Maintenance Day

[saratoga]

It isn't a truck, but does run on no 2.

Turned over 10k this week, so I did my oil & filter and rotated the tires. Never worked on vehicle with lug bolts before... thank God the tires aren't very heavy, that's all I'm saying.

I ordered enough filters for the 10 and 20k service. 10k only calls for an oil change, 20k requires oil, fuel, air and cabin filters to be changed.


VW is notorious for creating proprietary oil specs. I'd prefer to use a 5W40, but the only oils that meet their requirements are 5W30. This stuff is supposed to be safe for the DPF and 13 other cat converters it has.


In the beginning...


Cover off the engine. The round thing in the lower left with all the hoses sticking out of it is the fuel filter housing.


Taking the cover off the oil filter housing...


The underside (it has a cast aluminum pan with some type of insulation attached)...


Oil filter housing with new filter and pre-filled with oil...


I tried to take some pics of the DPF and exhaust nightmare. The DPF is the oval canister you see jamed against the firewall directly after the turbo outlet. You can't get it out without removing the front subframe. All the other plumbing is for the EGR.


And all back together...

 

[CtChevy427]

They sure do pack a lot of stuff in a small space.

How messy was it to pull that oil filter up and out of the housing? Does the housing drain out when the drain plug is pulled?

 

[saratoga]

That's the one smart thing they did. Once you take the cover off, it lifts the oil filter up and all of the black paint drains out of the housing so it doesn't make any mess.

 

[BoostN]

Off Topic, but I love that color.

I fixed a G/F's bug one time, yes they are packed!

 

[btfarm]

Seriously... Wheel bolts? I've got (and have had) farm equipment with those. The guy that thought that up should be strung up!

 

[RI Chevy Silveradoman]

Excellent write up Grady! :thumbsup: Thanks again, and continued good luck with that car. I really like it.

 

[Unit453]

I dont think I'll be doing any manitnenance on my car considering that it took me an hour to change out fog light bulbs. The entire underside of my car has whats called a "belly pan", which is a plastic shield that covers EVERYTHING. It took me damn near an hour just to undo the 7439 bolts and clips that hold it to the frame.


Note to self:

If a fog light bulb blows, light the car on fire. That'll be much less frustrating. I dont think I ever dropped the F-Bomb so many times in one hour. God punished me that day for something that I did. Must have been that 23 year old that I "dated" for a couple months before she started to grow horns and wanted to be called Lucifer.

 

[DieselCash]

I dont think I'll be doing any manitnenance on my car considering that it took me an hour to change out fog light bulbs. The entire underside of my car has whats called a "belly pan", which is a plastic shield that covers EVERYTHING. It took me damn near an hour just to undo the 7439 bolts and clips that hold it to the frame.


Note to self:

If a fog light bulb blows, light the car on fire. That'll be much less frustrating. I dont think I ever dropped the F-Bomb so many times in one hour. God punished me that day for something that I did. Must have been that 23 year old that I "dated" for a couple months before she started to grow horns and wanted to be called Lucifer.

I drop the F-Bomb about that many times in one day, every day!

 

[saratoga]

Yea, it has a huge plastic belly pan that covers everything from the nose back to the front doors that's held in place with about 3 dozen torx bolts in two different sizes. None of the bolts on anything have a hex head either. They're all some goofy triple square drive that look similar to a torx but are different.

Outside of oil changes, I won't be doing much to it myself.

 

[BIGR]

Nice work Grady. I also like your neat shelving system, including some good ol Hoppes NO. 9 on the shelf.

 

[konstan]

Can the EGR be disabled (for testing purposes)

 

[saratoga]

No one really deletes the EGR or re-routes the PCV system in the newer ones. The only thing I'm aware of is a guy that custom makes DPF delete pipes (read:expensive) and there is one tuning company that disables the post-injection and associated regen processes in the ECM. There are two or three tuners total in the VW aftermarket world and none of them have a handheld programmer for the common rail engines- you have to send the ECM in for tuning. The gains are no where near proportional to what you're used to seeing in the diesel truck world either. 40-60 ft/lb and maybe 50 hp over stock is extreme to them, and even that tends to break things like dual mass flywheels and cv joints easily from what I've read.

The aftermarket for these isn't 1/100th of what it is for diesel trucks.

 

[Ed HD]

Nice work Grady.

It seems all European cars have lug bolts. My buddy had an 06 GTI and now has an 01 330i BMW and they both have lugbolts. I hate the damn things when working on a car on the lift. I guess ppl like them because they can mount different lug pattern rims with offset lugs or something...

 

[RI Chevy Silveradoman]

Never have to change studs!

 

[RI Chevy Silveradoman]

Hey Grady, any update on your Jetta SW TDI? How's she running?

 

[DieselSlug]

Nice work Grady.

It seems all European cars have lug bolts. My buddy had an 06 GTI and now has an 01 330i BMW and they both have lugbolts. I hate the damn things when working on a car on the lift. I guess ppl like them because they can mount different lug pattern rims with offset lugs or something...

My dad had a 2001 Volvo XC-70, had lug bolts also.

 

[saratoga]

Recent oil analysis:

 

[RI Chevy Silveradoman]

Looks good Grady!

 

[btfarm]

Damn good!

 

[CtChevy427]

Nice numbers all around Grady. I personally don't think you can ever go wrong using Mobil Delvac. I have tried two other very popular (full synthetic) oils and I am now back to Delvac. 100% based on UOA outcome.