Hello,
This is my introduction. After a couple years of driving the slowest vehicle ever made (a stock 82 diesel vanagon on 100% biodiesel year round) and the addition of a baby I broke down and bought a TDI family wagon. I have driven, abused, and worked on air-cooled vdubs and vanagon's my whole life but love the simplicity and durability of the vw diesels. In this part of the country TDI's go for at least 30% more than the rest of the country because of the bio-craze. Long story short, I found a jetta tdi wagon for about 4 times less than comparable tdi's I had looked at. The catch: it was a former pharmaceutical delivery vehicle and has 503,000 miles, yes five-hundred thousand miles on it. I bought from a sort of sketchy dude with basically no paperwork but the car was in such good shape I couldn't say no. I compression tested it and all cylinders are around 500 psi and doesn't noticeably burn or leak oil. It currently runs and drives great. It starts when it is 30 degrees out even though I haven't got the glow plugs to work yet. I put new glow plugs in (3 of the 4 were burned out) and have a load of parts in the mail and just got my Bentley today.
My short list of things to fix before I hand it over to the wife to drive ( I ride my bike to work):
-Heavy smoke on cold startup (glow plug light doesn't come on) no power at glow plugs. No visible smoke once it warms up. I bought a $7 coolant temp sensor was gonna switch it out.
-goes into limp mode accelerating hard uphill. ( i assume I should clean my intake before going on a wild goose chase replacing sensors, MAF's etc)
-speedometer needle light doesn't work
-climate control light is burned out
-inside door handle is broken.
-I only have one key and am somewhat baffled at the exorbitant cost/difficulty of a replacement. Would greatly appreciate advice on how to get this done without maxing out the credit card.
- I need to install a skid plate and/or steel oil pan (terrible design in my opinion)
- got relay 109 on the way
My super sweet harbor freight code reader just broke when I was trying to pull the codes so I was debating about downloading the free or lite version of the VCDS and hooking up the cord to the laptop. I'm new to these fancy computer controlled cars so I have learning curve on all this sensor computer stuff. This is a great forum and have found the info on here to be immensely helpful so far.
Any opinions, advice, or threats are welcome.
This is my introduction. After a couple years of driving the slowest vehicle ever made (a stock 82 diesel vanagon on 100% biodiesel year round) and the addition of a baby I broke down and bought a TDI family wagon. I have driven, abused, and worked on air-cooled vdubs and vanagon's my whole life but love the simplicity and durability of the vw diesels. In this part of the country TDI's go for at least 30% more than the rest of the country because of the bio-craze. Long story short, I found a jetta tdi wagon for about 4 times less than comparable tdi's I had looked at. The catch: it was a former pharmaceutical delivery vehicle and has 503,000 miles, yes five-hundred thousand miles on it. I bought from a sort of sketchy dude with basically no paperwork but the car was in such good shape I couldn't say no. I compression tested it and all cylinders are around 500 psi and doesn't noticeably burn or leak oil. It currently runs and drives great. It starts when it is 30 degrees out even though I haven't got the glow plugs to work yet. I put new glow plugs in (3 of the 4 were burned out) and have a load of parts in the mail and just got my Bentley today.
My short list of things to fix before I hand it over to the wife to drive ( I ride my bike to work):
-Heavy smoke on cold startup (glow plug light doesn't come on) no power at glow plugs. No visible smoke once it warms up. I bought a $7 coolant temp sensor was gonna switch it out.
-goes into limp mode accelerating hard uphill. ( i assume I should clean my intake before going on a wild goose chase replacing sensors, MAF's etc)
-speedometer needle light doesn't work
-climate control light is burned out
-inside door handle is broken.
-I only have one key and am somewhat baffled at the exorbitant cost/difficulty of a replacement. Would greatly appreciate advice on how to get this done without maxing out the credit card.
- I need to install a skid plate and/or steel oil pan (terrible design in my opinion)
- got relay 109 on the way
My super sweet harbor freight code reader just broke when I was trying to pull the codes so I was debating about downloading the free or lite version of the VCDS and hooking up the cord to the laptop. I'm new to these fancy computer controlled cars so I have learning curve on all this sensor computer stuff. This is a great forum and have found the info on here to be immensely helpful so far.
Any opinions, advice, or threats are welcome.