Quote:
Originally Posted by Mifunego
Ooh, tell me more. I'm easily enticed into dark sides.  We're actually looking at the new TDI Jetta Sportwagon as a possible replacement for the current Jetta turbo sedan. It's currently out of warranty and I'm assuming, based on my previous experience with working on German cars, not cheap to fix and mod. Of course, I doubt that is the dark side you are talking about. What little oil-burner monsters are you talking about?
Yeah, I too know the financially irresponsible, yet addictive habit of auto mods. I would guess that, pre-kids, that was my most substantial income drain. At my old house, I actually carpeted the garage, since I spent so much time on the floor wrenching. Boy I miss that garage! |
Welcome.
TDISport - Car club for the diesel car enthusiast. For TDI, HDI, TDCi, JTD, SEAT, Skoda, Audi, VW, VAG, Ford, Citroen, Renault, Peugeot and all other diesel engined variety of cars! is a good place to start with knowledge. Do you know the type of engine in the Jetta ? I suspect it will be the older 1.9 rather than the newer 1.9/2.0 if its old enough to be out of warranty ?
Mine is the 1.9 PD engine (130hp as standard). A friend (cackle in the distance) pursuaded me into this by modding his VRS first. He went for a remap of the ECU which pushed power from 130 to nearer 170, 303 lb/ft. But then his clutch started to slip in the higher gears because of the torque so he swapped it for an uprated one with a single mass flywheel. Then he went onto suspension and brakes.
IMHO that was the wrong way round so I went for the clutch first (it was going anyway) and was about to go suspension and brakes next BEFORE the power hike. But then I started getting competitive with MPG and haven't mapped it yet. And maybe I won't unless I get an economy oriented one.
On my friend's furby (Fabia) his standing start times are much better than mine but the real treat is in gear pulling power. The ability to scare BMW 330s in a cheap hatchback is just too much fun, and overtaking is just effortless. He suggests that MPG is slightly down (about 5%) but I suspect that is partly down to the fact he drives much harder than before.
You may find if yours is an auto then you casn safely go for higher torque without much worry. The manual / dual mass flywheel combination seems especially weak. My local expert says they can fail between 10 and 100K miles randomly and local taxis using VWs tend to have the DMF replaced with an SMF from new - and they seem to go to the moon and back every year.
As for costs, I find parts not too expensive but spannering modern cars (especially my everyday one!) is not for me - I stick with my old MGB which is probably why it doesn't work at the moment
As a result though I end up paying garage labour rates but moving to a local specialist has cut the costs and improved the service levels 100%. This may change in the future but I don't have a decent garage at the moment and the one I do have is full of dead MGB.
Going by Mrs A's Octavia 2.0 TDI (basically a VW Jetta TDI 140hp with the badge changed to a Skoda one) maintenance is about 1k GBP a year but she does 30K miles in that time. Neither car is covered by any warranty so we pay for anything ourselves. Mrs A's is on 60K now and still does >55 MPG even though she uses the right pedal like a switch - full on or full off, mostly on.
Some RR graphs from some TDIs here :
Awesome - Performance Car Parts
Enjoy.