Friday, March 24, 2006

 

turbo charger

Dan the mechanic says my catalytic converter is fine but that my turbo charger needs to be replaced. Something about it not spinning right. I have to get the part thru the dealer because nobody else has the part yet because it's still considered under warranty to third party part places. I called around to different dealers and got different wholesale pricing. Cost to the dealers is about $1,300 (one of the parts guys mistakenly told me the cost). List is $1740. I finally got one for $1451. Dan will install it, hopefully on Tuesday, when he gets the part.


Turbo Posted by Picasa

Degraded Turbo Fan Posted by Picasa

Monday, March 20, 2006

 

Back From Vacation With A Fresh Mind

Sometimes I think just looking at the engine will help me fix my car. I use the force and bond with the engine. In my meditative state I noticed a warning on the oil cap that basically says DO NOT OVER FILL THE OIL OR YOUR CATALYTIC CONVERTER WILL BE DAMAGED. Oh, that's interesting. Guess what happening right before this problem started. Over filled the oil (the guy who filled my oil was compensating for the mysterious oil leak). Then I went to the manual to read about the catalytic converter and guess what else can damage it? Running out of fuel. That morning after the oil change I ran out of fuel and couldn’t start the car and had lots of misfires. So that’s where I'm starting folks - replacing the catalytic converter.

Sunday, March 12, 2006

 

Mass Air Flow Sensor

From what I've been reading on the forums, it looks like my problem might be solved by replacing the mass air flow (MAF) sensor. I think I can only order this part from the dealer but there are some part places online that I'm checking.

Saturday, March 11, 2006

 

Shocker! Dealer's IQ = 0

Tbe dealer had my car for 6 days. Each day I had to call them and ask them what was going on and each day they told me they were "running diagnostics." Well what about the oil leak I asked that's easy to see. "We don't see an oil leak," they said. What?! I have a stained driveway and a nice wad of newspaper soaked with oil. Well what about the check engine light. "The engine light is not on," they said. Steam was actually coming out of my head at this point I was so angry. I flat out told my representative that the mechanic must have reset the engine light, which I had done myself only a couple weeks ago after I cleaned out the air filter and watched the light come back on after a couple miles, because it had been on for weeks. The rep said he wouldn't have done that. I said, "well what about the acceleration problem." "The mechanic can't figure it out because there are no codes or engine lights." I told them, "You suck." And I picked up my car. The only good part of this story is that my rep decided not to charge me the $200 diagnostic fee after I repeatedly pointed out that they did NOTHING to diagnose it.

Thursday, March 02, 2006

 

The Dealer

Dan the mechanic can't fix my car because he doesn't have any specs on it. So I took it the VW dealer and they told me they couldn't work on it either because they were not trained yet on the 2005 TDI engine. Remember I'm in California and new diesels haven't been allowed here for some time. So then I took it to this other VW dealer and they said it would be no problem. They also charged $200 for a diagnostic test where the other dealer charged $180 for a diagnostic test. See, it's that extra $20 bucks that gets you better trained technicians. So that's where the car is now. Oh, I didn't tell them the engine had been modified because it just seems to scare people. This second dealer just called me and said they are working on it right now and they didn't mention anything about the conversion. Since they've never seen a TDI before they probably think it's part of the car.

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