The greatest owners manual ever....
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Joined: Jul 2002
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From: Washington DC
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The greatest owners manual ever....
So today I decided to do my Mom a favor and change the oil in her car. No problem... pulled out the manual looking for what kind of oil and how much. Got the info, went down to Autozoo had them look up the filter for a 2001 Jetta. $17.49 worth of Mobil 5000 and a Bosch filter later I was set.... or so I thought. I get home, take a look at the manual again, just to see if there's any surprises. This is what the owners manual said about changing oil: "Because of the special tools and necessary expertise required, we strongly recommend that you have your oil changed by an authorized VOLKSWAGEN dealer or qualified workshop."
Thats all it said. Well **** that. I'm changing the oil. Off we go. Oh wait, there's no jack point on the front of the car because the car has no subframe. Call #1 to the dealer:
"How do I jack the front end up?"
"You can't"
"Well there has to be some way to get it on the ground, you can't possibly think I'm gonna come in there and pay $35 for you morons to change the oil."
"Well you can jack one side up and do it."
You see the kind of intelligence we're dealing with here. I wound up using the rear jack points, raising the car enough to get stands under the fronts. Took the splash guard off to get to the filter. No go with the filter turning. Tried everything short of the screwdriver. I didn't want to incase I couldn't get it off. Hour later with no luck, call number 2:
"So how hard do you guys crank these things on."
"Hand tight"
"Bullshit"
"Well we gotta use a wrench to get them off"
"So then you put them on with a wrench too"
"No"
"There's no way that an oil filter tightens up this much unless you crank it on to begin with"
Out to Napa to get a filter wrench. Come back, filter is on so tight the wrench just slips on it. Solution: epoxy the wrench to the filter. Filter comes off with some effort. Now... you know its bad when you have to work a filter off by literally cranking on a 3/8" drive socket. Something is wrong there, thats not 1/4 past tight.
Call number 3 to bitch them out for cranking the filter on so tight. Now I know why its 35 bucks to change the oil.... it takes them 1/2 an hour to get the filter off.
Finally got the oil changed. Now the funny part, and after all this, where I'm going with this is back to the manual. I was leafing through it... remember what the manual said? It says that for every maintanence activity in the book. It tells you when it should be changed, but the basic stuff like the Civic manual spells out (changing oil, changing coolant, even changing the damn airfilter). Yeah, they all require special tools and expertise to complete. In the case of the oil change, had it been done right, the special tool was a 19mm socket, and the expert knowledge was a 1/2 a brain.
Damn farfignugen idiots.
Thats all it said. Well **** that. I'm changing the oil. Off we go. Oh wait, there's no jack point on the front of the car because the car has no subframe. Call #1 to the dealer:
"How do I jack the front end up?"
"You can't"
"Well there has to be some way to get it on the ground, you can't possibly think I'm gonna come in there and pay $35 for you morons to change the oil."
"Well you can jack one side up and do it."
You see the kind of intelligence we're dealing with here. I wound up using the rear jack points, raising the car enough to get stands under the fronts. Took the splash guard off to get to the filter. No go with the filter turning. Tried everything short of the screwdriver. I didn't want to incase I couldn't get it off. Hour later with no luck, call number 2:
"So how hard do you guys crank these things on."
"Hand tight"
"Bullshit"
"Well we gotta use a wrench to get them off"
"So then you put them on with a wrench too"
"No"
"There's no way that an oil filter tightens up this much unless you crank it on to begin with"
Out to Napa to get a filter wrench. Come back, filter is on so tight the wrench just slips on it. Solution: epoxy the wrench to the filter. Filter comes off with some effort. Now... you know its bad when you have to work a filter off by literally cranking on a 3/8" drive socket. Something is wrong there, thats not 1/4 past tight.
Call number 3 to bitch them out for cranking the filter on so tight. Now I know why its 35 bucks to change the oil.... it takes them 1/2 an hour to get the filter off.
Finally got the oil changed. Now the funny part, and after all this, where I'm going with this is back to the manual. I was leafing through it... remember what the manual said? It says that for every maintanence activity in the book. It tells you when it should be changed, but the basic stuff like the Civic manual spells out (changing oil, changing coolant, even changing the damn airfilter). Yeah, they all require special tools and expertise to complete. In the case of the oil change, had it been done right, the special tool was a 19mm socket, and the expert knowledge was a 1/2 a brain.
Damn farfignugen idiots.
Thread Starter
Joined: Jul 2002
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From: Washington DC
Rep Power: 425 It has jack points on the side rails behind the front tires just like every other car, but you can also jack the entire front end of most cars by the front cross member or a jack point on the radiator support like our cars do. The car has no load bearing members up there to lift it from and the jack points on the side aren't big enough to fit both a jack and a stand on side by side. They're just assuming that you're not going to try and fix anything by yourself or something and all the work on the car will be done on a lift.
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From: Spokane, Washington
Rep Power: 332 overengineered piece of ****. take a look at the fvckin door hinges, just why did they have to build it like that? replacements are 200+ dollars 
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From: Dallas, PA
Rep Power: 609 my best friends wife recently traded in her 01 Jetta. That thing burned so much oil it wasn't even funny. On avg it would burn 1 qt for every 1000 miles. The dealer told her that that is normal for those cars 
Nothing works better than a Chris except a Honda.
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From: Baltimore, MD
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In the case of the oil change, had it been done right, the special tool was a 19mm socket, and the expert knowledge was a 1/2 a brain.
That was funny... Well, thats how they get their money, by ripping people off. 
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From: Miami (Pembroke Pines), Florida
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Originally Posted by AznThug08
Yeah german cars are a bitch to work on. I heard somewhere that all the wires are the same color on the harness.
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From: Washington DC
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Originally Posted by civic01vtec
my best friends wife recently traded in her 01 Jetta. That thing burned so much oil it wasn't even funny. On avg it would burn 1 qt for every 1000 miles. The dealer told her that that is normal for those cars
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From: Lost Angels
Rep Power: 304 Boilermaker1, Try LubroMoly Oil in the Jetta. It's a black oil. NOT the full synthetic.
I use it for many years. Engines don't burn oil with over 150k on them. Worth a shot.
I use it for many years. Engines don't burn oil with over 150k on them. Worth a shot.
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From: Orange County, CA
Rep Power: 0 one suggestion for lifting the front of the car up is to drive the car up onto wood planks, that's what i do do lift cars that are too low to get a jack under. you might be able to get ontop of enough planks to slide under.
as for the over tightened oil filter, i had the same problem. when i went to change my oil after honda did it, the filter was sooo tight. i tried everything besides stabbing it with a screwdriver (that epoxy idea was pretty good). so i wound up having to take it to honda and yelling at them for it and they didn't over tighten it when they put my oil filter on. now it works just fine when i do it myself! go figure, car dealers must higher super strong people for the purpose of tightening oil filters to 'hand tight'.
as for the over tightened oil filter, i had the same problem. when i went to change my oil after honda did it, the filter was sooo tight. i tried everything besides stabbing it with a screwdriver (that epoxy idea was pretty good). so i wound up having to take it to honda and yelling at them for it and they didn't over tighten it when they put my oil filter on. now it works just fine when i do it myself! go figure, car dealers must higher super strong people for the purpose of tightening oil filters to 'hand tight'.
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From: Montreal
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Originally Posted by civic01vtec
my best friends wife recently traded in her 01 Jetta. That thing burned so much oil it wasn't even funny. On avg it would burn 1 qt for every 1000 miles. The dealer told her that that is normal for those cars
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From: Los Angeles
Rep Power: 289 get some rhino ramps. they are safer than jack stands anyways, the filter being stuck, thats probably from the previous time the oil was change. our other car was serviced before and the drain nut was sooo freaking tight my arm got hurt, and afterwards, i found that there wasnt any washer.
ps: rhino ramps are about $20 bucks, some are $30 dependin on the size of it
ps: rhino ramps are about $20 bucks, some are $30 dependin on the size of it
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Rep Power: 0 This is part of the reason I'm looking to switch to an RSX-S, whenever the job situation sorts itself out.
VW's are notorious for using 3 parts when 1 would work. If one of those parts goes, you have to replace the whole assembly. The electrics are terrible, and I get a new recall notice every week ... the latest being ... brake light switch, cluster software, MAF sensor, hazard/turn signal, etc. etc.
Not to mention... I'm starting to throw everyone's favorite CEL... " Catalytic efficiency too low."
.
VW's are notorious for using 3 parts when 1 would work. If one of those parts goes, you have to replace the whole assembly. The electrics are terrible, and I get a new recall notice every week ... the latest being ... brake light switch, cluster software, MAF sensor, hazard/turn signal, etc. etc.
Not to mention... I'm starting to throw everyone's favorite CEL... " Catalytic efficiency too low."
.
Da Drilla From Manila
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From: va
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Originally Posted by blouisgod
Isn't it common knowledge that VW is ****
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From: Edmonton
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Originally Posted by opto_isolator
Go figure tho - look at who the target crowd is for V-dubs - hippies or yuppies. You think most hippies change their own oil?
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From: So Cal
Rep Power: 0 I changed the CD deck on my girlfriends Beamer and I ran into nothing but problems, some how the ****ing speakers were all wired by one wire....? I had no clue what the hell was going on and ended up re-wiring all of the speakers in her car lol. it took me like 5 hours, and then she got a new car!!!!! damn then I had to change the deck to her new car, guys do crazy things when they are in love lol!
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