2012 Tiguan TDI 170 4-Motion

[nokivasara]

New to me Tiguan, it's a 170hp CR TDI, 6-speed manual and 4-motion, 160k km. Very nice interiour, previous owner was an older gentleman. It needs some work, brakes front and rear, drop links are noisy and someone has tried to replace the wing mirror indicator and managed to brake all the clips on the housing so it's all loose.
Some pictures from this morning:

 

[bobt2382]

Nice find!!

 

[nokivasara]

Thanks! I can really tell it's shorter than the Octavia it replaced, with much smaller boot. It also doesn't have a spare wheel, just a repair kit. Other than that it's very nice. 170hp vs 105 on the Skoda is pretty evident when driving too

 

[3L3M3NT]

The Tiguan looks great! You're making a lot of people in the states jealous with not only a TDI engine in a Tiguan, but a 4Motion TDI nonetheless.

Did you buy the Tiguan with those huge driving lights or install them after you picked it up? How much do they help light up the road at night?

 

[nokivasara]

The Tiguan looks great! You're making a lot of people in the states jealous with not only a TDI engine in a Tiguan, but a 4Motion TDI nonetheless.

Did you buy the Tiguan with those huge driving lights or install them after you picked it up? How much do they help light up the road at night?

And a 6 speed manual

Those driving lights are common around here, there's only a few hours of daylight during winter so many put aux lights on the front. Nowadays those big Bosch Big Knicks are often replaced by led bars or led spot lights, like I did on my Skoda.
I would say that the Big Knicks doubles the distance of the high beam, and spreads the light a bit to the sides of the road too. It's like night and day difference

 

[nokivasara]

First fill up netted 6,2l/100km or 38mpg (870km, 54l), pretty happy with that. I have fixed the side mirror cap, it had some broken tabs that I managed to repair.
Ordered rotors and pads F&R and front drop links. And a skid plate made of steel, a must have for me. No pics today.

 

[nokivasara]

So I finally had some time to spend in the garage, first pic shows some parts that I ordered, the skid plate being the top priority today. It came with a steel bar that attaches to some factory mounting points in the front corners of the car, it's mounted backwards in the picture, for shipment.
I didn't take a picture with just the bar installed.

Factory protection, the gearbox and oil sump is fully visible. I don't know why it doesn't have a full plastic belly pan like our Golf's have had.

Better:

It attaches to the bar in front with 3 M8 bolts, the rear to the subframe with 2 M8's and it also has the mounting points for the fender liner. I also replaced the drop links as can be seen in this picture:

I have found out that there were only 126 mk1 Tiguans sold with the 170hp TDI I have! At least with the 6M gearbox, maybe there are more with the DSG box. I had no idea, didn't think much about the power figures when looking for a replacement for the Octavia. But it's nice to have stumbled across such a rare beast!

Edit: the reason I only lifted the car to the lowest settings on the jack stands is that the floor jack has an oil leak and I don't have the right oil to fill it up at the moment, I do have the seals. It was a bit tight but with a little help from the stereo, today with a 90's soundtrack with Lagwagon (wind in my sail is a favourite!) it all went well

 

[nokivasara]

Picked up an old scooter, 50cc 4-stroke Baotian. First outing for my trailer since winter.

 

[nokivasara]

I noticed that I only had pics of it with the winter tyre setup, here's what I have for the summer season
Car looks very clean from a distance but has lots of small rust stains after the winter, don't know the english word for it but it's basically tiny bits of metal from studs/brakes etc stuck to the surface of the paint.

 

[HowrdJns899]

Amazing car! I like this so much! also i like white color very much!!

 

[nokivasara]

I made a prototype GPS-holder using the casing for my sun glasses and the ball from a vent mount for my phone
Stuck the gps mount into the card-slots above the head unit. I'm very happy with it, I can swivel the gps in all directions. I might trim the sides of the mount to get it closer to the dash at some point, I think it still needs some of the material on the sides for stability.

I can of course still attach the phone holder to the ball if I want to. There's no need for that though, since the HU has bluetooth.

 

[nokivasara]

Since I work in forestry and drive a lot on dirt/gravel roads I replaced the Continental SportContacts with something more suitable for my driving. I bought a set of Falken Wildpeak AT01's. There's not much to choose from for 17" wheels when looking for "off road" tyres.
The old tyres were 235/55R17, the Falken's 215/60R17, same diameter on both.

 

[nokivasara]

Haven't taken many pictures but here's two from my adventure today. We had a change in weather and went from -18C yesterday to +3C and rain today. That made the snow very slick and I managed to get stuck!
Had to shovel out the snow under the car and in front of the tyres to get out of there. A rare event
I plan to replace the old 80's style rallye lights with something else, maybe tomorrow if I don't have to buy any hardware.

 

[3L3M3NT]

I noticed that I only had pics of it with the winter tyre setup, here's what I have for the summer season
Car looks very clean from a distance but has lots of small rust stains after the winter, don't know the english word for it but it's basically tiny bits of metal from studs/brakes etc stuck to the surface of the paint.

In the US we call it rail dust and like you mentioned it's from brake dust and other tiny bits of metal that cars produce. The best way to remove the rail dust is with a clay bar. Like this----> https://www.thedrive.com/cleaning-detailing/35713/how-to-clay-bar-a-car

I made a prototype GPS-holder using the casing for my sun glasses and the ball from a vent mount for my phone
Stuck the gps mount into the card-slots above the head unit. I'm very happy with it, I can swivel the gps in all directions. I might trim the sides of the mount to get it closer to the dash at some point, I think it still needs some of the material on the sides for stability.

I can of course still attach the phone holder to the ball if I want to. There's no need for that though, since the HU has bluetooth.

Innovative mount for your phone and GPS!

Haven't taken many pictures but here's two from my adventure today. We had a change in weather and went from -18C yesterday to +3C and rain today. That made the snow very slick and I managed to get stuck!
Had to shovel out the snow under the car and in front of the tyres to get out of there. A rare event
I plan to replace the old 80's style rallye lights with something else, maybe tomorrow if I don't have to buy any hardware.

It can happen to the best of us. Looks like you ran out of ground clearance in the end and got yourself high centered.

At least you had the right tools to extricate your vehicle from where it got stuck, which is pretty rare nowadays that people are properly prepared for events like this in the winter.

Are you going to upgrade to a LED light bar?

 

[nokivasara]

In the US we call it rail dust and like you mentioned it's from brake dust and other tiny bits of metal that cars produce. The best way to remove the rail dust is with a clay bar. Like this----> https://www.thedrive.com/cleaning-detailing/35713/how-to-clay-bar-a-car



Innovative mount for your phone and GPS!



It can happen to the best of us. Looks like you ran out of ground clearance in the end and got yourself high centered.

At least you had the right tools to extricate your vehicle from where it got stuck, which is pretty rare nowadays that people are properly prepared for events like this in the winter.

Are you going to upgrade to a LED light bar?

I'll run it over with a clay bar in april or may when the roads are free of salt.

I'm very happy with the GPS mount, someone should copy it at start selling them

I ran out of ground clearance and talent at the same time, should have checked what type of snow it was before I drove in there.

Yes, my plan is to install 2 small (18cm or about 7") light bars inside the centre grille. I did that on our Golf. The grille is attached to the front bumper on the tiggy so I have to remove the bumper to see if it's doable. I have removed the rallye lights so I'm half way there right?
Plan B is to replace the h7 high beam bulb with a h7 LED, I've researched it and it seems like the latest generations of LED conversions have a focused beam.
The low beam will still be halogen, I don't want to risk blinding oncoming traffic.

 

[nokivasara]

Was closed to getting stuck today, these warm winters sure make it challenging to "read" if the snow is ok to drive through or not. Today I drove along my own tracks from last week, but the warm weather during the weekend and cold nights had frozen the tracks and everything around them was super soft snow. I´d expect that in april but seems like that can happen whenever during the winter nowadays.
I slid off the track and the car immediately steered toward the ditch. I decided to stop, bring out the shovel and make room for me to manouver the car back on to the old frozen tracks. It took a while and I decided to not continue forward so I reversed quite a ways before I was able to turn around and get out of there.
This tiggy is not a city slicker

 

[3L3M3NT]

I'll run it over with a clay bar in april or may when the roads are free of salt.

I'm very happy with the GPS mount, someone should copy it at start selling them

I ran out of ground clearance and talent at the same time, should have checked what type of snow it was before I drove in there.

Yes, my plan is to install 2 small (18cm or about 7") light bars inside the centre grille. I did that on our Golf. The grille is attached to the front bumper on the tiggy so I have to remove the bumper to see if it's doable. I have removed the rallye lights so I'm half way there right?
Plan B is to replace the h7 high beam bulb with a h7 LED, I've researched it and it seems like the latest generations of LED conversions have a focused beam.
The low beam will still be halogen, I don't want to risk blinding oncoming traffic.

That's probably a good idea to go over your Tiguan in the spring with a clay bar to remove all those stubborn contaminants.

Sounds like you have the next million dollar(Swedish Krona) idea with the GPS/Smartphone mount. If you have the resources you may want to explore what it would take to produce for the public.

Those light bars should really help brighten up the road in front of you when there's no one around you.
Otherwise the LED hi beam sounds like a good plan B and yeah, you definitely have to be careful that you're not blinding oncoming drivers by putting LED bulbs in a set of low beam headlights that aren't meant for LED bulbs.

Was closed to getting stuck today, these warm winters sure make it challenging to "read" if the snow is ok to drive through or not. Today I drove along my own tracks from last week, but the warm weather during the weekend and cold nights had frozen the tracks and everything around them was super soft snow. I´d expect that in april but seems like that can happen whenever during the winter nowadays.
I slid off the track and the car immediately steered toward the ditch. I decided to stop, bring out the shovel and make room for me to manouver the car back on to the old frozen tracks. It took a while and I decided to not continue forward so I reversed quite a ways before I was able to turn around and get out of there.
This tiggy is not a city slicker

Climate change is really messing with our winter weather for those of us that live in an area that used to get consistent winter weather with lots of snow and a more constant temperature.

We're dealing with the thaw and freeze that you guys have going on right now too, so I completely understand the conditions you're referring to and it's not fun to deal with. You probably made a good call on stopping once you started sliding towards the ditch and getting out to shovel a path back to the main set of tracks.

I found a solution for you, so you have plenty of flotation and don't have to worry about getting stuck.
https://mattracks.co/tracks/65/

 

[nokivasara]

Tracks would be nice in that type of snow, it's like driving in sugar

 

[nokivasara]

In the US we call it rail dust and like you mentioned it's from brake dust and other tiny bits of metal that cars produce. The best way to remove the rail dust is with a clay bar. Like this----> https://www.thedrive.com/cleaning-detailing/35713/how-to-clay-bar-a-car

I did a spring cleaning de luxe yesterday, bought a clay bar and that really was effective! Then I went over it with polish and wax, I don't think I've ever had a car this clean
I cleaned the door jams, engine bay and interiour aswell. Too bad it'll probably be dirty by the time I get home from work tomorrow

The picture does not do it justice.

 

[3L3M3NT]

I did a spring cleaning de luxe yesterday, bought a clay bar and that really was effective! Then I went over it with polish and wax, I don't think I've ever had a car this clean
I cleaned the door jams, engine bay and interiour aswell. Too bad it'll probably be dirty by the time I get home from work tomorrow

The picture does not do it justice.

Your Tiguan looks amazing! It's great to hear that clay barring the car made such a difference in how the Tiguan looks, even if it'll only last a little while.

It's probably something you should do once a year to keep the rail dust from building up too bad. It's amazing how much of a difference it makes before and after with the look and feel of the paint.

Keep it up.

 

[nokivasara]

My clutch pedal got sticky and didn't release all the way, had to lift it with my foot for the first gear changes of the day. It didn't creep forward with the clutch depressed and haven't used any brake fluid so I decided it was time to replace the master cylinder.
What an absolute PITA, has to be one of the worst jobs I've ever done and I've been working on cars since mid 90's. The master cylinder is in a very tight spot between the brake booster and main wire harness, but the orientation of the plug for the clutch switch was just stupid. It's an electrical connector, why not just turn it 90 degrees so it faces forward along the master cylinder. No let's angle it toward the wire harness and leave no space at all for access to it. Fought that plug for a good couple of hours before I just broke the old master cylinder so I could undo the connector later.
I did get the pedal and master cylinder out but ran out of time so I'll have to continue tomorrow.

 

[nokivasara]

Here's the electrical connector, you can only see the wires. Not a lot of room in there! Not impressed with the design.

 

[3L3M3NT]

It definitely seems like they don't think of maintenance when they design a vehicle.
Or they make it so you have to take your vehicle into the dealership because you need some special tool to complete the job and the tool is half cost of the repair job.

It's great to see that you got it back together in the end.

 

[nokivasara]

I put my old rallye light mounting plate to use as a template to figure out where I wanted my led lights inside the grille. It's just 2mm thick plate so it'll probably vibrate some, my plan is to make the real installation with flat bar or angle iron that bolts to the steel beam behind the bumper.
These little led bars are really good, they have a focused beam and really adds length to the high beams.
Here's a short video with one of these

 

[nokivasara]

Did a 1250km trip upnorth and used about 76 l of diesel. Not bad at all for a 4wd SUV (-ich).
Back home I replaced the timing belt and wp, it's pretty amazing how good condition the old belt, rollers and tensioner were in after 10 years and 191k km. WP had been weeping a bit for a while.