Can any one give me any ideas on the cause of a problem on my sons golf. He says that recently it has started cutting out when it is idleing in traffic and on one occasion it reved to 2000 rpm on its own, it seems to be worse when it is raining, I have not been able to look at the car as he lives in manchester, but I drove it a week ago and it was fine. The car is a 2000 1.6 with 90000 miles on the clock. Thanks guys hope you can help

My 2000 Golf has a motorised throttle body rather than an idle control valve.

Cleaning out the throttle body makes a huge difference. Why it makes such a huge difference, I do not know, but it does.

Doing this cured my cold idle problem.

In addition, if you get it plugged into VAG COM that will tell you if the throttle body is operating outside factory parameters.

[Edited on 21/12/08 by zilspeed]

Thanks for the reply Iv'e seen on the net about cleaning the throttle body. He's skint so wants to avoid going to a main dealer he wants me to repair it but I have no experience of volkswagens

I concurre I had a problem similar to this with my 51 plate Seat (basically a VW in different clothing). I did it with the throttle body in situ using just a clean rag and some carb cleaner.

Assuming the engine layout is the same (some golfs were some weren't) pop off the airbox which is just two bolts in the middle and two poppers at the back. Oh and a hose from underneath.

Spray the throttle body with carb/injector cleaner and give it a good clean with a soft clean cloth. Put it all back together. You might also want to check the condition of the air filters as this was also part of the problem on mine.

Sounds very simular to what what previous peugoet used to do (also a 200 plate) and that was apprently likely to be the idle control valve wearing out.
- I ended up giving a right good clean, which was affectice for about 6months, then the problem gradually got worse again. So i stacked the car into the a fence and broke it for parts. (unintentionallty)


Daniel

Sounds like the same problem i had on my Leon, it was a faulty lambda sensor...

If your doing a throttle body clean you may want to also peform a re allignment with vagcom. A much better source of vw information is the ukmkivs.net website id recommend checking that out

Thanks guys I'll give your ideas a try