Volkswagen TDI talk

[Greg]

After seeing what happened to Spork's TDI and knowing just how fragile the aluminum oil pan is, I'm pretty cautious... need to just spend the money on a skidplate and feel less stressed!

 

[Rot Box]

After seeing what happened to Spork's TDI and knowing just how fragile the aluminum oil pan is, I'm pretty cautious... need to just spend the money on a skidplate and feel less stressed!

I finally made the leap after all the snow/ice we had this winter. I nailed a few icebergs late at night after work that probably should have broke the pan but didn't. I kept thinking how bad it would suck to bust the pan in the middle of the night/middle of winter

 

[Rot Box]

That awkward moment when my car tows more often than my F350

To the dump!

 

[Greg]

.... So how does it tow? I never did tow with it and wish my current TDI Jetta had a tow hitch!

 

[Rot Box]

It actually pulls the little three rail very well considering. Nothing really heavy, but so far I've hauled dirt bikes around and taken several loads to the scrap yard and dump. I've been as far as Pocatello to pick up my KTM and even on the freeway there were times I honestly forgot it was back there

 

[mbryson]

That awkward moment when my car tows more often than my F350

To the dump!

Lewiston kids ......

 

[Greg]

Since my 2006 TDI Jetta got totaled, I decided to replace it with another.... newer and lower miles than the last!

I wanted the same 2006+ body style. I found a 2009 with 102k miles for $5,800 in SLC that needed work, it had 3 different engine warning lights on, it ran & drove alright.... but was low on power. It appears the DPF (diesel particulate filter) may be plugged and/or the turbo isn't making boost due to either a possible boost leak or bad turbo. I ended up buying it for $5k and NADA Clean Retail value puts it at $8.5k, I feel like I have enough of a cushion to repair the car and still have saved some money.

The good thing is that it is 3 yrs newer than my '06, had 40k less miles, has heated seats (old car did not!) and a 6 speed manual. The OD ratio on the 6 speed makes a huge difference compared to my 5 speed cars I've owned in the past, it's about a 500 RPM difference @ 75 MPH which is huge. It's grey & black inside, I really liked my '06 as it was Tan. On the upside, the '09 has the 2.0 Common Rail TDI which makes 140 HP (40 more than the previous 1.9-liter engine) with 236 pound-feet of torque (59 more than before)! I plan to do a DPF/ERG/Cat delete and a Stage 2 Malone Tune... they claim that the Stage 2 gets you 163whp (184bhp) / 295lb-ft (333lb-ft crank) ! That will also get my mileage back to 50 MPG once it's all done, as the DPF & EGR end up taking away some of the efficiency of a diesel engine.

The car is pretty clean, some scratches in the paint here & there... the headlights are hazed, I replaced my housings on my old car with Hella pieces that cost just over $500. If I can swap them out, I will! The fog lights are pretty beat up too... good thing I kept my old ones! Tires are full tread, but a bit dry-rotted... again, if I can swap for my '06 tires, I will. Interior is perfect, has satellite radio, tinted windows.... love the heated seats.

I think it'll be a good replacement once all the work is sorted.

Since I've had the car for about a week now I swapped over my Hella headlights, fog lights with LED's, blacked out GTI grill and VW badge. I also swapped out the tires with my BFG's, as well as the newer AGM battery that is still under warranty.

I also ordered a Buzzken DPF delete downpipe, then proceeded to remove the DPF/EGR & cats. The next step was to pull the ECM and send it off to Berg Performance for a Malone Stage 2 tune. When I pulled the ECM out, I saw that it had the word 'junk' written on it! I went ahead and sent it to Berg Perf and asked them to look for anything out of the normal and that didn't take long! They found a portion of the circuit board that was burned! They MAY have a guy that can repair the circuit board, still waiting to hear on that. In the meantime, I've found plenty of used ECM's for $150 but I'll need to have the VW dealer re-flash the ECM for the new car which should cost around $160. So that's where I stand.... I'm happy to hear that we've located what's probably the engine issue.

So the new downpipe is 2.5" and it'll tie into the tailpipe and stock muffler.... I'm considering a straight piped car. It may be a bit loud... I may run it, then if I have to I can add a resonator to take the edge off and remove any droning. Here's what it could sound like with a straight pipe, DPF/EGR/cat delete and Malone Stage 2 tune. My wife said it sounds like a race car... she meant it in a bad way, I liked it! :greg: As long as it doesn't sound like a ricer Honda, I'll be OK with it.

[video=youtube;jHMVCiYPblg]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHMVCiYPblg[/video]

 

[Tonkaman]

I like it!! Why in the world would the car have a "junk" ecm?

 

[Greg]

I like it!! Why in the world would the car have a "junk" ecm?

I think someone else worked on the car and got it narrowed down, but wasn't able to fix it. Kinda scary....

Here's a pic.... what scares me is what happened to cause the burn and will it happen again!?

 

[TRD270]

Glad you are able to swap parts off your old ride, I'm quite surprised the insurance is allowing you to do that. Should help cushion the blow a bit. Hope you get the ECM issue resolved without blowing up another.

 

[Brad J]

Would the ECM work from the old Jetta?

 

[Greg]

Glad you are able to swap parts off your old ride, I'm quite surprised the insurance is allowing you to do that. Should help cushion the blow a bit. Hope you get the ECM issue resolved without blowing up another.

I didn't ask them, far as I'm concerned it's still my car until the insurance company puts money in my hands.... which still hasn't happened yet. The loan is in my name, registration too and it's on my property. They're not paying for the stuff I've added, so I'm keeping the add ons. It's back to 'stock'.

I have no idea what toasted the old ECM, really hope it was a freak thing.

Would the ECM work from the old Jetta?

I wish! No, the old car has a completely different ECM than this one. Wish it was that easy!

 

[TRD270]

I didn't ask them, far as I'm concerned it's still my car until the insurance company puts money in my hands.... which still hasn't happened yet. The loan is in my name, registration too and it's on my property. They're not paying for the stuff I've added, so I'm keeping the add ons. It's back to 'stock'.

I guess that makes sense. My only experience with this, my truck wasn't drivable and was on the wreckers lot. I pretty much had to beg just to get all the firewood that was in the bed of the truck.

 

[Greg]

I guess that makes sense. My only experience with this, my truck wasn't drivable and was on the wreckers lot. I pretty much had to beg just to get all the firewood that was in the bed of the truck.

Yeah, had the car not been driveable and stuck behind a fence at the body shop or wrecker, I may have been in the same situation. I was lucky and took full advantage, especially when I could see that they weren't going to pay for all the recent work.

 

[Greg]

Since my 2006 TDI Jetta got totaled, I decided to replace it with another.... newer and lower miles than the last!

I wanted the same 2006+ body style. I found a 2009 with 102k miles for $5,800 in SLC that needed work, it had 3 different engine warning lights on, it ran & drove alright.... but was low on power. It appears the DPF (diesel particulate filter) may be plugged and/or the turbo isn't making boost due to either a possible boost leak or bad turbo....

Been driving the '09 for the last couple weeks, it has been at the local VW dealership getting repaired before that. Normally I'd find an independent shop rather than the dealer, but I have a buddy that is the service manager at the dealership. I did all I could in terms of diagnosing the lack of boost and didn't want to start throwing parts at the car, so let the dealer have a go at it. Guess what they found? I bad MAP sensor... $110 later and the car was making boost and good power!!

Now the bad things... they did a compression test and found that cyl #4 was down on compression about 20%. They did NOT do a leak-down test, so I'm unsure if the issue is valves or rings. There are some strange things about this car, like the #4 glow plug has been replaced and the others have not. It could be that a piece of the glow plug somehow broke off and went thru the engine, possibly bending a valve on the way out. At this point the car runs and drives pretty damn good, despite the reduced compression the Stage 2 tune seems to make up for it just fine. The car also had a knocking noise from the top end, sounds like an injector knocking to me. It's not constant and sometimes gets louder at low RPM's and with a load on the engine. I decided to run a 1/2 bottle of Power Service thru this first tank of fuel since it's now making boost and since I added that, the injector noise is practically gone! The car is due for a timing belt (105k miles interval on these common rail engines!!) and if I decide to keep the car around, I'll have a leak-down test done before hand and see if it needs a head rebuild job and do that along with a timing belt. That'll probably cost around $2,500-3,500!! At that point, I'll break even on what the car is worth.

So since this is one of the VW Dieselgate "polluting" cars, there is talk that VW is going to settle with owners of these cars. They plan to give owners $5k, plus offer to buy back the cars at full retail value. If I can get the $5k, then I'll put that into fixing the car and just drive it after that's done. But the idea of selling it back for $8.5k, plus the additional $5k would give me a good chunk of change for something different! We will see, VW is supposed to have a plan by June of this year.

In the meantime, I took some pics of the car on a little drive today.... it's a clean car, almost looks new inside & out!

 

[Cascadia]

If that's true about buying back at retail and then 5k more then I will let them but back our '15 tdi q5. But we're totally happy with the car. I'd try and talk my wife in to a q7 instead just to have more room for trips. The Jetta looks great!

 

[Greg]

If that's true about buying back at retail and then 5k more then I will let them but back our '15 tdi q5. But we're totally happy with the car. I'd try and talk my wife in to a q7 instead just to have more room for trips. The Jetta looks great!

Unfortunately for you, I don't think the buy-back extends to the cars with the 3.0 TDI, but I believe they will be re-tuning the ECU. Some claim it comes with a slight loss in power & MPG's, but VW claims it does not. More info here - http://www.roadandtrack.com/new-cars/car-technology/news/a28916/vw-tdi-emissions-settlement/

The preliminary agreement announced today tracks closely with reports from yesterday, which indicated that Volkswagen could pay as much as $5000 per consumer in compensation money in addition to a potential buyback agreement. The judge also pointed out that the agreements discussed here only apply to VW Group vehicles powered by the 2.0-liter TDI engine. Porsche and Audi products featuring the automaker's 3.0-liter TDI V6, which VW also admits uses an emissions defeat device, will be covered by a separate agreement that has not yet been reached.

Thanks, I'm liking this car the more I drive it! Will be nice to get it all sorted out, but at least least it runs well now.

 

[Rot Box]

So this happened today

 

[Greg]

Awesome!!

 

[Spork]

Wow that's great.