Tag Archive for: Volkswagen

Hey folks!

Its Shop Shots time! I did a post yesterday about the new mechanic logo, if you didn’t see it, check it out. She posts on Instagram as Hammerhand. Since I can’t figure out how to link to that, just search for her. She posts all kinds of really awesome artwork and tattoos that she does. Oh, and her name “HammerHand”, yeah it’s how she tattoos. Trust me! 😉

This is a picture of a 2007 New Beetle Convertible. I had to take the front end off to replace the oil filter housing. It looks like it would be a worse job that it is. The front ends of VWs actually come off pretty easy. There are a lot of repairs that require removing the front end. VW calls it service position. I like how it looks like there is a funny mustache made into the core support. HA

I know this isn’t technically a shot in the shop, but I wanted to post it anyway. It seems that my iphone doesn’t take the best night pics, but someone asked me what my H.I.D.s looked like. I installed this kit on my 2005 VW Passat. The headlights are a 5,000k color. That is as close to white light as you can get. The fog lights are 3000k. That is a very yellow color. It actually cuts fog pretty well. I love the light output of HIDs. At some point, I will get a kit for my wife’s truck. When that happens, I will do an install video for you guys.

Ok, Ok, this is not in the shop either, but I think I want to sneak a beer pic into Shop Shots. First, notice the car is in park. We were tailgating before a Carolina Hurricanes game. Bell’s HopSlam is one of the most sought after beers in the area. When it comes out, people FREAK OUT about it. The other one is a pretty good milk stout. My wife was drinking that one. HA, I guess I just wanted to post pictures of my car this week. 😉

This is a video I shot the other day at work. If you look at the right wiper, you can see if flopping around. The other wiper was split too. Folks, replacing wiperblades is something EVERYONE can do. If you don’t want to mess with it, buy them at the dealer, and ask them to install them for you. We install them for free. I want everyone to go out and check your wipers today. I am not kidding. DO IT! 🙂

Remember, come by the Automotive Forum. It is not just for mechanics. I added a section for customers do complain about their mechanics. So you can come by and complain about me. I have to approve you(to keep the spam out). If you don’t get an email in about a day, just let me know and I can approve you. I get tons of spam and I want to keep that crap out!

Hey guys,

I got a video for you today. A while back I mentioned a part called a Clock Spring. I didn’t say anything else about it. As luck would have it, I replaced one the other day. Since I had the spare part, I thought that I would shoot a quick video and show you how it works.

Well, that pretty much explains it. If you have any questions, post them up in the comments. Also, go to Technician Database, that is the forum was talking about. Be sure to go and post in the “First 50”! I really want to give something cool away.

Just one more thing. Here is a little tease of the rough sketch of our new logo. What do you guys think?

Hey folks! I know it’s only Wednesday but I am doing Shop Shots today.

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This is a picture of a 2007 Jetta. This car is a victim of a problem called coolant migration. What can happen is coolant will travel through the electrical wires from the coolant bottle it just about anywhere in the car.
The customer brought her car in saying that the fuel gauge was not working. We pulled the cover over the fuel pump and found coolant pooled up in the valley of the connector. The problem is coolant will travel EVERYWHERE. The proper repair is to replace the harness from the coolant bottle to the pump. That involves replacing the main harness for the body of the car. Basically, it is every wire and connector from the head lights to the tail lights. The car gets stripped bare! Not a job anyone wants to do, EVER!

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I took this picture when I was checking another fuel gauge issue. This is under the back seat of a Touareg. Don’t worry, I wore gloves. 🙂 When I told the customer, she said, Just go ahead and throw all this away. I took a few minutes and cleaned it up some what. There was chocolate so old, it have turned into dust! It was pretty gross, and of course, that is where I had to work. Yuck!

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This one came in today. I pulled a used CC in the shop to do a used car inspection. Like every used car I do, I check to see if there is anything good. I found about $0.14 in the cup holder, but I never expected to find that!! I am not really sure what I will do with them. I might just let the detail guys handle it. Not really something i want to mess with!

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Ok, so this is totally not my shop! I think I had mentioned that I would be out of town for a couple of days last week. Well part of the trip was a brew tour of NoDa Brewing Co on North Davidson in Charlotte, NC. We actually stayed across the street from the NASCAR hall of fame. My wife and I try to take brew tours any time we travel. I think this is a 15 barrel system. If your ever in Charlotte check them out! Their beer rocks.

Don’t forget to check out the forum! If you signed up and have not been approved, please let me know. I have been getting TONS of spam so I want to be sure I didn’t miss anyone!

Due to the launch of the Forum yesterday, and some other things going on, I feel like I left you guys with out a really good post yesterday! So to make it up, I am doubling up on the “Shop Shots” today!

This is a picture of a V6 Passat axle. The axle is what connects the transmission to the wheels. Without axles, the car will not go. The picture is an inner joint. Somehow, it came apart. It’s acutally not something that happens all that much. I think that I have seen just a couple over the years.

While we are on the drivetrain, this is a close up picture of a tire that I took. I was standing under the car, which makes this the left rear tire.?. Tires are much more than just round and black. The technology is pretty amazing. Before I start going on and on about speed ratings, temp ratings, performance(sorry, I started) 😉 well lets just say they are rubber compounds, with steal imbedded in it. When the tire wear down far enough, you can actually see the metal cords. The line in the picture is where the tread(parts that makes contact with the road) meets the sidewall (where the words are written) I know that I left out so much info on tires, or tyres if its a VW, but I will save that for another post!


This little guys was sitting on the dash of a 2012 Golf. When I got in the car, I totally didn’t see him. I pulled the car around to the back door of the shop. When I seen him, I screamed. I mean, like I screamed out loud. Then I started cracking up because I just screamed at a tiny little snake on the dash of a car. So I took a picture of him. In the back round, you can see my tool box. 🙂

Here is a side by side shot of a VERY common issue on our 2.0T FSI, engine. These are called cam followers. The one on the right is the new and updated part. The one on the left, well, it shouldn’t have a hole in it. The follower is an internal engine part. It rides on the cam shaft and operates the mechanical fuel pump. I guess the issue is too soft of metal. It wears the cam shaft, and the follower. I have also seen these metal chunks clog up oil passages and ruin engines. BTW, replacing engines is not fun!

HAHA,(yes I just laughed when the picture came up), This Jetta came in the other day. The service advisor came back and asked my how much it would cost to replace a customers fuse. He said it “Cracked in half”. What had actually happened is the fuse blew. A fuse blows when too much current goes through it. This is the fuse panel on top of the battery. It is the main power junction of the car. The wire that looks weird is the one to the alternator. The fuse blew, and someone just taped a wire to it, instead of ACTUALLY fixing the car. I am not sure who did the job, but holy crap, its kind of a hazard. The customer declined the repair, they said they would “wait and see”?

Ok, I have been saving this one for a while. I think it happened a few years ago. I was off work the day this happened. I got a text from one of the boys at work saying a car fell off a lift. I of course asked for a picture! I guess what happened was the guy doing the alignment was moving the wheel back and forth. That is called doing a “sweep”. When we do a sweep, the machine measures the suspension angles. When he did the sweep, the wheel cought the edge and rolled off the rack. He was ok, mad at himself, but ok. To make things even better, the customer was standing right at the window to the shop. That is about 20 feet from the rack. Everyone was ok, the dealer paid to have the customers car fixed, and gave him a car to drive while his was getting repaired. 😀

Well, that pretty much sums it up. I am sorry I missed a good post yesterday! The forum is LIVE and doing awesome. Please come by, sign up and post in the First 50. When we hit 50, I will lock the post and do a drawing for something. Not quite sure what it will be yet, kinda depends on how fast we hit 50 😉

 

Since it was 8 years ago today, I thought I would tell the story about packing up and moving to work for Volkswagen.

In 2003 I started with the Volkswagen academy. This was a full time, 11 week training program for mechanics. Before I started, I was told I would have a 50% chance of staying in the area I lived in. I figured that I would take those odds, there are tons of dealers around the area. The worst I figured I would have to move across town. The Chicagoland area is huge, it shouldn’t be a problem right?

Well, the very first day, the very first thing the instructor says is, “If you plan on working in the area, there is the door. You have NO chance of working in this area”. Not much of a 50% chance is it? I decided to stick with it(obviously). I had lived in the same area for my entire life, so this was a huge thing for me.

I think it was about a week before the training was over, when I landed my very first interview. I actually called all 3 dealers in the area I wanted to move. The 1st guy told me to come down when I was done training. The 2nd call I made, the service manager and I hit it off and told me he would make arrangements come down and interview. I also made another call to the 3rd dealer in the area. This jerk wouldn’t even talk to me.

The service manager flew me down on a Friday morning. I remember it pretty well because it was like -14 air temp. My Mitsubishi hated being driven in the cold. I got off the plane to a beautiful 60 degree day in the south! Looking back, I might have moved anyway. 😉 I met up withe the service manager and shop foreman. We went back to the shop, checked the place out and then grabbed some lunch. The interview was pretty casual. It was more of a “lets make sure he is not a total jackass” meeting.

I was offered the job that day. Next up was the phone call I had to make to my wife. Her and I both had lived in IL our whole lives. I had to call her and tell her that next week we were packing up and moving 5 states away. Lucky for me, she was 100% on board. I think the change of scenery was a good thing for both of us.

While I had some time before my flight, the shuttle driver took me to a few places to find an apartment. With the apartment secured, I hopped scooted back to the airport and flew home. All and all is was a super awesome, busy, stressful day.

The next week was full of training for me. My wife quite a job that she had for over 10 years. We had so many loose ends to tie up, I don’t really remember much. I do remember that we had to rent a moving truck and trailer. The day before we left, it was a Saturday, we started to load up our little apartment in IL.  I also remember taking my grandma’s car to Carmax to sell it. Some friends took us out to dinner to say some very heartfelt goodbyes. To this day, I miss every single one of them.

Sunday morning some of our family came over to help us pack and load up the truck. Our plans were to leave around 5pm, drive straight through and roll in around noon. WELLLLL, it turns out, a fully loaded moving truck with a trailer will only go about 65mph. Plus driving through IN with snow and the wind blowing makes for an awful drive. I think that we all stopped in Kentucky for a few hours of sleep. My first drive though the Appalachian Mountains was AWEFUL! Little sleep, big moving truck with a trailer, in a place I had never been.

We rolled into town about 11pm Monday night. It was too late to get the keys to the apartment. Now we had to find a hotel to stay the night in. This was in 2004, well before everyone had a smart phone or a GPS in their car. We got the room and totally crashed out. The next morning, I had to take my buddy, who is awesome and helped so much, back to the airport. I was really sad to see him fly back to IL.

I went back, picked up the wife and headed to the apartment. We got the keys and we were home! Well, the apartment had not been cleaned, so it was super nasty. Never the less, we busted butt and got the whole truck unloaded in just a few hours. By the time we were done, all I wanted to do was take a nice hot shower, plug the TV in and chill. As (my) luck would have it, NO HOT WATER!!! It took a few more hours to get them to come and fix the water.

I didn’t have to report to work for another week. That gave me time to go to Sears and pick up my new tool box. We spent the next few days cleaning that nasty apartment. I still don’t think I ever touched that floor with my bare feet. It was really that gross. Boy was I glad for the day we moved out of that apartment.

Well, I know that we didn’t really talk cars today. But this time of year is really a time where I think back about how my life has changed over the past 8 years. 10 years ago, I would never have thought I would be working on cars, living in NC, and even crazier, writing about it. I hope you guys enjoyed this post. Tomorrow we will be back to talking about cars, I promise. 😉

Happy Friday guys!

Today I give you some tips on changing a tire. I also show you how the heck to use that jack for your Volkswagen. The usage of the jack is VW specific, but the tips and tricks will apply any time you have to change a tire.


I am still working out the kinks of shooting videos, but I think this came out pretty good.  No editing at all..  That is my goal, shoot and post!

Here are some close up pics of the jack, the tool kit and the proper place to put the jack!


[slideshow]

failed wiper blades

Today I want to give everyone 5 things that they can check on their own cars.

These are really quick and easy checks. With some practice, it will take about 5 minutes to complete. Consider doing these checks when filling your car up with fuel!

TIRES
Checking tires is pretty easy. I recommend turning your steering wheel all the way to the right or to the left(it doesn’t matter which way). This will allow you to check the condition of both front tires. You will be looking for any strange tire wear. The colors on the tires below show what it should not look. Be sure to check your tire pressure. The tires should be cold to get an accurate reading.

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WIPER BLADES
This one is easy. If they do not clear the windshield properly, just replace them! Please do not wait until the look like this!

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LIGHTS
I recommend doing this with your car running, so you will not drain the battery. Just turn the lights on, take a walk around the car and make sure they work! Be sure to look at the license plate lights too. You can check the turn signals inside the car. If they blink at normal speed, they should be fine. You will need a helper to check the brake lights!

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FLUIDS
This is the part that you might get a little dirty. Make sure you have a clean towel or a paper towel. Most cars coolant(antifreeze) can be judged by looking through the bottle. If you have a VW, it is pink and the bottle it is in is clear. To check the oil, be sure your car is on a level surface. Remove the dipstick, clean the oil off, and reinstall the dipstick. Now, put the dipstick back in, remove it again and look to see how much oil is on the stick. There will be indicator marks on the stick to tell you where the level should be.
Also, check the brake fluid and power steering fluid. Please make sure that the windshield washer fluid is correct for the season.

WINDOWS AND MIRRORS
This one is pretty important. Always make sure your windshield and rear window are clean. It will totally make driving at night better. It also goes with out saying, make sure your mirrors are properly adjusted and clean.

Side note, if you are my customer, just bring it to me, I will do it for you!

Is this stuff everyone checks? Post up what you think in the comments!!

Oh, another side note, I wrote this whole post including pics on my phone. If the format is goofy, that is why. I am still working out the kinks, but I wanted to get this post up for you guys!