Not an audi, a 2000 Golf 2.0 petrol
 

Has anyone had any dealings with these ?

Taking the above car for MOT tuesday for a friend, it runs very poorly to say the least no umph coughs and splutters, change gear and try to accelerate it virtualy dies then decides to go without missing but not as it should. the young lady in question didn't mention this at all, maybe so used to it she dosen't even notice.

is this affected by the coil packs like the 1.8?

Coil packs won't affect this engine as it'll be the old 8v 2.0 (albeit crossflow) and has one coil pack and HT leads. These can fail but that should show as a permanant missfire that gets worse as you rev rather than the engine dying all together.
Try disconnecting the plug to the air mass meter and running it again. This makes it run on a basic MAP in the ECU and if it runs better (it should't run perfect, but better) then the air mass has failed.
After that, these engines are a bit prone to fuel pressure reg's etc but it can all be easily tested before replacing anything. Air leak on either inlet or breather system is next most likely cause.

Thanks i'll try that, I don't know if has been serviced at all so it may well be a blocked fuel filter

we get alot of them needing throttle body clean outs and 'basic settings' reset seems to help

Do you need VAG.com or the like to do a reset or can you just disconnect the battery ?

Tried this today and it gives the car one almighty flat spot . It has been suggested that the air mass metter has failed and clogged the ecu memory with so many faults it wont run reasonably on the basic map, anyone heard of this ?

Why did they ever go away from basic K jet injection ......argh !!!

Bit of a punt.....

Could be the lambda sensor be faulty and causing over fuelling as the ECU thinks the mixture is always too lean.... As a consequnence it will be running very rich and will run rough and very lumpy, any black smoke?

It passed it's mot tuesday so it's not running rich, idle is perfect it's when you try to go anywhere you have the problem small flat spot and then very poor acceleration, when you change up a gear it's like you havent touched the throotle then aqfter a couple of secs you get some power back nothing like it should be though Hopefully i have someone who can download the fault codes friday

After being told by people in the know that the car will run reasonabley with the air flow sensor disconnected ie limp home mode........... i have to tell you that it does not always ! it made no difference to way the this golf was running, i just fitted a new one to see what happened, bingo runs sweet as a nut. just thought i would let you know in case you ever come across a similar problem