Abacus
That helpful B4 guy
I am writing this for 2 reasons:
1) to rant, and
2) so if people do a search they'll find this and have more knowledge with which to base their decisions.
I met a nice older couple at a restaurant, in their late 60's or so, with a mint '96 B4. When I mean mint, it has almost no clearcoat peeling, 136,000 original miles, and no rust since it's never seen a Maine winter (they snowbird to Florida and have the B4 setup with a tow bar). In chatting with them about it the owner said power would drop off occasionally when he tried to pass and the clutch stayed down sometimes so he'd have to pull it back up with his foot. I mentioned Herm to him, as I always do to people who need a reputable TDI mechanic, but he seemed disinclined to take it to him and wondered if I could just take a look at it since I seemed to know a lot about them. I explained I wasn’t a mechanic, just an enthusiast that did my own work, and he was fine with it. He said it was at an independent garage (locally, known for working on VW's and TDI VW's) for a timing belt this summer and he wanted a lot of money to fix the other issues, so he decided to just live with them since they didn't drive the car that much.
It'd been a few weeks before I could get to it (new metal roof, car work of my own, rebuilding my brother's B4, death in the family), but I finally went to look at it last night. When he moved it into his barn, I noticed it started hard and ran rough, with more smoke than it should have had. The clutch pedal did stay down when I tested it, so I immediately went to the clutch slave and bled it, and the nastiest fluid I have ever seen came out. When I asked him about it, he said it was original. No problem, I bled it with new fluid and plan to bleed the whole system, explaining it should be done every 2 years. The clutch now seems to work fine, but I brought a spare slave & line with me anyway, and will replace them and the master if it continues. The clutch return spring is in place and working normally. They told him the reason it was staying down was the throwout bearing and that he’d need a new clutch. Strike 1.
For the low power issue, I immediately went to the ECU and pulled it apart, found the hose with a hole in it and changed it. No more limp mode, but I have a spare N75 ready just in case. They said it needed a new ECU. Strike 2.
Next I mentioned the smoke to him and asked him to start the car so I could put the Vag-Com on it. I noticed the coolant temp sensor unplugged and inquired about it. He said the car wouldn’t start without it in these temperatures and that he just lived with it that way. I plugged it back in to get the timing graph and found it worked fine, so I looked closer and found a broken wire on the back of the OOD (Orb of Death). Easy to miss and misdiagnose, so they get a pass on that one.
But when the car was up to temp, the timing was off the graph, severely retarded. I pulled the top timing belt cover and found this:
Yep, Mark & Pray. The worst part was the oil all over the inner cover, which was coming from the cam seal they obviously never changed. Thankfully the oil was only on the cover and under the cam pulley and not all over the new belt, since it didn't have that many miles on it. Checking over the idler roller, I found rust on it, indicating it wasn’t changed with the belt, which was thankfully a Dayco. So I checked the date on the timing belt tensioner and it had a code of 50/99. That’s right, it was manufactured in 1999, so they never changed it. Strike 3…you’re out!
I told him he’d been ripped off on this timing belt job and the car was a time bomb. He said he had another vehicle to drive, which was good. So now I have an order in for the timing belt components, the serpentine tensioner, and cam seal. I’ll redo the system and make sure it’s right.
Checking the car over further, I also changed out the leaking fuel return hoses to stop the dripping diesel fuel. How they missed this is or why they would let it continue is beyond me. The hoses looked very old, as were the vacuum hoses, and these is no way they just started leaking that much fuel. The guy is not without being able to change the vacuum hoses, so I’ll put it on a list for him. I noticed when he got something out of the rear of the car he went to the opposite side, so I asked about his door handles. He said one didn’t work, so I showed him the roll pin issue and he was amazed at how simple it was to fix. He didn't know it had a cabin air filter (yuck!), so he'll order that along with the other parts. Overall he was impressed with how easy things seemed to be to work on, and he worked on his diesel tractors and (mint) '41 Chevy all the time, but he'd heard how hard these cars were, so he never did anything himself.
I had always heard good things about the garage in Randolph, but after this mess, I will no longer recommend them for anything. There is no excuse for work this shoddy.
1) to rant, and
2) so if people do a search they'll find this and have more knowledge with which to base their decisions.
I met a nice older couple at a restaurant, in their late 60's or so, with a mint '96 B4. When I mean mint, it has almost no clearcoat peeling, 136,000 original miles, and no rust since it's never seen a Maine winter (they snowbird to Florida and have the B4 setup with a tow bar). In chatting with them about it the owner said power would drop off occasionally when he tried to pass and the clutch stayed down sometimes so he'd have to pull it back up with his foot. I mentioned Herm to him, as I always do to people who need a reputable TDI mechanic, but he seemed disinclined to take it to him and wondered if I could just take a look at it since I seemed to know a lot about them. I explained I wasn’t a mechanic, just an enthusiast that did my own work, and he was fine with it. He said it was at an independent garage (locally, known for working on VW's and TDI VW's) for a timing belt this summer and he wanted a lot of money to fix the other issues, so he decided to just live with them since they didn't drive the car that much.
It'd been a few weeks before I could get to it (new metal roof, car work of my own, rebuilding my brother's B4, death in the family), but I finally went to look at it last night. When he moved it into his barn, I noticed it started hard and ran rough, with more smoke than it should have had. The clutch pedal did stay down when I tested it, so I immediately went to the clutch slave and bled it, and the nastiest fluid I have ever seen came out. When I asked him about it, he said it was original. No problem, I bled it with new fluid and plan to bleed the whole system, explaining it should be done every 2 years. The clutch now seems to work fine, but I brought a spare slave & line with me anyway, and will replace them and the master if it continues. The clutch return spring is in place and working normally. They told him the reason it was staying down was the throwout bearing and that he’d need a new clutch. Strike 1.
For the low power issue, I immediately went to the ECU and pulled it apart, found the hose with a hole in it and changed it. No more limp mode, but I have a spare N75 ready just in case. They said it needed a new ECU. Strike 2.
Next I mentioned the smoke to him and asked him to start the car so I could put the Vag-Com on it. I noticed the coolant temp sensor unplugged and inquired about it. He said the car wouldn’t start without it in these temperatures and that he just lived with it that way. I plugged it back in to get the timing graph and found it worked fine, so I looked closer and found a broken wire on the back of the OOD (Orb of Death). Easy to miss and misdiagnose, so they get a pass on that one.
But when the car was up to temp, the timing was off the graph, severely retarded. I pulled the top timing belt cover and found this:
Yep, Mark & Pray. The worst part was the oil all over the inner cover, which was coming from the cam seal they obviously never changed. Thankfully the oil was only on the cover and under the cam pulley and not all over the new belt, since it didn't have that many miles on it. Checking over the idler roller, I found rust on it, indicating it wasn’t changed with the belt, which was thankfully a Dayco. So I checked the date on the timing belt tensioner and it had a code of 50/99. That’s right, it was manufactured in 1999, so they never changed it. Strike 3…you’re out!
I told him he’d been ripped off on this timing belt job and the car was a time bomb. He said he had another vehicle to drive, which was good. So now I have an order in for the timing belt components, the serpentine tensioner, and cam seal. I’ll redo the system and make sure it’s right.
Checking the car over further, I also changed out the leaking fuel return hoses to stop the dripping diesel fuel. How they missed this is or why they would let it continue is beyond me. The hoses looked very old, as were the vacuum hoses, and these is no way they just started leaking that much fuel. The guy is not without being able to change the vacuum hoses, so I’ll put it on a list for him. I noticed when he got something out of the rear of the car he went to the opposite side, so I asked about his door handles. He said one didn’t work, so I showed him the roll pin issue and he was amazed at how simple it was to fix. He didn't know it had a cabin air filter (yuck!), so he'll order that along with the other parts. Overall he was impressed with how easy things seemed to be to work on, and he worked on his diesel tractors and (mint) '41 Chevy all the time, but he'd heard how hard these cars were, so he never did anything himself.
I had always heard good things about the garage in Randolph, but after this mess, I will no longer recommend them for anything. There is no excuse for work this shoddy.
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