Recent content by charleshickman

Trip from Huntsville, AL to Wash DC I was in Washington DC last week for a conference. I wanted to check out my '15 Passat as a highway vehicle and so I drove. It was 700 miles or so to DC and about 1600 total for the trip. The display mileage up there was over 55 and the display showed...

Extractor I have used a Mityvac with my 2015 Passat and my 2011 Golf. I did have an issue once with a loose connection in the vacuum hose. Most recently I cleaned all the connections with a clean rag. You said you put in hose approximately the length of the dipstick. I put too much in one...

DEF Consumption I bought my '15 Passat TDI SE in August 2015. 6,200 miles. I topped off the DEF tank today. It took about 1.7 gallons.

I used $50 of my VW Dealer Debit card to buy a set of wiper blades, a liter of Castrol 507 and one of the half gallon Kruese bottles of DEF. My Passat has 5,500 miles on it and I added a full gallon of DEF. I refilled the VW bottle for the second half gallon. Based on the comments in this...

One thing I like in a car is being able to see out. I drove one of my brother's cars through a steady rain from DC to St. Louis years ago. He thinks oil changes (and wipers) are for sissies. I bought a set on the road and was amazed at how much of a difference they made. Consumer Reports...

Regen and turbo lag My guess is that the low fuel economy had to do with an active regeneration of the diesel particulate filter. The current generation VW TDIs have a ceramic filter that actually filters out the soot from the exhaust. Periodically that has to be burned off to avoid clogging...

As I have it figured, possibly motivated by self interest, she was turning as she pulled from the traffic lane into the parking place. She came from behind my car, so her car was traveling forward and the front of her car was moving to the right, right towards my door. I had the door open and...

Thanks for the explanation. The advice on the insurance hotline seems counterintuitive. If I'm opening my door to get out, the driver pulling in would have less opportunity to avoid the accident. The door would sort of appear without warning. If they pull in with me standing there opening the...

I was thinking. If it was a baby carriage instead of my door, am I guilty of child endangerment when she runs into it?

I was at the local Office Depot this afternoon. As I opened my door to get in, it felt like I hit the car in the next parking place. I'm going what the heck, there was no car there. What had actually happened was the car pulled in as I was opening the door and caught my door against her...

I found a price for the dpf on a 2011 golf tdi, on www.vwpartsdepartment.com. It was $1,000 with a $200 core charge for a final price of $800. I assume this means someone wants the old dpfs to clean or rebuild. Or am I missing something?

57 next week I'll be 57 next week. Red 2dr 6 sp MT. I am liking it as much as my BMW 325 so far.