Happy Wednesday everyone. If you like are like me, you are about over winter. I am ready to get home from work and still have some daylight. Plus I am ready for top down weather in the Cabby. If you are new to the community, be sure to check out the Luv-a-Dub tab. You can see the build and restore of my 1988 VW Cabriolet with a VR6 engine swap. She is in winter mode right now. I can’t wait to get her back on the road.
Today we have Shop Shots. Let’s get right to it!
Last week’s snow storm reeked havoc on so many cars. We have had 15+ cars come in with bent suspension parts over the last week. This VW is one of the worst I have seen. The solid steel arm of the lower suspension bent. It is bent at a crazy angle. The impact it takes to bend this lower control arm is severe. Replacing the control arm was just the beginning. We also had to replace the axle, wheel bearing, ball joint, and tie rod. All of these are vital parts of the suspension.
I feel like I post a lot of transmission pictures. There is something so cool about the guts of a transmission. This is the gears of a Passat manual transmission. The customer was concerned about a grinding going into 3rd gear. That is generally an issue with the synchro. This transmission had a good amount of metal in the fluid.
When we have an internal engine or transmission issue, we have to decide whether to repair, or replace. It involves us adding up the parts we think we need to replace, and comparing that to the cost of a new unit. It generally works out that we replace the unit. That is something that almost always makes the customer happy.
Like I said in the top picture, winter has been crazy! This is the back side of a wheel. The customer drove in on their spare tire(yay for them knowing how to change a tire). Our tire guy took the wheel out of the trunk and immediately called me over. Not only was their a good size bend in the lip of the wheel, the entire wheel was split. The front face was split away from the barrel of the wheel. I have seen a ton of damaged wheels, but I have never personally seen a wheel split in two. Can you imagine the sound that made. Yikes!
Well that wraps up another week of behind the scenes pictures. I hope that you are all careful and look out for potholes. They hang around long after the snow does. My wife was just telling me about having to dodge potholes. She said she felt like a drunk guy 😉
One last thing, if you enjoy the things we talk about here, please consider sharing this blog. There are share buttons on the top and bottom of every post. As the community grow, it gives me more bargaining power to do cool things like giveaways. At some point this year, I will start looking for some sponsors for the blog. More on that another time.
Next up is something that seems to be a plague these days, bent wheels. It seems to be worse this time of year. My guess is the increase in potholes and bad driving that winter brings. I tried to shoot a video of this wheel spinning on the balancer. It came out terrible. 🙂 It is strange to me that someone could not feel they had a bent wheel. Many times a small bent in a wheel will be fine. This is a major bend. If you find out you have a bent wheel, most of the time they can be repaired. From what I have seen, the cost is around $120 or so. That is not cheap, but it’s better than $350 for a new wheel
First up is a picture sent to me by my buddy. This car came in for an alignment. That is where we basically reset the suspension angles back to factory specs. When I first got this picture, I thought the tire had blown up. I was really confused. On closer inspection, the tire has debris jammed between the rim and the bead pack of the tire. The customer had been in an accident not too long ago. This must have been debris left over. I gotta say, it is not everyday you see something jammed in it like this.
I had lots of help from friends this week. This picture came from a fellow VW tech. This car was towed into his dealer with the following concern “Customer states vehicle still will not start after battery replacement”. If you are not familiar with VW batteries, you might not see the issue right away.
Last week much of the country seen record low temperatures. The news jokers were calling it the Polar Vortex or something like that. For us mechanics, it means cars acting crazier than normal. This is ice build up on the floor board of a VW. If you look at the top of the picture, you can see the water line. That is not really a water line, but more of an ice line. I thought I left this type of weather when I moved from Illinois. I also seen my first TDI with ice build up in the charge cooler. We actually seen 5 or 6 TDIs with frozen charge coolers.
It is always a fun time to see car repairs with Duct Tape. This is the back side of a Passat head light. Someone attempted to install non factory HID headlights. I am generally a fan of HID headlights. I have them installed in my Passat. But these type of kits usually require some modification. Lucky for the customer I was able to get the light seated and installed properly. The bad part is, the adjuster for the headlight was broken. That means the inside of the light just bounces around. The fix? A simple zip tie.
Last up is another picture of my buddies engine. I have posted pictures of his car a few times before. He is coming dangerously close to finishing the engine rebuild. He is really taking care to build an engine that near factory. He is doing something similar to what I did with the VR swap. Paint every part, and take the time to get it done right. Also, I am in love with those black valve covers.
The story behind this picture is one of those “you have to be kidding me” moments. A customer stopped by the dealer. He was driving through and the check engine light came on in his 2012 Passat. We worked him in because he was just passing through. When I pulled the car in the shop, it sounded a little funny. I started scanning the car for faults. While the scan tool was doing it’s thing, I popped the hook to have a look.
Next up is a common issue that is taken to a level I have never seen. This is a shot of a coolant bottle on a 2003 Passat. I have seen quite a few 1998-2005 Passats have issues with cooling systems getting clogged up. It usually comes in with a “My heat does not work” complaint. Over time coolant breaks down and starts to block up the system. This prevents coolant from properly flowing in the system.
Last up we have a VW wiring problem. This one was a good one. The customer complained about the seat moving while driving. He said that sometimes the seat would move forward or back all by itself. It car has power seats. The car had been in 2 other times for the same issue. We were never able to duplicate the issue. But the car had a fault stored in the computer that controls the seat. We had replaced the seat memory buttons, and the module. I pulled the seat out to inspect the wiring. Hidden in the seat rail was a wire that had a been grounding against the frame. Basically the car was seeing the button being pushed. Kind of funny really. I guess this is one of the electrical demons everyone talks about.
First up is not the craziest thing I have ever seen. But since I am a hockey fan, I got a good laugh from it. This is the front bumper from a new Golf. I didn’t want to peel off the sticker to see what the damage looked like. Gotta love cool sticker placement, and DIY car repairs. 😉
This picture is one I took last week. You are looking at the passenger side floor of a Jetta Sportwagen. Let me point out a few things you can see in the picture.
