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The car had plenty of issues relating to the transaxle and switchgear but none with the engine or turbo.
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93
Mind you, I don't have a long time experience with VW as I only have my Tdi Jetta Wagon exactly 1 year. But I am sure there are many VW owners out there with more long time experience than me.
I've done nothing to it beyond the recommended maintenance. Fuel mileage is saving me considerable money - my monthly average is always over 45 mpg (mostly highway miles). I would not hesitate to buy another one.
On a side note, I am planning a road trip around May/June that will cover a few thousand miles, will there be anything I need to watch for, as my car will have been sitting for a few months without being driven?
For a few years I drove 5000 neutronium-foot miles monthly and found VW TDI jetta, passat, NewBeetle all optimal for such driving especially during seasons of peak snow, peak glacier, peak arbitrary-atmosphere-gas, peak ADBLUE, peak anything.
There's no "adblue" required for Jetta "clean diesel" TDI, by the way.
For me it's been only unclean diesels so far. here in USA diesels remain in a lower automotive caste than gassers even though diesels emit less, burn less and cost less for the Big-Dog Distance-Drivers. (I mean 'dog' in the good way the kids say nowadays - no disrespect meant to your wife sir!)
Commercial big rig engines, busses, etc. can double that.
No, they don't, at least not in this market. The Borg-Warner/KKK OE
replacement turbo seems to be the only plug-and-play new replacement.
We have those, and are investigating larger turbos but haven't found
any yet.
Thanks for asking,
Peter
IDParts
781-333-8343
your 09 sedan mpg is an exact match for my 06 TDI 5-spd mpg. Somehow i've been getting 45+ this winter with mine, apparently because I bet right and went with new 'mastercraft' all-seasons instead of putting on the winter-wheels&blizzaks.
ok, here's something to watch out for:
for long TDI drives be kind to your behind and requisite biological systems. rule #32: "enjoy the little things".
take many bio-breaks inbetween fuel stops.
just because some TDIs can drive 1000 miles on one tank doesn't mean you HAVE to do 1000 miles without stopping for a break !
09' shudder problem
you should obtain results directing you to a TDI specific site. Start reading and good luck.
When slowing down at an intersection the DSG shifts down to 2nd gear and holds it there unless you almost come to a complete stop..then it shifts into 'first' and you are now ready to scoot away with no problem. However if you are rolling slowly and goose it in 2nd, it can't quite get going immediately in that gear and you get that OMG it's going to stall feeling.
This could be miles off your problem, but I solved mine by making sure the shift indicator is in '1' (first gear) when I take off, it quickly shifts to '2' without any hesitation or feeling like it's going to stall, or 'lag'.
I find my DSG set up great now that I give it a chance to shift down into 'first' before I take off from a stop, or very slow roll.
Seems like Long-O has explained it's because the DSG has selected 2nd gear in that situation.
Is there a sport/economy button - Maybe that would affect it's "fuel-conserving hold-2nd-as-long-as-possible" behavior which has got to increasing turbo-lag if you need to accelerate suddenly - in addition to the delay for the software to decide to shift to 1st.
(DSG in NewBeetle TDI was the best "automanual" I've driven- but also as annoying to me as any automatic other than an old-school slushbox.)
I have had 5 different quotes on my next DSG service (from $275 to $595) and two of the VW dealerships said this,,,you need to leave it with us overnight for the transmission to cool off or we can't do the oil change.
Three of the VW dealerships said "Bring it in, it takes about 2 hours"
When asked about the 'cooling off part' 3 of them said.... What?
Can anyone shed some light in this dark corner? :confuse:
Using google search,
DIY: DSG Transmission scheduled maintenance (40K miles interval)
Search for the above, follow the link and you may research and shed some light on the dark corner mystery of DSG service procedure.
Expected cost is $300 to $500 with $330 to $400 the range of reasonable.
Thanks for the advice, but I was referring to the mechanics of the vehicle
I plan on heading up to Labrador City, then over to St. John's, haven't been up to Newfoundland/Labrador yet and will have enough time off to visit. I'm heading up to the Trans-Labrador Highway (scenic I'm sure, definitely stopping along the way), is anyone familiar with the availability of diesel in this area? I think I can "only" get around 600-650 miles to a tank, so I'll be stopping way before 1000.
If we assume you you likely refuel BEFORE the tank is totally empty... (lets say at 12 gallons) 650/12 =54.1 MPG that is not too shabby for overall MPG but is low for highway trip MPG.
If my TDI gets less than 700 per tank, there is a serious problem. On a highway trip, I expect more like 800+ miles per tank.
I wonder if you are forgetting to add your cetane enhancer with every fillup?
..or perhaps you do not have a manual xmission?
That VX was an quite a car - 1 mag got 56 mpg on freeway test. Cost about $3,200 new. Of course it only had 1 air bag, wind up windows & no power steering Amazing how things change.
That's pretty darn good for a modern car with all the amenities. A Prius would do no better and would be about 1/9th the fun.
I used to use REDLINE
At $7 bucks a pop, you are adding .50 a gallon to a 14 gallon fillup cost, if you dump the whole thing in there.
So to break even that cetane booster would have to improve your mileage from 44 mpg to 51.5 mpg.
Not likely.
Diesel fuel available in North America is intended for use in TRUCKS and really needs to be improved to satisfy a finely-tuned modern TDI engine which wants to feed on European diesel fuel.
A quality diesel additive proides several benifets
1) CETANE INCREASE
Modern TDI engines are designed to run on fuel that is not available in North America. Increasing CETANE approptately can and will provide better MPG and less engine-noise.
2) LUBRICANT
Protecting your expensive fuel-pump is great insurance against $1000+ bill if it wears. Technically, this is known as "lubricity". Bosch specifies 400 micron wear scar MAXIMUM using HFRR test. The lower the number is better. There are not many diesel-fuels available in North America which meet this spec.
3) ANTI_GEL
In the winter, using diesel-additive which has anti-gel can prevent engine-stalling out due to fuel-starvation.
Personally, I use Power Service products. (White bottle in winter and Grey bottle in summer) Available at WallyMart.
For me any safety-risk behavior like that from any car is a dealbreaker/showstopper, exactly along the lines of the recent toyota failures. Dealership would get a very low # of tries to fix a safety before I traded or lemon-lawed the car, whatever it took to get out of it.
can your wife drive a stickshift? it can be fun and rewarding to learn if the teacher is kind about it.
(also after she learns, she may drive circles around you. )
personally I don't vouch for any automatic transmission except for the good old slushbox.
Also , after the DSG 'Reflash' my problem for the most part went away, but still does it occasionally.
He'll give me $10k for my 04 Audi A6 Wagon, apply $2k of that to the lease and do 36 months for $355/month. All service included. The price he based this on was $25,350 for the car. What do you all think? Should I go for it? I've never done a lease before, so I'm a little unsure if this is a good deal or not!
1. What is the mileage restriction on this lease, and if you go over, how much per mile penalty?
2. So you're getting $8K cash in your pocket and $2K toward the lease? If so, that's upfront money, so really your lease is not $355 a month, it's $355 +$55 ($2000 divided by 36 months), so $410 a month is what you're paying.
3. Did you negotiate the MSRP? Lease cars can be negotiated just like you were buying it.
4. What is the "money factor" on this lease (the interest rate expressed in the Martian language so as to confuse you).
If you can't answer these question for us, DON'T sign anything just yet.
1) $25,350 is about $600 more than MSRP on a base which includes heated seats. I'm guessing this one has the protection package which is fine, but it looks like you're paying MSRP. You should be able to get at LEAST $500 off the sticker on these anywhere and I've seen some folks pay much closer to invoice by shopping around. There is a dealer near you in Langhorne, PA that will sell them at invoice which is $23,400 on a base. So there's your spread...about $2,000. Ask for Chris.
2) No mention made of the $1,300 Alternative Motor Vehicle Credit. This will go into the leasing company's pocket and should be kicked back to you in a reduction of purchase price. If they're already kicking that back in your deal, something else is too high.
3) Residual value on a diesel should be fairly significant. The numbers you're bouncing around tell me the residual is about the same as any other VW which is too low for a used TDI.
If you bought this outright at the dealer mentioned above...figure $23,500 plus tax say $25,000 out the door. Payment with nothing down, and a lousy interest rate for 60 months would be $495. At 36 months you owe $11,000 which is far less than what this will be worth so no problem trading out/selling at that time and be well ahead. Plus when you file your 2010 taxes you'll get a $1,300 tax credit for buying the car.
The leasing programs on the TDI are just frankly stupid. We have a VW dealership and people come in wanting to lease the TDIs every once in a while and usually they can convince them to just buy it as the leases are stupid. Every once in a while you get people that just have to lease because they don't like buying cars and they freak out about the lease payments on the car. The dealership has no control over the residual that is set by VW or the bank and on the TDI's will always be low.
Just like you said better to buy it on a 60 month term.
*) The instructions on the Power Service bottle.
*) Gauging how many gallons I will be pumping into the tank.
I keep a log of every drop of fuel ever pumped into my vehicles. My average fillup is about 12.67 gallons.
I keep a supply of 8oz paper cups in my trunk with the Power Service. I know that a full 14 gallons would need about 6oz of Power Service. I approxamate how much Power Service I will need and use the paper cup as a disposable measuring-device. Then I fill the tank with Diesel fule and make sure to use the burping button to fill it up till I see the fuel near the rim of the filler-neck.
Does this answer your question?
For example last year around this time Volvo had extra incentives if you leased certain cars that you only got if you leased them.
The Volvo S80 V8 AWD had a 4,000 dollar cash incentive for a purchase or finance but if you leased you got the 4,000 dollars and an extra 10,000 dollars on top.
You could lease a S80 V8 AWD with thousands of dollars in more standard equipment for the same lease payment as a S80 T6 AWD.
The buy out at the end of the 36 month residual was about the same as what you would owe at the 36 month mark of a 60 month finance if you put down a few thousand dollars. Plus you could star the 36 month lease with about $1,500 out of pocket. At the time there was no way to do a regular finance contract with that little out of pocket.
You say you generally put in less than 13 gallons and the specs are 6 OZ for 14 gallons, so does it make any real difference to your mpgs if you use 6 oz, 5 oz or 4 oz for your 12.67 gallons?
And inquiring minds want to know from your extensive record keeping just how much increased mpg's this Cetane additive might translate into on your TDI.
I read a post from someone who asked various oil companies what their Cetane rating was at the pumps and it varied from 50 down to 40 depending on the brand.
What do you think the optimum Cetane rating for our TDIs should be?
Buying, even if you are still making payments you have the option of trading it in wherever you want.
Additionally, if you want to get a brand new car each 2, 3 or 4 years, the lease makes sense. Also, if you buy a car, your money is tight up in the value of the car. That money, if properly invested, could bring you some return.
Car buying (owning) is one the worst investments (other than kids, to be sarcastic) - there is limited or no return on your investment.
Consumer Reports summed it up nicely along the above statements not long ago...
It's much easier to write off car lease payments, if you own a business, than figure out complicated schedule of depreciation, if you own a car.
When I had my own business, I always leased cars... nowadays, I always buy cars (I don't have a business anymore).
I would agree that in general, leases are more expensive than buying and I rarely recommend them to my clients (i'm a cpa). They also can be more confusing and as proven here many folks don't understand them and could be more likely to get overcharged. There are times when the captive finance companies and manufacturer's are offering incentives that make leasing less costly. It's getting less and less common though.
A high dollar vehicle for someone that can deduct the lease payment for business purposes, usually will work out as an ok deal if they invest the cash or payment difference. Some of the incentive deals work out to be as good or similar to conventional financing.
Your best bet is to only buy what you can afford to pay with cash and this all becomes a non-issue. But somehow everyone thinks they need to buy more car than they can afford which is truly the case with the vast majority of lease deals.
That's not quite accurate either. You're still financing the entire amount of the car but only making payments based on the residual. Assuming the same money factor/apr between leases/conventional financing....you'd pay the same interest over the same time period. Problem is, most leases have a much higher interest rate than a conventional loan partly because there is a lot more risk on the part of the bank. They are basically stuck with that residual amount and chances are quite high they will get the vehicle back so there's a potential loss. Conventional financing they only have to worry about residual/wholesale on a default.