I fixed a MK2 Golf with a broken cambelt once. It turned up at a mate's yard on an AA truck which had brought it all the way down here from Liverpool. It had broken down in Ireland, and the owner was a tight git who knew if anyone could fix it for nothing or a low price, it was me. So one afternoon when work was quiet, I went and got a new cambelt, timed it up and put it on. Amazingly it ran, although it rattled quite a lot and misfired. I took the belt off again, and removed the camshaft. I could see one hydraulic tappet had collapsed, so I replaced it with a spare out of an Audi from the scrap yard (didn't want to buy new in case it had bent valves as well). Once put back together, it worked fine.
The owner came round when he got back from Ireland, and I wound him up about how his engine was fcuked. then I gave him the key and said, "only joking, it's ok".
I think he had a lucky escape with that.
Some people wait until their cars are literally falling apart before they do anything about it. We had another customer also with a MK2 Golf, who came in and asked us to replace the rear shocks. When I took the old ones off, one side actually had rusty water in and had absolutely no damping effect.
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