Jetta mods for free or cheap
 

two things to start with:

a) i live in an apartment building and don't have a garage to work in. the apt management also isn't too keen on car repairs being performed in the parking lot.

2) i'm of the school of thought that buying new stuff is the least eco-friendly thing that a person can do.

which is why iv'e been areo-modding my jetta III with tape and garbage! two years ago i decided that the front "brake vent" openings were just for looks, so they got the tape treatment. i decided to go with clear packaging tape, less noticeable than grey duct tape. a little while after that (and some time spent poking around ecomodder.com) i decided that function superseded form, and at this time i didn't really care what the car looked like anymore, so on went the tape for an upper grille block. the grille block added about 20 miles to the first tank with it installed.

the clear packaging tape is only a little noticeable at most angles:

http://ecomodder.com/forum/member-vw...aging-tape.jpg

with a little more ecomodder education, i realized what a huge cavern i had between the fuel tank and the rear bumper cover. after some pondering over what to cover it with, i found a colorplast election sign laying in the street. yes, i know that stealing election signs from peoples' yard can get you in a lot of trouble, but this was litter in the street (blocking the bike lane!) and covered with staples, meaning it had been stapled to the wooden streetlight post that was nearby, which i'm pretty sure is against city ordinance. with some minor cutting to fit around the wheel well, it was taped in place using black duct tape. that was last fall, and i really didn't think the tape would stay adhesive through the temperature changes and snow of the winter, but miraculously i only had to replace a couple of strips that were hanging off this spring. i'm not sure of the overall effect on FE, since winter driving is death on FE.


the "parachute:"
http://ecomodder.com/forum/member-vw...ear-bumper.jpg

the rear bellypan:
http://ecomodder.com/forum/member-vw...gn-i-found.jpg

So what the impact of theese mods on your FE?

...and a few days ago i was inspired by Sayyad's thread:

http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...mods-4869.html

i can only wish that i had had the foresight to look for a tdi when i was jetta shopping, but mine's the same body, and it sounds like i have his same mindset of not being hung up on what our paint job looks like. again opting for the (slightly) less noticeable clear packaging tape, TheJetta now has wheel skirts. this weekend i'm driving to duluth, about 300 miles round trip, and i'd really like to see 40mpg. my record so far is just under 37mpg from fargo to the twin cities, about 250 miles one way. that was before any modding.

TheJetta is one year too old ('95) to use a scangauge II in order to do any effective ABA testing. like i said, the grille block added about 20 miles to the first tank after it was installed. the rear bellypan was installed late in the fallwhen the air was getting cold (and therefore more dense), so my FE was already dropping by that time of year. the wheelskirts i just installed a few hours ago and haven't driven anywhere yet. i'll try to remember to post my highway FE after this weekend's trip.

holy $%#@! i was shooting for 40 mpg with the tape mods for my trip last weekend, but i wasn't expecting ~47 (hwy)! i say approximately because, as stated, TheJetta is too old for an OBD II port, so this is going off of the fuel gauge/trip odometer. but still, the trip one way only took a quarter tank (14.5 gal/4 = 3.625 gal), when it used to take closer to half.

i also recently had the mixed blessing of my e-brake becoming disconnected, since pulling the handle turns off the daytime running lights, lightening the load from the alternator. killing the dtls, along with a tailwind for the trip didn't hurt.

tape grille block/wheel skirts
+ partial bellypan
+ no DTLs
+ staying at the speed limit
= 46.9 mpg out of a gasoline engine.

Jetta Aero Mods with Coroplast and Duct Tape
 

Hello, as a fairly new member of Ecomodder, I have been looking for a more economical car, and found a 98 Jetta 2.0 a couple weeks ago. While crawling around under the car inspecting it, replacing brakes, doing alignment etc., I saw there were no belly pans, though there were mounting points for them. So, I guess now that the recent election is over I'll be looking for election signs to make into belly pans! My first tank of gas produced 25.597 mpg, so it will be fun seeing how mpg's improve with various repairs and modifications. Midway through tank #1, I replaced most of the vacuum lines, as I knew there were some leaks there since the transmission was having shifting issues(full trans service coming soon), and sure enough, big improvement in driveability right away, and trans working better but not perfect.

I will be doing a better writeup soon, perhaps more like a blog, tracking my "new" old car "restoration" project. Should be fun!I look forward to seeing mpg improvements with best bang for the buck!:D

Bump to see if the thread starter has collected any more data.