What did you do to your MKIV today?

KrashDH

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Dec 22, 2013
Location
Washington
TDI
2002 Golf
What the heck is going on with your truck’s mirrors?!!!
Lol, converted to a GM style mirror. Sooo much better than the moose antlers. I actually can use the blind spot mirror now.
So a few of us over on the forum originally took a GM mirror and weld built up and machined/ground the base so it would fit our door frame because the plastic trim is about perfect. We re-tapped the holes based on our door's stud location. Tapped into the turn signal/running light/reverse wires to power the turn signal in the mirror, reverse light on the mirrors housing, and running/puddle light. So have full function on all of the lights on the mirrors.

It became quite the thing that a company actually started making a plug and play bolt up system with the GM mirrors for our trucks, except they charge a lot of money based on how you want the lights on the wiring to function. Everything I wired was internal to the mirror housing so I just needed to run the power wires for the running, turn, and reverse lights. Basically what the company is doing now, I just did it myself.
 

Mozambiquer

Vendor , w/Business number
Joined
Mar 21, 2015
Location
Versailles Missouri
TDI
2004 VW Touareg V10 TDI, 2012 Audi Q7 V6 TDI, 1998 VW Jetta TDI. 1982 VW Rabbit pickup, 2001 VW Jetta TDI, 2005 VW Passat wagon TDI X3, 2001 VW golf TDI, 1980 VW rabbit pickup,
Lol, converted to a GM style mirror. Sooo much better than the moose antlers. I actually can use the blind spot mirror now.
So a few of us over on the forum originally took a GM mirror and weld built up and machined/ground the base so it would fit our door frame because the plastic trim is about perfect. We re-tapped the holes based on our door's stud location. Tapped into the turn signal/running light/reverse wires to power the turn signal in the mirror, reverse light on the mirrors housing, and running/puddle light. So have full function on all of the lights on the mirrors.

It became quite the thing that a company actually started making a plug and play bolt up system with the GM mirrors for our trucks, except they charge a lot of money based on how you want the lights on the wiring to function. Everything I wired was internal to the mirror housing so I just needed to run the power wires for the running, turn, and reverse lights. Basically what the company is doing now, I just did it myself.
I'll have to admit that it does look a lot better than the moose antler style!
 

kennethsime

Veteran Member
Joined
Oct 29, 2010
Location
California
TDI
2004 Jetta Wagon GL TDI 5-Speed Baltic Green
Woke up 4 times last night from 3am-4am, thanks to my alarm going off. Around the 4am, I realized it was perhaps not someone trying to steal my catalytic converter nor an errant squirrel. I decided to stay up and Googled around a lot. After getting a rough idea of what was going on, and the alarm going off two or three more times, I finally had the bright idea to just disconnect the battery. No, my thinking at 4am wasn't the quickest, lol.

The behavior at first was that the car would fail to "beep" when all five doors were closed + locked. Sometimes, about 10 minutes later, I would hear the car "beep" on it's own. Then at some point, between 3-10 minutes later, the alarm would go off. On two occasions, I went around and manually locked each door. On one of these two occasions, I got an "all doors locked beep," and on one I didn't.

Other things to consider:
  • My rear passenger door does not lock or unlock reliably via remote control.
  • I replaced my original window switch with a Chinese-made OEM VW switch the other day.
My best guess right now is the rear passenger door lock module has been failing for a long time, and the window switch replacement either exacerbated it or is coincidental. At lunch today I'm going to go around and test to see if one door is in fact causing the issue.
 

KrashDH

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Dec 22, 2013
Location
Washington
TDI
2002 Golf
Woke up 4 times last night from 3am-4am, thanks to my alarm going off. Around the 4am, I realized it was perhaps not someone trying to steal my catalytic converter nor an errant squirrel. I decided to stay up and Googled around a lot. After getting a rough idea of what was going on, and the alarm going off two or three more times, I finally had the bright idea to just disconnect the battery. No, my thinking at 4am wasn't the quickest, lol.

The behavior at first was that the car would fail to "beep" when all five doors were closed + locked. Sometimes, about 10 minutes later, I would hear the car "beep" on it's own. Then at some point, between 3-10 minutes later, the alarm would go off. On two occasions, I went around and manually locked each door. On one of these two occasions, I got an "all doors locked beep," and on one I didn't.

Other things to consider:
  • My rear passenger door does not lock or unlock reliably via remote control.
  • I replaced my original window switch with a Chinese-made OEM VW switch the other day.
My best guess right now is the rear passenger door lock module has been failing for a long time, and the window switch replacement either exacerbated it or is coincidental. At lunch today I'm going to go around and test to see if one door is in fact causing the issue.
I recently (within the last 4 or 5 months) had an erratic alarm going off. The car wasn't sensing that the door was being closed. Therefor open door would equal the alarm sounding.
It came down to the door lock microswitches. Front driver and passenger side both failing/failed. Replaced just the switch part and all was good. I have a thread on here with a few photos of what it looked like.
 

kennethsime

Veteran Member
Joined
Oct 29, 2010
Location
California
TDI
2004 Jetta Wagon GL TDI 5-Speed Baltic Green
Thanks guys, ordered some new switches from Mouser.

Yes, Krash has got this.
In the mean time, when you close the doors, click the unlock button twice, then click lock.
Bob, I'll experiment with the unlock twice + lock. Would you mind sharing the logic behind this?
 

J_dude

Veteran Member
Joined
Jan 9, 2020
Location
SK Canada
TDI
2003 1.9l “Jedi”
Lol, converted to a GM style mirror. Sooo much better than the moose antlers. I actually can use the blind spot mirror now.
So a few of us over on the forum originally took a GM mirror and weld built up and machined/ground the base so it would fit our door frame because the plastic trim is about perfect. We re-tapped the holes based on our door's stud location. Tapped into the turn signal/running light/reverse wires to power the turn signal in the mirror, reverse light on the mirrors housing, and running/puddle light. So have full function on all of the lights on the mirrors.

It became quite the thing that a company actually started making a plug and play bolt up system with the GM mirrors for our trucks, except they charge a lot of money based on how you want the lights on the wiring to function. Everything I wired was internal to the mirror housing so I just needed to run the power wires for the running, turn, and reverse lights. Basically what the company is doing now, I just did it myself.
Nuts! Not sure why I’ve never seen that before. Pretty neat!
I do like my moose mirrors though, doesn’t seem to look right with anything else.
 

KrashDH

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Dec 22, 2013
Location
Washington
TDI
2002 Golf
Nuts! Not sure why I’ve never seen that before. Pretty neat!
I do like my moose mirrors though, doesn’t seem to look right with anything else.
It's only been in the last couple years that we started/people have been doing this swap. It may not look right at first, but the functionality is hands down 100% better than the Dodge mirrors of that generation, which have a worthless blind spot mirror. Can't even see your wheels to back up into spots. I've always been function over fashion, this is up there with all the mods I've done on the truck as one of my favorites/most useful
 

J_dude

Veteran Member
Joined
Jan 9, 2020
Location
SK Canada
TDI
2003 1.9l “Jedi”
It's only been in the last couple years that we started/people have been doing this swap. It may not look right at first, but the functionality is hands down 100% better than the Dodge mirrors of that generation, which have a worthless blind spot mirror. Can't even see your wheels to back up into spots. I've always been function over fashion, this is up there with all the mods I've done on the truck as one of my favorites/most useful
Aha yes I bet they do work better, probably don’t flap in the breeze like the moose mirrors do haha.

Actually I have a buddy that swapped 2nd Gen moose mirrors onto his ‘97 Silverado, not exactly an upgrade but it was interesting lol
 

KrashDH

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Dec 22, 2013
Location
Washington
TDI
2002 Golf
Aha yes I bet they do work better, probably don’t flap in the breeze like the moose mirrors do haha.

Actually I have a buddy that swapped 2nd Gen moose mirrors onto his ‘97 Silverado, not exactly an upgrade but it was interesting lol
Wow yeah that's interesting for sure
 

P2B

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Jan 11, 2006
Location
Toronto & Muskoka, Canada
TDI
2002 Jetta, 2003 Jetta, 2003 Jetta Wagon
Don't they also make an air filter that has a big foam pad in front of it that's for snowy conditions?
They do indeed
I wouldn't call it "big", it's a 3/8" layer of foam that helps to protect the paper filter from moisture damage - and does nothing to stop the airbox getting plugged up with snow pre-filter because someone decided cutting out the screen would be a good idea.
 

csstevej

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Aug 12, 2004
Location
north nj
TDI
2001 golf tdi 4 door auto now a manual, mine, 2000 golf 2 door M/T son's,daughters 98 NB non-TDI 2.0, 2003 TDI NB for next daughter, head repaired and on road,gluten for punishment got another tdi 2001NB,another yellow tdi NB
In my opinion that screen is useless……it gets plugged up with more bugs than anything I’ve seen….just for S&G’s , I cut the screen out and measured the thickness of the screen. Then figured out approximately how much of the intake was restricted…..if I Remember correctly it was somewhere in the neighborhood of 42% restriction….and that’s if nothing is plugging it up.
I’ve removed them from all our cars and never had an issue in the winter……now you people up north and higher places out west….that I can’t speak for you…..this is just me……and my .02 .
 

burpod

teh stallionz!!1
Joined
Nov 27, 2004
Location
cape cod, ma
TDI
82 rabbit vnt ahu, 98 jetta vnt ahu, 05 parts car, 88 scirocco.. :/
the mk4 engine bay routing is silly anyways compared to that of a tdi in an mk1-mk3 :p all convoluted... the mk4 turbo inlet pipe and ducting is kinda ridiculous IMO. turbo inlete pipe on my mk1 and mk3 is 1/3 of the piping, fat, and goes right to cold air where also there is little likely hood of getting bugs in it compared to the grill area... :D
 

J_dude

Veteran Member
Joined
Jan 9, 2020
Location
SK Canada
TDI
2003 1.9l “Jedi”
I wouldn't call it "big", it's a 3/8" layer of foam that helps to protect the paper filter from moisture damage - and does nothing to stop the airbox getting plugged up with snow pre-filter because someone decided cutting out the screen would be a good idea.
Hmm ok now I’m kinda wondering, how would snow even get in there? You’d think with that mess of piping it would have a hard time finding its way into the air box.
 

Nero Morg

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Oct 19, 2017
Location
OR
TDI
2014 A6 TDI, 2001 Jetta TDI, 2014 Passat TDI


Got my jetta back!


Haha just kidding. This one belongs to a friend of my wife's that I take care of, 2003 tdi auto. Needed a headlight, and conveniently the one behind the battery....
 
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hey_allen

Veteran Member
Joined
Nov 25, 2006
Location
Altus, OK
TDI
2000 Jetta TDI
In my opinion that screen is useless……it gets plugged up with more bugs than anything I’ve seen….just for S&G’s , I cut the screen out and measured the thickness of the screen. Then figured out approximately how much of the intake was restricted…..if I Remember correctly it was somewhere in the neighborhood of 42% restriction….and that’s if nothing is plugging it up.
I’ve removed them from all our cars and never had an issue in the winter……now you people up north and higher places out west….that I can’t speak for you…..this is just me……and my .02 .
I can confirm around 40-50% restriction from just a "clean" snow screen, with a new air filter.
I'd installed a filter minder gauge, and was trying to figure out why it was immediately pulling down around 60% on the restriction gauge.
Once I removed the snow screen section of the pipe, the restriction was gone.
Cleaning the screen and reinstalling it still showed ~40% restriction.
I finally removed the screen entirely and had no indication of restriction on the gauge until I put a LARGE number of miles on the car.

As to what I've done to my car, I drove it halfway across the country as part of my move to a new job.
Other than a pre-existing slow coolant leak I can't find (possibly a heater core fitting again, or the o-ring on the pipe across the front of the engine) I didn't have any issues with the car. 1900 miles, and my best mileage was 51.68mpg, though altitude and tail-wind assisted when coming down out of Albuquerque NM.
 

P2B

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Jan 11, 2006
Location
Toronto & Muskoka, Canada
TDI
2002 Jetta, 2003 Jetta, 2003 Jetta Wagon
In my opinion that screen is useless……it gets plugged up with more bugs than anything I’ve seen….
I won't forget being stranded on the side of the highway in a snowstorm, young family on board, with a plugged air filter. I was not aware the PO had removed the snow screen.

Cleaning the screen at each filter element change works for me - more snow than bugs here ;)
 

burpod

teh stallionz!!1
Joined
Nov 27, 2004
Location
cape cod, ma
TDI
82 rabbit vnt ahu, 98 jetta vnt ahu, 05 parts car, 88 scirocco.. :/
the downsides of having the air inlet right in the front (bugs and snow go right in!). i have mine (in other cars) going down to fresh air that comes up from beneath the car. least amount of bugs/snow/water possibly getting in, and still likely as cold as if it were right up in the grill :) in my wife's mk4 i don't have any of the "CAI" ducts - just an enlarged open hole in the air filter (and the inner guts for the emergency flap gutted so it gets to use the whole filter), haven't honestly really noticed much detrimental affects but car doesn't really get hot rodded being an automatic..
 

03TDICommuter

Veteran Member
Joined
Dec 8, 2016
Location
So. Cal
TDI
01' NB, 5spd
Once I removed the snow screen section of the pipe, the restriction was gone.
Cleaning the screen and reinstalling it still showed ~40% restriction.
I finally removed the screen entirely and had no indication of restriction on the gauge until I put a LARGE number of miles on the car.
Was this on a NB or your Jetta? (I ask as the snow screen on the Jetta is larger)

I'm tempted now to cut mine out. Did you notice any performance difference? I'd think a 40% reduction in intake vacuum would be noticeable.
 

norbert77

Veteran Member
Joined
Feb 2, 2022
Location
Petrolia
TDI
01 beetle
28 years of driving in Canada, I never worried about snow. My 85 Hyundai pony had a summer/winter diverter valve on the air filter housing, in summer it got underhood air, in winter it got air from the exhaust manifold area
 

burpod

teh stallionz!!1
Joined
Nov 27, 2004
Location
cape cod, ma
TDI
82 rabbit vnt ahu, 98 jetta vnt ahu, 05 parts car, 88 scirocco.. :/
28 years of driving in Canada, I never worried about snow. My 85 Hyundai pony had a summer/winter diverter valve on the air filter housing, in summer it got underhood air, in winter it got air from the exhaust manifold area
that's a good idea.. i've actually been thinking of doing something similar. doing lots of logging over the winter and seeing how much advance the cold fuel/air temps cause...
 

Zak99b5

Veteran Member
Joined
Apr 30, 2021
Location
Albany NY
TDI
2003 Jetta TDI
Aircooled VWs also had heat risers that used air from around the exhaust manifold for warm-up.
 

norbert77

Veteran Member
Joined
Feb 2, 2022
Location
Petrolia
TDI
01 beetle
I had an argo 6x6. Air-cooled motor, I was going to use it in sub-arctic. I covered the air intake shroud with a floor register cover, and ducted the exhaust towards the cab. Motor ran warmer, and I got heat
 

KrashDH

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Dec 22, 2013
Location
Washington
TDI
2002 Golf
The Golf was supposed to go into the shop yesterday but unfortunately kind of had a freak couple of events that I had to remedy so that took me most of the evening.

I was removing the belly pan so the welder wouldn't have to do it. When I removed it, a bolt fell out of the pan. Uh oh. I immediately knew by the length and size that it was an intake manifold bolt.

Circle back about a month, I noticed heavy exhaust/diesel smell under the hood. Way more pungent than before. I took a flame down to everything I could get my hands into to see if the exhaust was leaking anywhere and checked the usual culprits. The flame didn't dance.

So I kind of forgot about it. Well anyway, the passenger side bolt had fallen out. All of the other ones were barely hand tight. I did install a bunch of upgrades within the last few months. I'm usually pretty good remembering to torque things down, so either they worked themselves loose or I didn't torque them completely.

Anyway, let me tell you how fun it is to try to get a torque wrench back there with an allen key, working blind, to torque those. Luckily EGR cooler is out of the way so I was actually able to get a torque wrench on all 6 with a couple different wild extension combos. Got them all torqued to 18 ft-lbf.

I was still on time at this point to get the car to the shop.
I had a new tune I needed/wanted to load before it went in the shop so when it was done with the new exhaust, I could go out and log.
Loading tune as usual with MMPS then halfway thru, BAM, it threw and error. Couldn't get it to read or write, it was bricked.

So I pulled out all my bench equipment (12V power supply, harness that I made to reboot ECUs) and proceeded to hook everything up. The instructions online are lacking a bit and I couldn't remember order of operations because this isn't something you do often (I've loaded probably hundred something tunes maybe? and this is the first time it's just errored out in the middle). So eventually I got it to write the tune, but then I couldn't get MMPS to find the ECU! I had just watched it complete the writing! I fought with this another hour and thought that I had REALLY fried my ECU. Double checked my wiring again and one of my wires somehow got knocked loose. Once it was back in place, it read the ECU fine.

Phew!

Needless to say, it was too late at this point to get the car to the shop. Tune was loaded, closed the ECU back up, installed everything again, cleared the codes and went inside and wrote up a PROPER set of instructions so if this happens again, I won't be scrambling to remember order of operations and connections.
 

BobnOH

not-a-mechanic
Joined
May 29, 2004
Location
central Ohio
TDI
New Beetle 2003 manual
Thanks guys, ordered some new switches from Mouser.



Bob, I'll experiment with the unlock twice + lock. Would you mind sharing the logic behind this?
No logic, this is what worked for me when my drivers door micro-switch failed. Locked the key in the car, once. Never did fix that (my first Jetta 99.5 TDI), just lazy. Your results may vary.
 

benmarks

Veteran Member
Joined
Jun 14, 2003
Location
Portland, OR
TDI
2004 Jetta GLS Sedan Platinum Gray
In preparation for my Matt Whitbread-built PD150 engine, and the completion of the PD150-ification of my engine bay, this arrived today from Korwerks. This will complete my all-red TDI badging too:

 

SilverGhost

Veteran Member
Joined
Mar 25, 2005
Location
Back in So Flo - St Lucie
TDI
'05 Golf - totaled :(, wife's '13 Beetle - buy back, TDIless
Don't they also make an air filter that has a big foam pad in front of it that's for snowy conditions?
Actually that is listed at dusty/sandy conditions filter. At least when I look it up in ETKA, that's what they call it.

Probably does work for snow better than bare air filter, though

Jason
 

SilverGhost

Veteran Member
Joined
Mar 25, 2005
Location
Back in So Flo - St Lucie
TDI
'05 Golf - totaled :(, wife's '13 Beetle - buy back, TDIless
Woke up 4 times last night from 3am-4am, thanks to my alarm going off. Around the 4am, I realized it was perhaps not someone trying to steal my catalytic converter nor an errant squirrel. I decided to stay up and Googled around a lot. After getting a rough idea of what was going on, and the alarm going off two or three more times, I finally had the bright idea to just disconnect the battery. No, my thinking at 4am wasn't the quickest, lol.

The behavior at first was that the car would fail to "beep" when all five doors were closed + locked. Sometimes, about 10 minutes later, I would hear the car "beep" on it's own. Then at some point, between 3-10 minutes later, the alarm would go off. On two occasions, I went around and manually locked each door. On one of these two occasions, I got an "all doors locked beep," and on one I didn't.

Other things to consider:
  • My rear passenger door does not lock or unlock reliably via remote control.
  • I replaced my original window switch with a Chinese-made OEM VW switch the other day.
My best guess right now is the rear passenger door lock module has been failing for a long time, and the window switch replacement either exacerbated it or is coincidental. At lunch today I'm going to go around and test to see if one door is in fact causing the issue.
The car does store the last 4 times an alarm was triggered, and what the source was. Someone with VCDS could read the MVB in CCM and tell which door or even loose radio contact set the alarm off

Jason
 
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