2003 VW passat Water leak

Shop Shots Volume 35 Insider Pictures of Automotive Service

It’s Wednesday and you all know what that means, Shop Shots! These are the pictures that will you not see anywhere else. Maybe that is a good thing(HAHA). Who else will show you all the crazy things that happen to people’s cars? Okay, let’s do this.

Timing Chain Damage VR6 VolkswagenLast week I posted a picture of a VR6 that was taken apart. One of the bolts backed out and the timing chain came off. This is one of the covers that covers the timing chain. The bright part is where the chain was slapping against the cover. This is just the tip of the ice burg. Like I said last week there where several bent valves, among other damage.

The update is VW is buying this customer a brand new engine. The customer is paying some of the cost. I don’t know the exact numbers. I can tell you it is nowhere near the $7000+ that she was expecting to pay. I am really happy that VW stepped up and helped this customer out. It is great when a really VW helps a customer that truly loves their car. By the way, I think the engine alone was about $6500, ouch!

2003 VW passat Water leakIt has been a long time since I posted a VW water leak picture. The last one was a Touareg water leak. That is actually a good thing. Water leaks can be one of the most awful things to deal with, both for the customer and the mechanic. I have seen many cars totaled because of water damage. Plus they stink!

These are the connectors for a 2003 VW Passat convenience module. That module controls all the convenience features(D’uh?). Things like power windows and lock, and the vehicle alarm system. The connectors are covered in corrosion. That makes for very poor connections. This is something that is generally repairable. It involve replacing all 40 or so wires in the connectors. Generally replacing about 6inches of wire as well. This customer decided to no repair the vehicle. Sadly, another VW bites the dust.

Worn out VW tireThis goes into the “bad news” category. We have talked tires before. This is where the parts of the tire separate. This is very very dangerous, and begging for a tire blow out. The tire is several worn on the inner edge. If you look at the right side of the picture, you see the outer edge of the tire. It still has some tread. Granted, it not in great shape, but not as bad as the inner edge. When inspecting tires, you need to check the whole tire.  Thankfully, this customer replaced all 4 tires.

That wraps it up for this week. Another round in the books. I hope you all enjoyed the pictures this week. I am still taking your pictures for the Readers Rides. You can use the Contact me form, or just email me Charles(at)humblemechanic(dot)com.

Are you on instagram? If so, let me know. I post a few more pictures during the week. Just search humblemechanic and follow me. I also like to follow what other folks are posting.

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black forest industries Oktoberfest

Black Forest Industries Oktoberfest 2012

Happy Monday everyone!

I want to use today to give you all a recap of the Volkswagen show that I went to this weekend. On Saturday a local tuning shop Black Forest Industries held their second Oktoberfest. Surprisingly it is a German car show, with some German food, and local NC Beer.

I was able to roll out of work a little early and head over. Even though BFI is just on the other side of town, this was the first time I had been up there. Pretty lame that a really cool VW tuning shop is so close to me and I had never been.

black forest industries Oktoberfest

More shots of the Eurowise VR6 mk1

As with any time of show like this, first stop was the beer tent for a great local IPA from Natty Greene’s. Then I got to hang out with some friends to chat about cars, beer, and the food they had. As luck would have it, we were parked next to the Eurowise tent. Let me tell you that the guys from Eurowise in Charlotte,NC are awesome guys. They had their VR6 Cabriolet with them. Seeing this car in person really game me a kick in the butt to get working! They also gave me some inside info on the parts I NEED and the ones that I can pass on. I will be making the trip down to visit them, and pick up the VR6 kit for the Cabby. Seriously check these guys out.

I spent the next few hours checking out all the cars. There were some really great cars. Some folks with awesome taste in cars. VWs with incredible attention to detail. The kind of touch that most people would never even catch.

I also had the great opportunity to meet some readers of the blog. To be honest, THAT was the best part. It is really a total honer to meet people that I know because of the site. If any of you are ever in Raleigh, or the local area, please let me know. I would be more than happy to grab a pint with you!

Here are some pictures from the show. I have to give some photo credit to my buddy Stephen for some of the great shots.

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Humble Mechanic Logo

A Quick Email List Update

Hey everyone!

I am currently upgrading the service that I use to manage the email list. So I want to keep you all updated.

What does this mean for you?
Well with any luck, a cleaner looking email update. Something a little more professional.

What you need to do.
At this point you don’t need to do anything. I will be doing all the work on my end to make sure that everyone gets moved over to the new service. If for some crazy reason, you do not get email updates, sign up. I won’t spam you, I promise.

When is this happening?
I should have this going by tomorrow. You will know it has switched because your email should look different.

If you find that you are not getting updates PLEASE let me know. Either by emailing me, using the Contact Me form, or just go ahead and post a comment in this or any other post. I will correct the problem!

I hope that you all had a great weekend. I also want to throw out a huge thank you to everyone for all the support!

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Driving Bart Simpson

Shop Shots Volume 34 Insider Pictures of Automotive Service

Hey everyone. I hope that you are all having a great week so far. I am back in the shop today. Last weekend was my long weekend off. Ah the beauty of a 4 day work week. Okay, let’s get these pictures rolling. One more thing, I emailed the winner of the tray again. If I don’t hear from them by the end of the day, I will pic another winner.

Blown up Turbocharger TDIThis nasty mess is the outlet side of a failed TDI turbocharger. Normally this would be nice and shiny looking If you look close you can see he blades of the turbine. They are caked with oil sludge and carbon build up. I am not really sure what caused this to happen, or how long the customer had been driving the car like this. When it came into the shop, it was smoking like crazy.

The shaft that connects the compressor wheel and the turbine wheel broke. The turbine wheel is what you are looking at here. It is completely seized. We tried moving it with a hammer and it would not budge. The fix for this issue, anew turbocharger.

Driving Bart SimpsonYou may or may not know this, but I am a pretty big fan of The Simpsons. So when I seen this I had to snap a picture of it. This was a 4ft tall stuffed Bart Simpson. So big in fact that it would not fit in the trunk of this New Jetta. I have no idea where the customer got it, or why they still had it, but I think it’s pretty cool. If it were next week I would assume they won it at the State Fair. We may never know the truth. I just like seeing fun stuff like this.

Failed Chains on VW VR6I posted this to Facebook earlier today, but I wanted to tell more of the story here. This is the carnage of a VR6 engine. The bolt for the oil pump backed out of the pump. This caused the crankshaft to turn, but the cam shafts to stay still. This is equivalent to a timing belt breaking. The end result is 18 bent valves, a whole lot of gaskets and seals, and about 20+ hours of labor.

I have heard these make noise before. It get really loud long before engine damage occurs. Generally the MIL comes on too. I am not sure the exact circumstance with this one. I guess it doesn’t really matter, the damage is done.

Last up is a video I shot last week. Unlike the picture above, this shows a really lucky customer. One of the guys I work with called me over to check out a timing belt on a V8 Touareg. The belt was so loose that I could have taken it right off. I am not sure how the belt was even on the engine. It looked as if the tensioner failed. Seriously, this is one lucky customer.

Well that wraps up another Shop Shots. Don’t forget you can follow me on Facebook and Twitter. It is really easy, just click one of the little icons to the right, or to the left if you are reading upside down.

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Soundaktor

The Future Of Automotive Tuning

Years ago tuning a car was simple. More air into the engine meant you could add more fuel. The more air and more fuel, the faster the car would go. Simple right? Doing things like

  • Adding different air intakes
  • Changing exhausts
  • modifying internal engine parts (like cam shafts)
  • Adding forced induction in the form of superchargers or turbochargers

They were all meant to move more air into and out of the engine. The best part was, it worked.

Today those same modifications are still considered “go fast” parts. There is one component that is the biggest influence on performance. The car’s ECM. Tuning the car’s engine computer is the way that we can get the best increase in performance at the lowest price. Now, nothing about what I have said is futuristic at all. That is the here and now.

So what will the future look like. Well, first let’s remember that tuning is not just going fast. It is about the over all drive. The feel of the road, the sound of the exhaust, or the full range of a car’s stereo. So here is the future. The “Soundaktor”. Think of this as an engine noise tuner. This is a video I shot last week. We activated the “Soundaktor” with the scan tool to check out the full range.

Sounds cool doesn’t it? Many people think that it is a gimmick. That it is not really “tuning”. This is not the first time VW has had something like this. The 2.0FSI GTI had a “noise pipe” that was used to tune the sound of the GTI. I happen to love the sound of the GTI. 🙂

VW does not stand alone when it comes to advanced audio tuning. BMW, Lexus, and Porsche all use some type of sound tuning. BMW even plays it though the car’s stereo.

So what will the future look like? Will we keep up with the advanced sound tuning and pumping in artificial sound? I think so. I think car manufacturers will continue to fine tune the sound inside the car. Maybe we can even get rid of wind noise. Now we are talking.

So here are my 2 questions to you

  1. What will the future of tuning look like?
  2. Do you think that tuning the sound with something like a Soundaktor is cheating?
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1.8t Passat engine Failure

Does My Car Need This Service ~ Oil Change

Hey everyone! I hope that you are all enjoying your Monday. I spent the weekend doing some remodeling on my bathroom. It turns out that I like working on cars much much more than I like working on the house. Okay enough about houses, let’s talk oil changes.

This is another installment in the “Does my car need this service” series. That is where we take a commonly recommended service, and drive in to see if you really need it. This week we are talking about oil changes. We have talked before about “What exactly an oil change is“. Today we will talk about WHY!

Why would it need to be changed?
The oil in your car does basically 3 things

1.8 Passat engine damage

This is the result of not changing oil

  1. Lubricates
    This is the obvious one. It lubricates by keeping metal riding on a thin film. That prevents metal parts from touching. If metal parts actually touched, they would seize pretty quick.
  2. Cools
    Oil pulls heat away from the moving parts of the engine. That is why most cars have an oil cooler. It also reduces friction, that keeps parts cooler.
  3. Cleans
    Engine oil is responsible for moving debris from the engine crank case and oil galleys. It is also built with detergent packs to keep those moving parts clean. This is one area that car separate cheap oil from the good stuff.

The longer the oil is in your engine, the less it will do it’s 3 main jobs. Oil, will break down over time and lose it lubricating properties. As it loses it’s lubricating properties, it will not cool as effectively or clean like it should.

Using a good quality oil filter will help keep your oil clean. I recommend changing the filter when you change the oil. I use manufacturer oil filters in all my cars. If you choose an aftermarket filter, be sure it is the right size. The 1.8t Passat is a great example. VW switched to a big oil filter in 2005. I still see them come in with the smaller filters. They fit just fine, but it is not the proper filter.

How to check the fluid
Checking the level of your oil is pretty easy. Just make sure that your car is on a level surface. I need to shoot a little video for you guys. That would really be the best way to explain it. I am due for oil changes on both my cars. 🙁

Checking the condition is a little trickier. I check it by dabbing a little oil from the dipstick on to a piece of paper. Sift through it and check the color, and check for small chunks. The chunks are generally carbon. If you are getting carbon chunks, you not only in need of an oil change, but probably an oil system flush. Carbon chunks are a bad bad thing. Things get a little tougher when you have a TDI. That is is almost always very black. It makes it hard to determine the condition.

All that makes a great case for keeping good records. At my dealer, we can look at all the services that a customer has done. We can only see what services were done at my dealer. I have a file in my desk that I keep all my car maintenance records in.

How is the fluid replaced?
Nothing really fancy here. Just shut off the engine, and pull the plug. It really is that simple.

So do I really need it?
100% yes! Changing engine oil and filter is one of the most important things you can do for your car. I have replaced more than one engine due to lack of proper oil changes. I have also done tons of engine oil services because people didn’t change the oil in their car. They were not all 1.8t Passats.

Make sure that your car is getting the proper engine oil. Follow your owners manual for the proper oil, and the proper replacement interval. This is definitely one of the cheapest, most important services your car needs. Please don’t skip it.

1.8t Passat engine Failure

Change your oil, or your car will end up like this!

One last thing. I emailed the winner of the Snap-on tray. I have not heard back from them. If I don’t hear back by Wednesday, I will pick another winner. Make sure you all check your email. Be sure to check the spam folder. My email may have gotten filtered.

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Can a Repair Shop Keep An Unsafe Car

Today we are going to talk about a bit of a sensitive topic.

Should a repair shop be able to keep your car if it is unsafe?

Let me set the stage. A customer brings their car into the shop. The mechanic takes it on a short test drive, and finds the brakes barely work. After inspecting the car, the mechanic finds that the brakes are leaking fluid. This prevents the brakes from engaging. It is only a matter of a few miles before the car will loose all braking.

As you might guess, this is a very serious situation. I don’t think that I need to go into detail about how not having brakes is a bad thing. Not only does it endanger the driver, but all the other drivers on the road. Now the words that scare everyone come out of the customer’s mouth “I am not going to fix the car”.

Okay, we have established the fact the car is 100% unsafe. We also know that the customer is not fixing the car. What happens next?

The Shop Attempts to Keep The Car
What were to happen if a service station attempted to keep a car. I don’t think it would take very long for the situation to escalate. I am sure that law enforcement would get involved. Laws do very from state to state, but I could not find any state that said a service shop could keep a customer from there car. In fact I seemed to find the opposite. Shops can not get in the way of a customer taking their property. It is really that simple.

The Customer Takes The Unsafe Car
This is a very serious situation. Best case the customer gets the car home and parks it. Giving them time to get the car repaired. Worst case, the customer gets into an accident. You can fill in the blank on how bad that could be.

From a service department prospective, this is a HUGE liability. If that customer were to get into an accident, the blame would be immediately be focused on the service department. It would go something like,

I was just at the service place. They didn’t tell me that it was unsafe. I don’t know anything about cars. I trusted them to keep me safe.

The customer has a point. They do trust the service department to keep them safe. However, the customer the one that makes the choice to repair or not to repair.

In a perfect world, no cars would ever break. If they did break, everyone would have the time and money to fix them. So how does a shop handle a situation like this? If after informing a customer of the severity of the situation, they decline the repair. The shop will add a special note to the customers repair order stating the issue and the car in “UNSAFE”. Some refer to this as “red tagging”. The customer will then have to sign saying they understand.

What do you folks think? Should a shop be able to keep an unsafe car from leaving the lot? Or would shops use that as a “scare tactic” to strong arm customers in to paying for repairs? Post up your thoughts in the comments below. This is one that a strong case can be made on BOTH sides.

Don’t forget the enter the contest to win a Snap-On magnetic tray. All the details are listed at the bottom of yesterday’s Shop Shots post. I will pick a winner on Friday 10/05/12 in the evening.

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