Maf
 

Would I be daft to go for a Bosch MAF - http://www.eurocarparts.com/ecp/c/Au...e554a68&000009 rather than the £315.00 or so OEM part?

It's what I bought a while back. Same unit exactly IIRC.
I was lucky and found one that was being sold on eBay as a stock clearance so got it for a lot less than ECP.

Turns out the MAF wasn't the problem, so I now have a spare. (It was the brake pedal switch set to hyper-sensitive that "only" needed adjusting)

Why do you think you need a new MAF?

Maf
 

Hi HPsauce - spent far too long reading through the forum, and others, today and a suggestion seemed to be that the MAF could potentially cause the issues I have been describing - I thought it might be worth a try before I move on to transmission and astronomical bills.

Exactly the same one I have too. Do you have VCDS yet? There are a few things you can do with that to check out whether the MAF is functioning correctly.

I've just dug my spare MAF out and it's the one I bought, part 077133471K. It has Bosch Exchange stickers on it.
After a bit of messing about I eventually put my original one back and it has been trouble-free though it's now about 15 years old!

Most of the ones for sale are exchange units, so there's a surcharge on the advertised price which is refunded when they get your old one.
For testing I'd think about buying a cheaper one with no exchange, examples here: https://www.buycarparts.co.uk/oen/077133471k

But first, as MJ suggests, get VCDS and run some tests on what you have. I think you can log some MAF-related data and see if there are any clues in that which coincide with your problems.

Testing
 

Thanks HPsauce - what would your advice be on the best place to buy VCDS and the cable? Thanks - Neil

I'd buy from Ross-Tech, or more precisely one of their UK official distributors.
See:http://www.ross-tech.com/distributors.php
Licensing changed recently and the going rate for the 3-VIN home user version seems to be £225.

You may find some older/unlimited versions (which is probably all you need for your car) on the secondhand market, so keep scouring eBay and relevant forums. You actually only need the older (superceded) VAG-COM for a D2, but I think that needs XP to run. And there are a lot of fakes out there that appear genuine.

There's a fair bit you can do with the free trial version, so assuming you have a suitable laptop why not start with a cheap eBay lead (£10 or so) and download the latest VCDS-Lite and have a play in trial mode. It's the lead that controls the license.