From the time I was about 3 I have loved cars. Actually, I love anything that moves by itself. I am fascinated by intricate moving parts and relentless noise. When you think about it, the engine in a car, bus, truck, etc. has metal parts moving together at a hair’s tolerance. Despite the complexity their operation is transparent to most people. I would argue that that the hallmark of good engineering is a complex system abstracted away to simple controls.
Jumping forward to college, I found myself attending meetings for my school’s motorsports club. The president made consistent effort making sure I was included. Even though, at the time, I just had a basic Honda Civic with the most boring transmission humanly possible, a CVT – another engineering marvel, but in my opinion, takes the abstraction a little too far. Attending these meetings made me realize I wanted something more.
On my walk home from campus each day I would walk past what would seem to any normal person, a completely ordinary automobile, a 2000’s VW Jetta Wagon with a diesel engine. To me… heaven. Every day I would ogle it. Dreaming of one day owning something like it. There’s something special about a wagon – so much practicality without sacrificing much in the way of driving dynamics, as you would with an SUV. Later that year we had a dyno day where everyone in the club could bring their cars and see how much power and torque they made. A few cars stood out to me. One of them was a screaming Honda, the other was the Jetta. It enveloped the parking lot in thick black smoke while making little more than respectable torque and a hell of a racket.
A few months later I was working a job that I could not care less about. I was bored beyond all recognition. However, I found myself chatting with a friend who I found out bought the Jetta. He told me he wanted to sell it! At this point I was in no condition to make a serious financial decision, however my mind was made up. I slept on it and talked to some family members and friends. Some told be to pull the trigger, some seemed confused, some thought it was a terrible choice.
I went to take it on a test drive. I was in a fraternity parking lot, cars on both sides, in a manual car I had no clue how to drive. I started the Jetta up and found myself frightened. The car was louder than anything I’d been in before, and it shook like a piece of broken construction equipment. I put it in reverse and went to let the clutch out. The vehicle lurched back violently and I almost creamed this poor girls Ford Escape (it would have stood no match to the mighty Jetta). Luckily I stomped on the brake and stopped inches from scraping the Ford’s quarter pannel. My friend then offered to get it out on the street for me and the test drive went well. I went home and hemmed and hawed. I took one last look at it, listened to the devil on my shoulder, and bought this magnificent lump of soot and rust.
My shitbox was not without issues. my main concern was the extreme vibration at idle, at speed, and everywhere in between. It could have been a bad motor. However, the ALH in my Jetta is stout. I figured it was engine mounts. Climbing under the hood I found a set of aftermarket mounts installed by a previous owner. They were stiffer, so I figured this was my main source of vibration. Eventually, I ordered a full set of engine mounts (left, right, and dogbone). The day I did them I’d managed to get some time in the motorsports garage. I got the engine side and dogbone done. I ran out of time for the right side/ transmission mount. I did check it though. I found that one of the 4 bolts had backed it self out, I tightened it and saved the rest for later.
A few weeks later I was up in Jaffrey, New Hampshire and I figured I’d check on the engine mount. I went to put some new hardware on and I found that the transmission mount was broken in half. The bolt that backed out was the one on the side that was not broken. My friend who had the car before me drove it to Virginia and back like that. After that I drove it about 700 miles. I have no idea how something terrible did not happen. I threw in the new mount and continued driving it.
My next task was much smaller, but of paramount importance to me. Having 24 hour time on the clock in the gage cluster. Stupid? Yes. Even more stupid, VW does not provide a user facing way to do this. The forums instructed me to use VCDS to tell the car it’s in a different region. Fine. Now my car thinks its in England. This is because I needed a country where they used miles per hour and use 24 hour time. As a bonus the car no longer beeps when you open the door with the key still in the ignition. I KNOW THE KEY IS IN THE IGNITION THE RADIO IS STILL ON! Side note: I love that this car keeps the radio on after turning the key off until the key is taken out of the ignition.
Later on, I started thinking about how I might make it stop “rolling coal”. For those not in the know rolling coal is the practice of overfueling or putting more fuel in the cylenders than needed. This over fueling produces the thick black smoke characteristic of an old diesel truck driven by a man with a tiny penis. I will admit that “dusting” some asshole in a BMW is fun like 3 times. Then, I just feel like a chud. There’s an interesting mod one can do to an engine with the specific kind of diesel injection pump found in my Jetta. By loosening a bolt on the pump and tapping it with a hammer it is possible to increase the injected quanity far beyond what is possible with diagnostic tools like VCDS. The paint marker marks on my injection pump indicate that it might have been done. I started by turning the injected quantity up in VCDS. Up? Yes. In VCDS and other VW diag tools increasing the injected quantity value lowers the actual amount injected. Performing this operation did in-fact reduce the smoke produced by the trusty Jetta.
That about sums up my experience thus far with my little VW. For some cars are simply a means of transport. For me they are a source of passion and connection.