement/vibration, the DMF and crank damper are there to stop harmonic resonance which occurs around 1800-2000 rpm. Steve.