Jetta stories: Mechanic For A Day...Or Two (part 1)

This weekend I discovered that it's somewhat dangerous owning tools. On one hand, they give you many mechanical advantages that the human body is just not built to deliver. On the other hand, they give you a false sense of knowing how to take on jobs that require them.

Let me back up for a sec. Two weeks ago our car started behaving badly. Maybe "badly" is not strong enough. It started misfiring when idling and it was not at all subtle about it. Looking back I should have clued in that it had been trying to tell me something for a while: gas mileage was getting progressively worse to the point that my Mach 1 burned less; at a long red light I could start to smell gas; on rare occasions when starting it'd go from zero to 1000 RPM and then back down to zero just as fast; the check engine light had been on for the better part of six months. I know what you're thinking - it's the same as I'm thinking while writing this and it rhymes with "dumbass".

The misfires happened on the way to work which prompted a quick diagnoses from me while riding shotgun: "Honey cut it out, that's hard on the car!" I don't remember the rest of that day.

When I finally came to, I decided, through a meticulous diagnoses process consisting of Google and my Haynes manual, the O2 sensor was to blame. However I wasn't sure enough to just act on it so I took the car to the VW dealer last Monday for a routine wallet raping and bonus diagnostic check.

I was at work when I received the call: "There are many problems..." They said the main problem was a vacuum leak which was causing bad O2 readings which was causing the misfiring. However, during the one-sided conversation I was sure the guy was making up names for parts that need to be replaced. What's a 'coolant flange' anyway and why would it cost $250? After turning down all the quoted work I hung up and did more research. It was then that I decided I could do much of the work myself. How hard could a coolant flush and flange replacement be?

I showed up at the dealer the next day and got the parts I needed. Standard rectangular air filter? Check. Special German-made pre-gapped spark plugs? Check. Special German-made Audi/VW coolant with big warnings against using the domestic green stuff? Check. Real-life not-making-this-up coolant flange with o-rings? Check. Vacuum hose? Not quite. They said the technician that did the diagnostic replaced the vacuum hose on the spot so I didn't need it. I found it hard to believe that the main problem was a free fix but the secondary problems were extensive. Besides, the car seemed to run worse than before I took it in.

The rest of the week was uneventful and the weather was really nice every day so when Saturday rolled around and I woke up to the sound of rain I should have realized that auto repair just isn't in my deck of cards. But who was I to go this far and not actually do anything?

I waited until the afternoon to see if the rain would stop but it just kept pouring. At around 2:00 I nosed the car into the garage door and started at it. I like to tackle the hardest jobs first so the work gets progressively easier as I go. In this case that meant the coolant flush and flange replacement. I started by draining the radiator which was so easy I began praising Germans and their intelligent engineering. This turned out to be a premature celebration.

The next step is to drain the block which required the removal of a clamped-on hose without cutting or ripping it apart. It's those minor details that can really ruin a good day. I thought I was hooped because for all I knew the hoses had been clamped in the same place for six years and weren't going to be easily coaxed off. After developing a technique for removing spring-loaded clamps and performing some very technical hose-jiggling, the hose released its grip and started sliding off. Disaster averted.

I learned that a thorough flush requires the block and heater core to be flushed as well. The heater core is easy since it's part of the whole system but the block has a major annoyance in the way that needs to be removed: the thermostat. "The what? Oh crap, I didn't sign up for this!" It felt like I was at the entrance to a rabbit hole and I had no idea how deep it went. Dutifully, I forged ahead and after finding the thermostat (you know you shouldn't be removing a part when you don't know where it is) I broke out my socket set and started disassembling. The first bolt came out easy but I wouldn't be writing this if the second one wasn't the hardest bolt to access. Due to the alternator and air conditioning pump being in the way it took me an hour and some harried searching through my garage looking for a magic tool I didn't think I had. But I did! Thanks to IKEA furniture and my insistence of keeping every tool that comes with them I had the exact box wrench I needed. I couldn't believe my good fortune. Ten minutes later I had the second bolt off and the thermostat was out.

Now I was ready for the flush so I rolled the car back, hooked up the garden hose to the radiator and flushed that sucker until the only thing coming out was clear water. Than I flushed it some more for good measure. It took me so long to get to this point that I wasn't going to do a half-assed job of it. At this point I was losing light so I put the hood down and packed things up for the night.

Come back tomorrow for the exciting conclusion.