German engineering my arse
Category None
A few months ago I purchased a 10 year old diesel VW Beetle as I've been driving to see customers in Boston and New York quite a bit. My Mitsubishi truck is still great but only manages about 17 mpg on the motorway so was a little expensive to run. The Beetle with my driving style returns about 46-48 MPG. If was a good person and observed all speed limits and made sure my air pressure is correct I can actually get about 50mpg so quite a bit better than the Mitsubishi. Even though the Beetle could be considered a little gay (nothing wrong with that), it's a lot more fun to drive than the Mitsubishi on the bendy NH roads.
Anyway, recently my headlight bulb went and I had to change it. Simple I thought, normally you just flip a panel on the back of the headlight unit, pull out the bulb and put in a new one. Not so with a VW Beetle. Because of the tightness of space under the bonnet, changing a bulb in the beetle is a lot more complex, sadly the manual does not make this clear. All the manual pretty much says is put up a black plastic lever and twist. What it doesn't say is that after 10 years these plastic levers can get stuck solid, and oh when you twist it you actually have to pull the entire headlight assembly out of the car. It also doesn't say that in extremely cold weather plastic becomes brittle and can easily snap. Yep you guessed it my little plastic lever broke, which is when I went searching the web for better instructions.
The web really is a wonderful thing, a quick google search and you can find photos illustrating the way. I only wish I had read these before I broke the little lever.
VW told me they could have changed the bulb for 100 dollars, but as I had broken the lever I would need a replacement headlight unit for approximately 220 dollars + labour. Obviously like any reasonable person my response to that was screw that (these were the same people that wanted 100 bucks to replace the indicator relay (which actually ended up costing me 22 bucks for the part and 2 minutes of my time). So I decided to go it alone, I was not going to be beaten by a simple $5 replacement bulb. So after about a couple of hours of chiseling away some "surplus" plastic, probably not surplus but it had to go seen as I broke the lever, and drilling a hole, I managed to get the headlight unit out and change the 5 dollar bulb. Also an additional note for myself, when working with metal tools, always be sure to try and avoid shorting out the positive terminal with the grounded chassis, otherwise they can get a little hot
I think the title for this blog entry isn't quite right, as the engineering itself is quite clever, so the title should probably be, German engineering is great but their documentation sucks. With better documentation my effort could have probably been reduced to about 5 minutes.
A few months ago I purchased a 10 year old diesel VW Beetle as I've been driving to see customers in Boston and New York quite a bit. My Mitsubishi truck is still great but only manages about 17 mpg on the motorway so was a little expensive to run. The Beetle with my driving style returns about 46-48 MPG. If was a good person and observed all speed limits and made sure my air pressure is correct I can actually get about 50mpg so quite a bit better than the Mitsubishi. Even though the Beetle could be considered a little gay (nothing wrong with that), it's a lot more fun to drive than the Mitsubishi on the bendy NH roads.
Anyway, recently my headlight bulb went and I had to change it. Simple I thought, normally you just flip a panel on the back of the headlight unit, pull out the bulb and put in a new one. Not so with a VW Beetle. Because of the tightness of space under the bonnet, changing a bulb in the beetle is a lot more complex, sadly the manual does not make this clear. All the manual pretty much says is put up a black plastic lever and twist. What it doesn't say is that after 10 years these plastic levers can get stuck solid, and oh when you twist it you actually have to pull the entire headlight assembly out of the car. It also doesn't say that in extremely cold weather plastic becomes brittle and can easily snap. Yep you guessed it my little plastic lever broke, which is when I went searching the web for better instructions.
The web really is a wonderful thing, a quick google search and you can find photos illustrating the way. I only wish I had read these before I broke the little lever.
VW told me they could have changed the bulb for 100 dollars, but as I had broken the lever I would need a replacement headlight unit for approximately 220 dollars + labour. Obviously like any reasonable person my response to that was screw that (these were the same people that wanted 100 bucks to replace the indicator relay (which actually ended up costing me 22 bucks for the part and 2 minutes of my time). So I decided to go it alone, I was not going to be beaten by a simple $5 replacement bulb. So after about a couple of hours of chiseling away some "surplus" plastic, probably not surplus but it had to go seen as I broke the lever, and drilling a hole, I managed to get the headlight unit out and change the 5 dollar bulb. Also an additional note for myself, when working with metal tools, always be sure to try and avoid shorting out the positive terminal with the grounded chassis, otherwise they can get a little hot
I think the title for this blog entry isn't quite right, as the engineering itself is quite clever, so the title should probably be, German engineering is great but their documentation sucks. With better documentation my effort could have probably been reduced to about 5 minutes.
| Permalink | 
Comments
Is $100 the minimum VW labour charge.
I'd have done it for $10
Dad
Posted by Dad At 04:48:28 PM On 03/24/2008 | - Website - |
Not sure on the minimum charge.
I did think about leaving it until May for you, but I didn't want to get a ticket
Posted by Carl Tyler At 04:52:24 PM On 03/24/2008 | - Website - |
They have since gone back to the leasing company.
They do run very well and are quite spacious.
I always use to joke about having the workbench which would allow me to pull apart a PC while on the road - some would call it a large dashboard.
Posted by Vaughan Rivett At 05:22:27 PM On 03/24/2008 | - Website - |
re: headlights - try it on a '90 Camry. I broke two screwdrivers on mine.
Posted by Rob McDonagh At 06:14:57 PM On 03/24/2008 | - Website - |
Posted by Glen At 10:53:29 PM On 03/24/2008 | - Website - |
Posted by Michael Rice At 09:23:00 AM On 03/26/2008 | - Website - |
Posted by Carl Tyler At 11:46:18 AM On 03/26/2008 | - Website - |
According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, the 2008 Prius is the most fuel efficient car sold in the U.S. According to the UK Department for Transport, the Prius is tied with the diesel MINI Cooper D as the second least CO2-emitting vehicle behind the Volkswagen Polo 1.4 TDI.
Posted by Michael Rice At 03:47:26 PM On 03/26/2008 | - Website - |
Also it costs a hell of a lot more than a 10 year old TDI beetle.
Also the VW TDI gets better MPG, just that it's not sold anymore
Posted by Carl Tyler At 03:58:39 PM On 03/26/2008 | - Website - |
Posted by Michael Rice At 03:15:18 PM On 03/27/2008 | - Website - |