New car time - Golf R32 Mk5 advice?

[arry]

Nope not me mate

[ben8000]

Nope not me mate

Ahh it was about the battery being flat and trickle charger.

[arry]

So we totes smashed the car limits day at North Weald. 3 x 996's and a GT86 made for an interesting mix.



Learned loads - spent the whole day being taught good stuff whilst learning how to cope with loss of control. Instructor said to me that when 911's go you end up with a big accident - next run I totally lost it at 75mph and quadruple 360'd near enough into the fields

Morning was pretty soggy but it dried up later, so we got a good experience of different conditions.

Afternoon was about mini track sessions and bringing times down.

Melted tyres


Got hot in the afternoon so had to cool the car a bit



Car behaved faultlessly.

Oh and I really liked the GT86!

[MEL]

Cool. All the days I can do currently are booked. How much tutor time do you get with 4 on the day?

Sounds like a very useful experience

[Scottie]

Excellent and good idea to use somewhere with a lot of run off to get used to a 911

[arry]

Cool. All the days I can do currently are booked. How much tutor time do you get with 4 on the day?

Sounds like a very useful experience

Quite a lot mate. You go out early doors for an assessment one on one which means with 4 of you on the day you have to wait a bit for the others. After that you repeat same exercise and go in turns. Instructor swaps between cars a lot so you get some good guidance. He's a very good tutor and an excellent driver. If you want I can lend you his DVD.

Excellent and good idea to use somewhere with a lot of run off to get used to a 911

Exactly that mate. Better to lose it somewhere with loads of run off. Lots to learn on the day. Was surprised how easy it went in the wet but at the same time how easy it was to get back (as long as I let it catch itself - at the start of I got involved in ended badly!)

[MEL]

Good news. I'd love to borrow the dvd so I can laugh at where I go wrong lol

[#1 Adam]

Gutted I missed this mate. Sounds like you guys had a lot of fun. Maybe next time...

[arry]

And today, finally, after waiting 2 weeks for my ribcage to mend itself I decided to mend the car

Hooray, it works again.

But to top it off, it would appear all it needed was a new battery after all

Update. Appears new battery didn't solve the problem; well it did but only because the battery failure was a consequence of another underlying issue

Here's what I've got so far:
last week wifey stalled the car pulling into the garage and it wouldn't restart; got the same dash light disco as before, hitting brake pedal kills dashboard, spoiler did the same party trick. Pushed the car back into the garage and thought I'd investigate later.

Stuck the battery on charge over the weekend - the Optimate showed it as in RED condition, ie flat, and did its anti-sulphate or whatever it is cycle before going into charge mode. Charge mode seemed to take forever, with the battery still heavy charging some 10 hours after going on which is pretty unusual for the Optimate; usually it'd have gone into trickle charge mode by then.

Anyway, eventually the Optimate showed battery as GREEN so I lean in and give the car a start. Fired up first time but with brake warning lights and ABS lights all illuminated and temperature gauge red warning light flashing away to itself - in other words, similar symptoms to low voltage as seen before.

More worryingly, after 15 seconds or so there was a very high pitched electrical squeal coming from engine compartment. This disappeared about 45 seconds or so afterwards.

So I stuck battery back on charge again, and once tip top charged tested battery at the terminals engine off - 12.3v approx. Tested at the leads, exactly the same.

Started her up - started first turn of key and no weird electricals apart from ABS light showing (voltage issues known to trigger this).

Left her to idle for 30 seconds or so, then the weird high pitch whine from alternators general direction started - lasted about 40 seconds or so then quietened down but think was still faint in background.

Checked voltmeter on dash and just over 14v. Tested with meter on terminals and getting strong 14.4v at idle.

However. Then turned engine off and back on again, then again. Next time round voltage on dash dropped to 10v, lights went weird again and car started lethargically - tested now and still showing 14v but voltmeter showing 10v approx. Eventually car died, spoiler raised and failed to restart - not even a click. Charged again for a short while, started it and had same issue with lights - hit brake pedal and everything dies, whole dashboard

Battery still showing 12.3v and Optimate says it's Amber for condition.

It seems unless battery is 100% at full charge I'm having issues despite the voltage when running appearing to suggest it is charging.

Convinced now at least it is a charging system issue, but unsure where to go from here short of swapping out the alternator and / or earth strapping - since the fault is so intermittent I'm thinking faulty voltage regulator but that doesn't make any sense showing 14.4v with engine running whilst dash is showing 10v and I've got a mini-disco going on

Any advice appreciated

[sideways14a]

See these German cars, nowt but bloody problems....

Should have gone jap

[ben8000]

Sorted yet?

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk

[arry]

Nope. Haven't had the time really.

Bought a new alternator and earth strap. Hoping that fitting those two sticks it back on road. Will probably do it tomorrow.

[Mr G]

Any news? Definitely sounds like you're on the right path...

[arry]

Changed the alternator today and was just torquing everything up when I stupidly let the ratchet slip off and caught a coolant hose plastic joiner snapped the nipple ff clean.

It's only a silly bit of plastic but it'll probably cost me a small fortune and put me back a week or two just trying to find it on the schematics.

Majorly peed off.

[arry]

Haha. Part discontinued - use new part. Which comes as a complete replacement for the two hoses it joins and a revised metal cover joiner too. All in all it's cheap and cheerful at 170 quid plus VAT

Bit of digging around managed to find one of the original parts - 3.50 plus VAT. Just a bit of difference.

Wait for that to arrive, fit it, refit the polyrib belt and hopefully away we go.

[#1 Adam]

I would lean towards the earth as the first port of call and go from there.

[arry]

Think it's fixed. Finally changed the pipe joiner and stuck everything back together - everything appears to be in order. Went for a short drive no problem but will have to wait for next weekend to get a proper run out and see what's what.

[arry]

MOT tomorrow - will soon know if I'm back on the road.

[Si]

Fingers crossed man. I'm feeling proper guilty now

[arry]

MOT passed - yay

But problems still persist - boo

Well, I say that - had everything working lovely and smooth in my garage, and it remained that way all the way out past the M25 turnoff so ~4 miles. Then I got a brake pad warning light, then the voltmeter hit the deck, then the ABS light, and then the speedo and rev counter started bouncing in and out

Dropped to third, beat the shit out of it until I got off the A13 and down onto the slip road - my thinking being if I break down anywhere I'd rather it there. Looked down again and although I still had the two warning lights the voltage had stabilised and all was well. Turned on and back off again as I arrived at MOT station, lights went off as they should, and all was well with the world. Passed test, and got on the move home - no issues at all.

I am really perplexed with this one and it's one of those annoying faults that you just don't know if you've got nailed so you never quite trust it again