I helped my housemates replace the radiator in their soon to be driving son's car to be (a 2000 Jetta 2.0L) since it sprung a steam leak as soon as they got it home from buying it from a private seller.
Poking about turned up a cracked upper radiator hose fitting, which wobbled alarmingly and then broke off as we were trying to see where the moisture was coming from.
The radiator from my TDI parts car dropped right in, other than having to swap the coolant temp sender, so a few hours of wrenching, (including getting the almost-driver to do a good bit, in the name of learning about car maintenance!) and the "new" radiator was in place.
I have to say, it could have been worse, but what a pain to replace a radiator in a MK4 car!
Beyond that, and on my car, I just replaced the battery this evening. With the temperatures only down around 18*F yesterday it was a bit alarming with slow cranking, and this morning, it barely managed to crank up, giving an ominous slow turn over, then a couple slightly faster, before finally catching. Since I hadn't done anything with it in the couple of years that I've owned the car, I figured that it is maintenance that just has to be done.
We'll have to see how it goes tomorrow morning, but so far the new Diehard Gold AGM seems to be serving well.
Follow up report: the battery did fix the cold weather starting issues, and it cranked up with good speed and no stuttering.
