Jetta stories: Mechanic For A Day...Or Two (part 2)

(This is part two. Part one can be found here)

On Sunday I was up at nine, elated to see the sun shining in the window. Once outside I noticed just how hard it was to work in the low light of an overcast, rainy afternoon the day before compared to the bright sun of today. It was going to be a good day.

I started by draining the water from the flush which took no time at all since I knew each step intimately. Then I dried out the inside of the block and detached and cleaned out the coolant reservoir so that no remaining water or leftover dirt was to be found. I reinstalled the thermostat, carefully paying close attention to its direction and alignment, and bolted on its cover using my IKEA wrench.

Once that was done I moved on to the coolant flange. It was another two bolts but this time they were both readily accessible. I removed both of them with ease and was surprised to find that one was a bolt and one was a nut. I thought that was weird until I saw the reason the dealer wanted $250 to do this job: a metal coolant line was running right over one of the bolts and was bolted directly to the flange. If the hose was rubber this would've been a moot point but it was metal and wrapped around the block to the thermostat and I didn't know what type of seal it used so I was hesitant to disconnect it. Lori walked out and was seeing how things were going so I showed her the existing flange and the new one and... wait, this didn't look right. The new flange was different from the existing one. The dealer gave me the flange for a slightly different engine configuration which promptly ended the flange replacement job.

After this disappointment I needed some success so I started on the spark plug replacement. I knew this job should go fairly smoothly as I could see all four plug boots and they seemed to be fairly accessible. The first plug lived up to this and was replaced in a few minutes. The remaining three were somewhat harder to get out but I eventually found the awkward positions to contort into to manipulate the boots and the job was done. The old plugs were completely black which told me the fuel mixture is too rich and supported my O2 sensor diagnosis.

For another cheap success I replaced the air filter too.

To finsh off the day I hooked all the hoses back up and refilled the coolant with new stuff. After following the Haynes manual for refilling I headed up to Cobs for bread while watching the thermostat more closely than the road. The temperature headed up to 90 degrees and stayed there right in the middle like it should.

After one weekend the car only got new plugs, a new air filter and a coolant flush. Now I know why shops charge what they do. However, doing thee work myself forced me to learn a lot about the car and saved me money at the same time.

What's next? I did nothing for the misfiring so that still needs to be addressed. I ordered an OBD-II reader from eBay and I have the instructions to test the O2 sensor with a multimeter so I'm going to do that next. I'll also talk to the dealer about a method for replacing the coolant flange - I may do it myself another time once I get the right flange and know how to remove and reinstall the metal coolant pipe. The saga continues...