cliffcoggin

I can't answer your questions Gareth, but I do agree the dipstick markings are abysmal. To read the level of black oil against a serrated brown plastic lump is nearly impossible. Years ago dipsticks were bare shiny metal with high and low notches cut into them, and were simple to read.

In your position Ben, I would find out what is wrong with it, (all s/h cars have faults in my view,) get the costs to put right anything you can't live with, add those costs to the purchase price, and then assess if you can or want to spend that much money.

It all depends on condition, and you are the only one who can assess that.

I'm glad it worked out well. The only note of caution is that if one side was worn out, the other won't be far behind, but at least you now know how straightforward the job is.

I can't imagine anything short of a major crash that might bend a hub forging. Has the garage checked whether the various rubber bushes in the suspension and steering links have softened or disintegrated?

Drive train (or transmission) is anything between engine and wheels i.e. clutch, gears, flywheel, differential, CV joints, drive shafts, wheel bearings. Some of those components suffer little or no wear; CV joints and bearings can be expected to wear.

If it only happens under power, but not on over run, my first suspects would be engine mountings or transmission (CV) joints. Is it any worse when turning corners?

Tej. I too have the semi automatic gearbox (I think it is called DSG), and it does actually transmit a tiny amount of power at idle when in D, possibly it's just viscous drag from the oil rather than clutch friction. Not enough to hold on any sort of gradient, but on a level smooth road it will just about try to creep forward. I find take off as the throttle is opened to occasionally be jerky with lots of lurching at about 1000 - 1100 rpm, though most of the time it is smooth and progressive. The whole experience is nowhere near as predictable or controllable as any of the fully automatic gearboxes with torque converters I have driven for the previous 28 years.

I religiously wash my car twice a year whether it needs or not. <G> Seriously, I always squirt plenty of water onto the underside to get rid of salt and accumulated mud. It's a practice that kept my old Granada rust free for 20 years, and I wish I still had it now.

I agree with Magnet. I wonder Jimmy if you travel much on salted roads without washing the underside of the car. Residual salt would speed up any corrosion of naked metal.

Sorry to be late to the discussion but as an ex professional chemist and one time home car maintainer I have always been sceptical of any "cleaner" that is squirted into the intake manifold or mixed into the fuel. To be safe for sale to the public they have to be pretty weak to start with, but then they get vastly diluted in use to the point that their activity can only be feeble. Has anybody seen conclusive evidence that they really work? As to Mr. Muscle, the only oven cleaners that really shift soot deposits contain caustic soda, a known corrosive of aluminium, and therefore not something I would put into a turbo if it is made of aluminium.

It's easy to find out one is a dummy. Crawl under the car and see if both pipes are connected to the engine.

Hello Bradley. I am happy to use secondhand parts for non-safety related items like the headrest I bought a few months ago, but for brakes I want new parts.

Thanks Gareth. It looks like I am out of luck with Ebay. Not only can I not find your seller, but I can't find an ABS unit for my particular model. New units for other models range from £35, (the seller is clearly a liar,) to £906, so I must decide whether to bite the bullet and pay Audi, or just ignore the warning light.

I was agreeing with you Gareth in that if his current brakes used non standard parts, a change to the genuine articles should make them more than adequate and therefore an "upgrade" would be unnecessary.

Thanks Magnet. Any information you can provide will be appreciated, particularly ease of fitting. The car has only done 74000 miles.

The ESP warning light came on a few weeks ago which an Audi dealer has diagnosed as a faulty brake pressure sensor. To repair it requires a new ABS control unit at a cost of nearly £1500 including tax and fitting. My Haynes manual suggests this is a dealer only repair, but I wonder if this is really true. Does anybody have experience of doing the job?

Purely out of curiosity, why would you want to remove the rear wiper?

The single long bleep I believe is just to confirm reverse gear has been selected.

Phil. You are referring to an A4 so my experience with A3 brakes may not be relevant, however my brakes are stupidly fierce (even after fitting new pukka Audi discs and pads all round,) and I would love to downgrade them for gentler more refined control.

Do you have air re-circulation switched on? That would cause condensation problems.

Here's another option I found when I was considering such a change. In the end I was too lazy to do anything. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/AUDI-A3-RNSE-PU-S3-RS3-car-gps-sat-nav-dvd-head-unit-usb-3G-DVR-DVB-T-IN-7047-GB-/251656541025?hash=item3a97e61361:g:J3UAAOSwQTVV~-Er

Sally. What were the faults and what were the solutions? The details should be on your invoice.

Ormie. I wonder if you have a fault with your brakes because mine are stupidly fierce even after fitting new discs and pads. In fact I would like to downgrade the servo assistance for gentler braking.

Dion. I investigated an integrated radio/satnav recently. These two looked good http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/AUDI-A3-RNSE-PU-S3-RS3-car-gps-sat-nav-dvd-head-unit-usb-3G-DVR-DVB-T-IN-7047-GB-/251656541025?hash=item3a97e61361:g:J3UAAOSwQTVV~-Er and http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/7-Audi-A3-S3-Head-Unit-Car-Stereo-DVD-Player-RDS-Radio-GPS-Sat-Nav-iPod-WiFi-3G-/121715034169?hash=item1c56c80839:g:lIMAAOSw3ydVtzHd but in the end I couldn't justify the expense and bought a cheap Garmin from Halfords.