unjester
Veteran Member
Hi all,
Just wanted to give thanks to everyone who has helped me here online and offline for the last nine years. I came to TDIclub never having touched a thing on a car before. I bought some wrenches... I had never wrenched on anything - I had to learn what metric sockets were and deep sockets and star wrenches and all that. I read a lot of threads. I modded and fixed my car from 70-something-thousand miles to 185k miles now. I converted to B100 on day 1 and ran successfully the whole time. I own lots of tools and spare parts now.
I know how all kinds of random things in the TDI work. The learning has been so fun, the empowerment of knowing I can fix things on the vehicle, the problem solving, the camaraderie, the community. All the get togethers, from changing injectors and being the last one out of the GTG because my car wouldn't start, to the GTG when my suspension was completely in pieces as the sun went down and I ended up driving home late that night.
The pinnacle was the day I was in Russ' driveway, drilling a hole into a brand-new never-been-installed VNT17 (for an EGT) with 4 people all standing around looking really nervous and giving contradicting advice. Each quoting a different thread off TDIClub, none having done this same maneuver themselves before. The advantage of not having done any of this before is that I didn't know it was hard or how you could mess it up. I've never drilled before, I've never tapped a hole, I've got shavings in my turbo, I don't even know if this $1200 piece of gear works before I started modifying it, and somebody asks, "have you done this before?" It was the greatest moment.. I thought, not only have I never done this particular hole drilling before, I have never done ANY OF THIS before, I'm just following directions I read on the internet, with parts I got on the internet, and tools that were recommended on the internet, working on a car I bought on the internet without ever having seen or driven one like it.
Eight years of that worked out just fine. The TDI is terrific, I love driving it, everybody who drives it loves driving it, it is smooth and wonderful as a DD, it gets 38-48MPG depending on how I drive, it beats all manner of sports cars at stoplights and on winding roads, and it smells like french fries if you're behind me when I'm dumping recycled oil on your windshield before my boost builds up sufficiently to burn it all. (And yes the turbo installed and worked just fine and has ever since.)
All of this does take time, and with a new job I have zero time anymore. The pace of learning has also slowed in the last couple years as the car has been problem-free and I don't want to mod anymore because I really like the way it drives and so does everybody else who drives it. So I'm selling my car, moving on to something boring that somebody else will fix when it breaks, and ending a chapter of life with TDI and TDIClub.
Thank you!!
Just wanted to give thanks to everyone who has helped me here online and offline for the last nine years. I came to TDIclub never having touched a thing on a car before. I bought some wrenches... I had never wrenched on anything - I had to learn what metric sockets were and deep sockets and star wrenches and all that. I read a lot of threads. I modded and fixed my car from 70-something-thousand miles to 185k miles now. I converted to B100 on day 1 and ran successfully the whole time. I own lots of tools and spare parts now.
I know how all kinds of random things in the TDI work. The learning has been so fun, the empowerment of knowing I can fix things on the vehicle, the problem solving, the camaraderie, the community. All the get togethers, from changing injectors and being the last one out of the GTG because my car wouldn't start, to the GTG when my suspension was completely in pieces as the sun went down and I ended up driving home late that night.
The pinnacle was the day I was in Russ' driveway, drilling a hole into a brand-new never-been-installed VNT17 (for an EGT) with 4 people all standing around looking really nervous and giving contradicting advice. Each quoting a different thread off TDIClub, none having done this same maneuver themselves before. The advantage of not having done any of this before is that I didn't know it was hard or how you could mess it up. I've never drilled before, I've never tapped a hole, I've got shavings in my turbo, I don't even know if this $1200 piece of gear works before I started modifying it, and somebody asks, "have you done this before?" It was the greatest moment.. I thought, not only have I never done this particular hole drilling before, I have never done ANY OF THIS before, I'm just following directions I read on the internet, with parts I got on the internet, and tools that were recommended on the internet, working on a car I bought on the internet without ever having seen or driven one like it.
Eight years of that worked out just fine. The TDI is terrific, I love driving it, everybody who drives it loves driving it, it is smooth and wonderful as a DD, it gets 38-48MPG depending on how I drive, it beats all manner of sports cars at stoplights and on winding roads, and it smells like french fries if you're behind me when I'm dumping recycled oil on your windshield before my boost builds up sufficiently to burn it all. (And yes the turbo installed and worked just fine and has ever since.)
All of this does take time, and with a new job I have zero time anymore. The pace of learning has also slowed in the last couple years as the car has been problem-free and I don't want to mod anymore because I really like the way it drives and so does everybody else who drives it. So I'm selling my car, moving on to something boring that somebody else will fix when it breaks, and ending a chapter of life with TDI and TDIClub.
Thank you!!