So I drop by after work to pick up the ol’ GTI expecting to pay at least an hour of labor for their time. Nope. Nada. Zip. Free. Mike and Chad stand by their work. This is great because my wife and I can’t necessarily afford another small bill at the moment, what with the economy and all.

So thanks again guys! Keep up the great work. Oh yeah, while driving home I didn’t really notice the sound anymore, so they may have caught the problem while doing the tests and rebalancing. Or maybe I was just crazier than usual when I heard the sound. Anywho, w00t!

Just as the testimonials listed on their site say, they’re a great group of friendly, honest guys who did an excellent job on the service. I highly recommend them if you live in the Cincinnati tri-state area. Check their website out or give them a call at 513-731-8989!

Anywho, I dropped off my GTI this morning at their shop to have the 80k service done, which is yet another one of those massive service intervals that cost a boatload of money but consists of mostly checks and top-offs. Regardless, there are a couple items on the list I’d rather not tackle myself like checking the timing chain and belts, etc. etc.

As I stepped through the entrance, both Mike and Chad were at the service counter. And as the reviews said, they were friendly and made sure I knew what they were going to look over and repair. They also would be sure to give the GTI a good once-over, since this is the first time they’ve seen the car, and note any other items that need to be taken care of in the future.

So, fingers crossed. Oh, pricing. I was quoted $432.50, which is just about inline with the dealer’s quote. But if AUTO4N provides superior service, I’ll be sticking with them. I have strong confidence in them based on their reviews as well as my own bit o’ experience so far. I’ll follow up with another post on the results later on!

For reference, here’s the 80k service for a 2003 VW GTI VR6 24v:

• Engine Oil – change
• Engine Filter – change
• V Belt/Ribbed Belt – check tension/condition
• Spark Plugs – replace
• Air Cleaner – replace filter
• Windshield Washer Fluid – check level
• Automatic Shift Lock – check operation
• Brake System – check damage/leaks, pad thickness, fluid level
• Wheels – rotate from front to rear
• Air Bag System – check function/damage
• Battery – check electrolyte level
• Engine – check for leaks
• Pollen Filter – replace
• Cooling System – check level
• Transmission – check for leaks
• Manual Transmission – check for leaks, Check Oil Level
• Tires/Spare – check condition
• Driveshaft – check boots
• On Board Diagnostics – check Diagnostic Trouble Code memory
• Door Hinge – lube
• Headlights – check and adjust if necessary
• Exhaust System – check for damage and leaks
• Sunroof Frame – clean and lubricate
• Road Test – check system functions during and after
• Power Steering – check fluid level
• Automatic Trans. Fluid and Differential – Check for leaks / level. Add if necessary
• Front Axle – check dust seals, ball joints, tie rods
• Air Bag System, Visual check every 12 months regardless of mileage
• Brake Fluid, Change every 2 years regardless of mileage

But then again, occasionally you’re unlucky enough (like me) to glance up and notice that you’ve got a nice, big shiny crack in the middle of your windshield. Perfect. So what do you do now?

First and foremost, you should call your insurance company as soon as possible. Many insurance companies cover 100% of the windshield repair or replacement. You may be stuck going to their recommended shop, but who cares if they cover it, right?

In the event that your insurance company doesn’t cover the crack (like me), you’re stuck paying for it out of pocket. While it’s a bummer, don’t panic quite yet. Assess the damage to the windshield. If you have chip(s) that are the size of a dime or smaller (some glass dealers may vary on size though), there’s a chance you can get the windshield repaired for a fraction of the cost of a brand new one…maybe even as little as 50-70 bucks. If it’s borderline, get it to a glass dealer as soon as possible – the chip / crack will probably spread further pretty quickly.

However if it’s a full blown crack you’re gonna need to shell out the cash for a brand new windshield. In this case make sure you shop around. There seems to be a little bit of play in the glass industry, as there was a $100 difference in the quotes I got. Getting a quote should take 5 minutes or less, so don’t hesitate to call as many places as you can. Also make sure that any prices they give you are after installation and tax…they should be able to tell you right away. Installation for a new windshield can take 1 – 1 ½ hours, but some shops will actually come to you. Be sure to ask when you get your quote.

Finally, make sure that you don’t run through a car wash or slam your doors too hard for 24 hours – the adhesive is still setting for the first day.

While it does suck to have a cracked windshield, getting it repaired or replaced can be a relatively painless process, and could be a bit less expensive than you might expect. I got the windshield replaced on my wife’s Jetta for less than $250 (that’s in the greater Cincinnati area – your quotes may vary greatly) in an hour on a Saturday afternoon.

Hopefully this helps anyone out there who’s been looking around a crack in the windshield while driving for the fear of getting it replaced. Make some calls, get it taken care of. Be safe out there folks!

We were quoted $447.26 for the 40k service, which most of you know is one of the largest service intervals in the Volkswagen maintenance schedule, usually dreaded for its high cost.

And, as if arriving right on queue, we received a 15% off coupon in the mail just yesterday, so that’s gonna make our 40k cost around $380. w00t I can live with that. :D

But usually the offers look and sound extremely shady. The most recent one was a shoddy print out on blue paper, where I couldn’t easily find a company name or price and the offer was only good for 72 hours within receipt of the notice. Naturally my red flag goes up any time I see one of these, but I always wonder – is there a company out there offering extended warranties that is reasonable and trustworthy?

What do you think, VB faithful? Has anyone had great luck or been taken to the cleaners by this? Let us know in the comments below.

Am I the only one who is appalled by this? Not only does this undermine my perception of overall quality of the product, but it comes across as a blatant attempt to funnel more cash into carmakers. “Hey, we only have to worry about our cars making it 3 years instead of 4 now – ching!”

The fact that carmakers are now refusing to stand by their product is absurd and disturbing. If anything, warranties should be getting longer (tip of the cap to Hyundai). This will only go to further dilute the quality of cars as a whole.

The thing that really sucks? It’ll work out big time for business. The fact that most people can’t afford to pay cars off within three years will only lead to more leases and further dependence upon carmaker. Despite our best efforts we’ll be locked into a chain of 3 year leases that will keep us broke.

Hey VW, do you really want to impress me as a customer? Trash your crappy “Carefree Maintenance Program” and keep your four year warranty. Stand by your product and make me feel better about buying it.

UPDATE: VW has officially announced the Carefree Maintenance Program on their media site. The tagline is the best: “Program designed to improve owner loyalty and brand distinction”. Translation: “Everyone else is cutting corners so we will too. But we’re gonna throw in maintenance that costs us next to nothing to try to make you feel better about it.”

This combined with the thousands of dollars I’ve spent in the last few months to keep my 2004’s running has almost been enough to push me away from the brand completely – despite the lame use of David Hasselhoff in their commercials.

Saturday AM, I went back to Bob Sumerel to drop off the car and have them swap the spare back out with the original newly-fixed tire. I get a call saying they can’t find the safety lug nut “key” required to unscrew one of the five lugs. Somehow between Thursday and Saturday, I seem to have lost it. They spent this AM tearing through my trunk to find it. They then called me and I went back up and tore apart the rest of my car in an attempt to find it. No luck.

So I go back to the source: I return to my office parking lot where the flat was replaced. My colleagues and I got the tire off and had the key at that point. Maybe I dropped it in the lot? Maybe we forgot to take it off and I drove away with it on, then it fell off at some point? Regardless, not in the parking lot.

So I call a friend who drives a 2003 GTI, assuming that the lug key was the same for all Dubs. Ha! Of course not – that would be too easy. Her lug key was too big for my tires. Of course the VW dealer service shop isn’t open on weekends, so here I am, stuck with the ghetto black spare on my rear left until I can get a replacement key from the Dub dealer on Monday (if they even have it in house for me to purchase!).

Now, it’s my fault I lost the key. But what was supposed to be a safety feature just became a huge inconvenience. What really grinds my gears about the situation is that they have a different lug key for each model and year of the car. If someone really is in awe of my New Beetle’s tires to jack it up and get it off, then fine. Do it. There are plenty of car makes out there that don’t provide this “safety feature” on their tires that still manage to keep all four tires on, day in and day out. I am definitely more peeved that I can’t get my tire replaced in a 24 hr period than I am relieved that Joe Schmo can’t just come up and steal my tires due to this “innovative safety feature.” Grumble.

[PS - my personal kudos to the service gents at Bob Sumerel for being very patient and accommodating during this fantastic inconvenience. The friend who replaced my tire referred me to their Hyde Park location and they have been a delight.]

We had both cars serviced at the dealership. First came the Golf (Thursday), then came the Jetta (Tuesday). As I spoke to the service manger about the Golf on Thursday, he told me that normally a new battery for my Golf would run $194, but today they could do it for $154. I told him no, that I was going to wait on it. Then when we had the Jetta in on Tuesday he told me that a new battery would normally run $194, but they could do it today for $174. Wait a sec. Did I miss something? Did the market price of batteries jump $20 in the last 5 days? I (of course) told them to hold off, and that we’d take care of it later. I wasn’t about to drop over $300 in car batteries.

But then the clouds cleared. At the recommendation of Tekmassa, I took the cars to Walmart where a new battery cost $62 after tax – and they install it for free. I was really impressed by the facilities and staff, and they had the battery installed in 20 minutes. The battery has a warranty of full replacement for 3 years, with pro-rated replacement up to 6. The only catch is that I have to have my receipt in hand for any service, but I keep decent records so it’s not a big deal.

So let’s do the math…
Dealership: $174 + $154 = $328
Walmart: $62 * 2 = $124
Total Savings: $204

So is it worth it to pay a premium for a battery at the dealership? I’d have to say the answer is an emphatic no.

• Spend $75.00+ get FREE shipping CODE: SHIPFREE
• Spend $150.00+ get 15% off entire order CODE: C15150
• Spend $300.00+ get 20% entire order CODE: C20300

Check it out at: http://www.autopia-carcare.com

What’s Great
Overall the site is easy on the eyes, as it has a very nice professional feel. Everything is easy to find and is organized extremely well. The fit and finish just screams automotive, and is extremely welcoming to car buffs(the beautiful car imagery doesn’t hurt either).

The site is easy to use as well. They have a great color picker just underneath the top navigation that helps you find the right paint color for your car, right down to the year. Just choose the manufacturer, year and model and you’ll get nicely formed color results that match up to their available products. All prices are in Canadian dollars, so I’m assuming a there’s a conversion to U.S. dollars at checkout.

They also have a great section with how-to videos that take you step by step on how to fix things like chipped paint, cracks and even large dents. Each of the videos has an itemized list of materials used, all available for purchase from the site (of course). The videos are complemented by a fairly nice FAQ section as well, which offers the novice (like me) answers to typical questions like “Why sand?” and “What causes the paint to chip?”.

What Needs Some Work
There are very few areas that could use some improvement, but I have to jump on my web development soapbox for a second. Being a web designer by trade, I was a bit dismayed to peak under the hood and see a completely table based layout. I’d prefer to see the site created with clean (X)HTML & CSS, as well as tweaks made to make the site more accessible to disabled users. The site doesn’t print too well either (I know it’s picky, but some folks get really angry when a site doesn’t print well). I’d also link the logo to the homepage – lots of users (myself included) get in the habit of clicking the logo to get home as opposed to a home button.

U.S. users have to keep in mind that this is a Canadian site, and you’ll have to work around a couple of small barriers. As I mentioned before, all prices are listed in Canadian dollars, and it appears that you have to wait for the conversion at checkout. This is the nature of the beast of course (not their fault), but if they want to draw significant business from America, it might be in their best interest to have the price conversions more readily available.

Also, being a VW owning U.S. user, you might have a little difficulty finding your specific model for a specific year. Try finding a 2004 GTI for example. Again, this isn’t Roberts’ fault – just something to be aware of when using the site.

Check ‘em Out
All in all, aside from some minor development issues, Poberts Paint Care has a fantastic site. I’d highly recommend checking out if you need any refinishing supplies or just want to peruse some of the great resources. For their efforts I give them an enthusiastic tip of the cap (if there is such as thing).

Note: Volksbloggin does not receive any compensation from Roberts Paint Care or any other automotive supply distributor for our reviews. We just like to give folks a cyber high-five when deserved. :)

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Step 1: Remove Headlight Sealing Cap

There are two plastic sealing caps on the back of the Jetta headlight. One covers the main headlight bulbs, while the other protects the turn signal and fog lamps. That’s the one we’ll be removing. There is a clip on the top end of the cap. Carefully push down on that clip to unlock the cap from the headlight assembly. I broke the clip off on mine when doing this (I can’t stand the plastic pieces in cars today lol). But the fragility of the plastic is probably due to the cold temperatures we have right now in Cincy.

Step 2: Unlock Bulb Holder from Assembly

Next, reach into the headlight assembly where you will find the holder containing the turn signal bulb. Rotate the holder counterclockwise to unlock it from the assembly. Carefully pull the bulb out, replace with your new bulb, and reverse your steps to complete the installation.

Step 5: Grab Your Favorite Beverage

Stand back and revel in your car repair prowess. The replacement bulb model number is 3357/3457 (amber or clear) View a photo with model number of all bulbs for reference.

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Riiiiiiight. So I thought. It finally kicked the bucket yesterday morning. Being the sometimes-opportunist that I am, I went out after work and picked up what is supposedly the ultimate in battery technology: *queue drum roll* an Optima Red Top battery. These babies are supposed to go on pretty much forever, and handle the roughest conditions you can throw at ‘em.

But all this snazzy tech and tour de force will cost you as well. Mine rang up to $169.00 + tax, give or take some change. The OEM battery over at WorldImpex.com will only run you $101.52 for comparison. Is it worth it? Absolutely! I shouldn’t have to replace my battery again for as long as I own the GTI, unless I keep it for say another 10 years. Then maybe I’ll need a new one.

I’ll have a How-To on replacing your battery up soon as a result of this little debacle. Stay tuned!

I read various web speculations on the cause, and saw some really great pictures of the sunroof drain entry and exit points. So I poured water in the sunroof drain and sure enough water comes out the nipples above the front door hinge. However, on the passenger side I saw some water spill out from the right side of the glove compartment and run down to the floor carpeting — a sucess for any water leak detective! I suspect this is how lots of water has been getting in my front passenger foot well, and from there somehow sloshing to the back passenger foot well.

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So, I figure the drain hose is either partly disconnected or has a hole in it. I pulled back some of the interior molding next to the right side of the windshield, and found the drain hose. When I again poored some water in from the sunroof drain hole, I could feel some of it coming down the channel around the drain hose. This VW drain hose would be very time consuming to replace, involving removal of the glove box and probably much more.

My solution was simple. I went to the hardware store and bought 7 feet of 1/4 inch flexible plastic tubing to run through the existing hose from the top drain hole down through the nipple at the door hinge. To seal the hose at at the top of the drain, I bought a 1/4″ compression sleeve that slides into the hose end and has a rim to keep it from sliding all the way in. I put a washer under this rim, put some superglue on the compression sleeve to ensure it stays in the hose, and caulked under the washer before pushing it into the drain hole It fit perfectly. Don’t pull the hose tight from the botton end, just get it close. Then just push it the last half inch or so and let the caulk make the seal.

The hose went in pretty smoothly, except when it got to the nipple near the door hinge. I pryed the rubber nipple out of the body panel with a screw driver, and either at that time or earlier the original VW hose disconnected from the nipple. My new hose then pushed right through and I slid it through the nipple about 6 inches, and refit the nipple into the body. This job was surprisingly easy, and only cost $6 in supplies plus a trip to the hardware store.

Since I know this has been a big issue for dozens of VW owners on the internet, and probably hundreds or thousands who haven’t complained on the web, I took some pictures to add to the knowledge on this subject.

I should note that from my reading on this, it seems some people have wet rugs caused by problems other than sunroof drains. These other problems may include a cracked cowel outside in front of the windshield, or maybe a bad seal on a pollen filter. So, the fix above may fix your problem if you have a damaged or disconnected sunroof drain hose (or clogged drain), but there could be other problems like the two I just mentioned. I can tell you that I proved my drain hose was leaking into the car, even though a lot of water was also getting all the way through the hose and through the nipple. Maybe that’s part of the reason people think the’ve eliminated a possible problem when they haven’t. Usually, if some water is being diverted to the interior, but not all, it will not be noticable (drips within the door frame and under the rug).

Follow-Up
After my hose installation it rained a couple of times, including a day of rain, and I see no obvious water leak. Also, after the caulk dried I poured in some water and it came rushing out perfectly. The fact that the interior hose is a little narrower than the original was no problem for effectiveness of the hose. As the water goes in the drain, gravity takes over and rapidly draws down any water in the sunroof drain bowl. This is an easy and cheap fix for a problem that can make people want to sell their car out of frustration.

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Just as a side note, Volksbloggin doesn’t see a dime from any Autopia sales – they’ve just always done a great job in servicing us!

My normal dealer uses the Volkswagen scheduling service instead of directly taking calls in house. Each time I call for an oil change I have to wait on hold for a few minutes, then I have to wait longer for the person to verify all my information, and even longer for them to check the dealer’s service schedule to find out when I can be fit in. Then I tell them about any additional things I’d like to have checked. And then, foolishly, I ask how much my service will cost. I always get the same answer – “The customer service representative at the dealer will be able to tell you that when you arrive.”

Okay, that’s all well and good. I can sort of accept that, given that labor charges seem to vary from dealer to dealer. What I can’t accept is that fact that when I get there, the service person has very little idea why I’m there, let alone any of the additional comments I gave to the person at the scheduling service. I then have to waste more time rehashing everything to them, during which they verify my information and make sure that they can perform the service.

I’ve dealt with this for years, until I was forced to take my car to another dealer (Fairfield Volkswagen, which I hope to give full props to in another post) due to starting problems. I was blown away when I was actually able to speak to a person…at the dealer. I explained my issues, and they suggested that we start with the recommended 60k service that my car was due for. They even knew that the service required an engine scan, which would bring up any problems they would expect to find. Then I asked the kicker – how much the service would cost. I was blown away when the woman on the other end was actually able to tell me…to the penny.

The work Fairfield VW did was exceptional. They found a number of problems with the car (including a bad alternator – ouch) and I got a big repair bill. But the way they handled my initial call followed by constant communication from the service manager (in addition to a incredibly detailed work report) made me feel the best I’ve ever felt about spending money on car maintenance. My experience was light years ahead of what I was used to.

My advice? If your dealer uses the official VW scheduling service, find a new dealer. If you’ve been dealing with it, chances are you know what I’m talking about. Just know that things can be better.

First, it’s not a bad idea to visit your dealer or local shop to have your car winterized. The weather is getting colder (well, for those of us in the states that actually experience seasons that is) and having someone look over your brakes and anti-freeze levels can save you from spending some time stuck in your driveway or on the side of the road.

You should also be mindful of your fuel levels when it starts getting really cold. Leaving your car to sit in freezing temperatures with no gas in the tank for a couple of days is a bad idea. If you’re not going to be driving for a few days and the forecast calls for nasty winter weather, go ahead and swing by the gas station on the way home from work. It could save ya a headache later. You may also want to keep a lighter handy – just in case those locks freeze and you need to heat up your key.

Finally, take note of anything that drags on your battery power. Recently I left my car in long term parking at the airport for six days with my cell phone charger plugged in (whoops). By the time I got home, the car had barely enough juice for a couple starts. Make sure that you unplug any chargers or turn off any lights before taking off on a trip. Trust me – having to ask for a jump at three in the morning sucks.

We here at VB are always excited for the holidays, and we wanna make sure that our readers are able to enjoy them to the fullest. They’ll be here before ya know it!

So if you’re looking to pick up any microfiber towels, leather care kits, paint care kits or anything else, head on over to Autopia Care Care. We here at VB don’t get any kind of kickback by the way, we’ve just always like their service.

Come to think of it, I might have to pick some stuff up for a final cleaning before the winter…