Hi All!
Recently got back into the diesel car game and been starting to rely on the info here quite a bit. I've been on a fair number of different forums but this one takes the award for best info and technical help of any I've ever seen.
As a teenager I inherited a 1980 diesel Rabbit (were they called TDI back then?). It ran great right up to the day that the electrical faults got even worse than the rust and it was finally retired. Then about a year ago I bought a 2002 Jetta 2.0 which was great right up to point that the deer jumped out from behind the hedgerow and wrote it off for me.
Now I've got the car that I wanted in the first place - 2001 Jetta TDI with 157K. It also ran great for a few weeks but things have been coming up one after the other since. Some minor and some not so minor.
First it had the typical things like a broken glove box and console catch. That was obvioius when I bought it and not serious. Busted belly pan wasn't so obvious and on the list of things that should get fixed sooner than later.
Then the drivers window clips broke just as the weather started to get good and cool. After looking at the info here on what kind of job it was I took it to Tunedub and got it fixed ($250). At about the same time I put on the winter tires to find that one has a bulge and so I need to buy at least a pair of new ones.
Now the dreaded limp-mode is haunting me but I have tracked the trouble down to the VNT actuator and am waiting for one in the mail. Not sure how tricky the adjustment is or if I'm going to need to invest in a VCDS or not. Probably just a matter of time before I'll have to anyway.
Also ordered up a timing belt set because I have no indication of if or when it was last done and that will probably set me back another $500 to get done as I just don't have the time or tools to take that one at the moment.
All that aside I still love the car and hope that I can get 500K or better out of it in the long term. All wildlife willing of course!
Look forward to chatting with you all!
