I have an intermittent idling problem with my 98 1.4 8V AEX engine polo. After reading members post's it seemed I should clean the throttle body which I'm able to do but this is where I'm confused. Some say I shouldn't need to reset the ECU, some say I should. There is also some confusion re re setting the ECU by disconnecting the battery, some say disconnecting the battery doesn't do it, others say it does. I've also heard that a throttle realignment may be needed. So it seems to me an overall good idea would be to buy a DIY type scanner that works. Any help is much appreciated.

vag-com or vcds would be my choice for vag group diagnostics and the cables are very cheap on ebay, in fact you can buy a vag-com cable and download the shareware software for almost half the price of taking it to a garage to have it plugged in once!

tbh universal budget scanners are hit and miss with compatibility and usually only capable reading codes and clearing them and some aren't even capable of that.

I think i paid about £8.95 off ebay for a vagcom cable and it came with the shareware software.

With it being shareware, not all codes are explained (e.g. if you've got 4 fault codes on 1 component, it'll tell you the info to fault 1 and 4, but for 2 and 3, it'll say "register to decode all DTC's", or something like that so i use this handy PDF that has most of them listed:

http://www.airbagnews.com/PDF/Fehlercodes%...G%20english.pdf

and, be careful if you want to scan air-bags -

http://www.ross-tech.com/vag-com/vw_issues.html

i just bought vag-com and its sooo good. kinda like having elsawin and etka which is the vw bible, get vcds and its complete. you can pretty much monitor everything and its very clear. worth the 250 quid lol