More winter whining from Sly

Slysc

Registered User
So instead of finishing my SC, I've been working on my 2001 VW Jetta the last 3 months. It's my daily driver and I still owe on it so I had to fix it.

In November, it was overheating, bubbles coming out of the reservoir, water in the oil, etc. Headgasket, right? Of course. So I dig in and tear it apart. Not and easy job like it is on an SC. German engineering means ridiculously over engineered and complicated with specialized fasteners which require dealer only tools. So I worked on it the last part of November, all through my Christmas Break (which was 2 weeks) and just finished it a couple weeks ago. It cost me about $500 out of pocket and tons of miserable work in freezing cold darkness of Michigan. Last night I went for the first lengthy test drive and it did the exact same thing as it did before. Overheating, bubbles, chocolate pudding for oil.:mad::confused::mad::confused:

I really just wanted to crash that miserable piece of precision engineering into a big oak tree and walk away from the whole mess.

The guys on the VW forum think it's my oil cooler. That would explain everything but the bubbles which I interpreted as combustion gasses in the coolant. It's acting like a cracked head or block but they say those engines never do that. I think I just did the HG on my VW for nothing. :(

If I weren't me, I would kick my a$$ for putting me through all that.
 
Ive done some work on a vw cabriolet and i am by no means impressed with there cars. They are great when they run, but somthing little goes wrong and its a nightmare to diagnose/repair plus the cost is insane! Sorry you have had so much trouble.
 
Ive had one VW out of about 50 cars I have had off and on through my life. It was far and away the worse car mechanically I have ever owned. I wouldnt own one on a bet

Ken
 
Napa makes a kit that goes onto your coolant reservoir to detect combustion gases. Fluid starts out one color, if it changes then you have combustion gases in the cooling system.
 
So instead of finishing my SC, I've been working on my 2001 VW Jetta the last 3 months. It's my daily driver and I still owe on it so I had to fix it.

In November, it was overheating, bubbles coming out of the reservoir, water in the oil, etc. Headgasket, right? Of course. So I dig in and tear it apart. Not and easy job like it is on an SC. German engineering means ridiculously over engineered and complicated with specialized fasteners which require dealer only tools. So I worked on it the last part of November, all through my Christmas Break (which was 2 weeks) and just finished it a couple weeks ago. It cost me about $500 out of pocket and tons of miserable work in freezing cold darkness of Michigan. Last night I went for the first lengthy test drive and it did the exact same thing as it did before. Overheating, bubbles, chocolate pudding for oil.:mad::confused::mad::confused:

I really just wanted to crash that miserable piece of precision engineering into a big oak tree and walk away from the whole mess.

The guys on the VW forum think it's my oil cooler. That would explain everything but the bubbles which I interpreted as combustion gasses in the coolant. It's acting like a cracked head or block but they say those engines never do that. I think I just did the HG on my VW for nothing. :(

If I weren't me, I would kick my a$$ for putting me through all that.


When you pulled the head off did you get it resurfaced? My mothers 99 passat broke the timing belt and when we had the head rebuilt he said it was slightly warped when we brought it in(hg was fine). Which engine does it have in it? I have often though about doing the same thing involving the oak tree & vw. I hate working on these cars, it is just ridiculous. Im not sure how your engine is mounted, but hers is mounted longitudinaly..nice right? Nope!

My VW story:
After we had the head rebuilt new timing belt, it had no compression in cylidner 3. So we got a new engine, and we though we could just pull the engine and leave the trans...wrong, we couldn't get the the bottom 3 bellhousing bolts due to the subframe being in the way(that engineer should be shot). So we pulled engine and trans out and put the new motor in, started it up...starts screaching..the torque converter slipped out when we put it together and it just killed the trans. Got another trans, put it in and it was fried when we got it and had no gears. Got another trans after that and it slips but we said **** it and my mom is driving it. You have to love the tripple square boilts, allen head bolts, $30 a gallon coolant, $30 a liter tranny fluid, $80 tranny filter, $50 heater hose, etc etc etc...i could go on. If it had full coverage I would set the damn thing on fire.

I think my teacher put it best, "there is a reason that they call vw's hitlers revenge".
 
Sly,
Are we talking about the 2.0L or the VR6 here? I have quite a bit of engine experience with both. Forum guys are correct though. Oil coolers are a known problem through 2003 I believe... I personally have no experience on the 1.8L turbo though as luck would have it, if thats the engine you may have here.

Last one I worked on was a 2000 2.0L with 51,000 miles on the clock. Belonged to a friend of mine's mother. Waterpump locked up and threw the timing belt. Which in turn bent most of the valves. She took it to the VW dealer, after she had it towed back to town 160 miles. They told her 2600.00 to fix it. I told them I would do it for half that. Not realizing that the valves were over 50.00 a piece. All the parts are overpriced. The main reason I will never own a German car, even if I am capable of fixing it. I pulled the head, replaced the valves, slapped a new pump and timing belt on it and its been purring along ever since. That was in 2003. Only screwed up thing about working on that particular engine was the placement of the electric smog pump and the lines that ran everywhere...pretty annoying. Way easier than some of Ford's genious engineering. Worst Ford engineering by FAR was the 1995-2000 Contour/mystique, 1988-1994 Lincoln Continental was a close second though.....
 
Last edited:
don't know what's wrong but.....let me know if you need help sometime. I moved here in June and work at the proving grounds. Don't know too many people yet and I'm always lookin for shtuff to do.
 
It's the 2001 1.8T. I've owned it 2 years and so far I've replaced a waterpump, timing belt, engine mounts, both front wheel bearings, lower control arm bushings, upper strut bushings, a left axel shaft, O2 sensors, clutch and headgasket on this car and that's just on the outside. There's tons of electrical gremlins on the radio, heated seats, HVAC, etc. It's got 120K miles. Definately a high maintenence car.
 
It's got 120K miles. Definately a high maintenence car.

I just want to know how many of those miles were clocked at 100mph+ :eek:

Seriously Dan, you've had some tough breaks lately. Hang in there!

{edit}

At least the global warming scare is over. Whew, what a relief that is!
 
Napa makes a kit that goes onto your coolant reservoir to detect combustion gases. Fluid starts out one color, if it changes then you have combustion gases in the cooling system.


I highly recommend this kit, its worth every penny, and it works on any 4 cycle internal combustion engine.
 
Napa makes a kit that goes onto your coolant reservoir to detect combustion gases. Fluid starts out one color, if it changes then you have combustion gases in the cooling system.

Its called a block tester. The fluid starts out a blueish color and if there is any combustion gas in your coolant it will turn green. We used it at AAA.

Shane
Glynn Motorsports
 
quick35th>The fluid starts out a blueish color and if there is any combustion gas in your coolant it will turn green. We used it at AAA.


Blue To Yellow I believe - Since most coolant is already green.
JS-BT500.jpg
 
Last edited:
quick35th>The fluid starts out a blueish color and if there is any combustion gas in your coolant it will turn green. We used it at AAA.


Blue To Yellow I believe - Since most coolant is already green.
JS-BT500.jpg

You are not actually testing the coolant itself but the air/vapor coming out of the filler neck of your radiator. If you mix the block tester fluid with actual coolant it will contaminate your test fluid.

But yellow could be the correct color, its been a while.

Shane
Glynn Motorsports
 
Just a thought, maybe the coolan lines that run through the turbo are leaking, allowing the inlet/outlet of the turbo to put air into the coolant line that runs through it?

I'm doing a head job on the same car for one of my friends. And I will say, its a complete pain, definately over engineered. The otiker clamps that need to be broken off suck the most.
 
Back
Top