Quote:
Originally Posted by dieselbeetle
I bought my beetle used a couple of years ago. to my surprise, the car doesn't have an "engine guard" aka undertray. I guess some bonehead left it off.
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That should read, some bonehead TORE it off. I lost mine, on my maiden drive home from the stealership (bought mine 2nd hand though), coming up over the crest of a highway and into/onto/overtop an antelope carcass.
If you look at other Beetles, Golfs, or Jettas of that generation on the highways and freeways, you'll see the plastic "noise supresssion panel" bowing down, even flapping in the wind. They're not very sturdy, nor do they take much abuse until they come off.
Mine was dragging a day after that, and I had to remove mine... so I've had no plastic pan nor side skirts for most of the time, unfortunately. It makes for a louder car, and will curb aerodynamics a bit. But, as COcyclist stated, it's the steel VW pan or the aftermarket aluminium pans you WILL want to replace yours with.
I just lost my oilpan, and 4 of 4.5L of oil on a submerged sewer grate in April. The oilpan on a diesel motor in our cars sits about an inch lower than the gas models do, so don't bother with fixing a minor bit of aero gains with a less expensive used/new plastic pan.
Save your pennies, go sell scrap steel to the salvage yards, collect cans, forego a few months of CATV, whatever it takes.
Quote:
Originally Posted by dieselbeetle
do you know if the golf model is the same as the beetle? theoretically, it should be, right?
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Yes, yours is the same as the MkIV Golf/Jetta platform, as far as I know.
Evo Imports, the Canadian company that sells the equivalent skid plate says their plate fits the Beetle, and pretty much every variant of the Golf/Jetta/Beetle of the MkIV generation.
Evolution Atlas Skid Plate With Oil Drain Hole For New Beetle, Golf & Jetta IV
Ask dieselgeek if theirs fits the Beetle, just to be sure.
Worse comes to worst, I can dig up measurements on the hard points on my Jetta, with pictures, and you can compare measurments, to confirm.