so i got in a minor wreck this morning. nothing terrible. their fault, but i didnt have the time or patience to wait on insurance, so i went about fixing the damage myself. it was all contained to the passenger rear wheel. the lower trainling arm and spindle bar both took a @!#$ and were bent well beyond repair. anyway, so first off these parts are a pain to find, but that's not the point to the story. i get off work at 3:30, takes me until 6:30 to get the car in the air, wheel off, and decide what parts i need, then get the parts. get home, start into the mess. pull the lower trailing arm off the hub assembly to find that, surprise! you cant unbolt it off the body without pulling the bracket off! the bolt goes straight into a body panel. so, take the bracket off, problem solved. next up, the spindle bar. start to pull the longass bolt outta that, and find there's a brake line in the way! bend that out of the way, done deal. easy movin... then on to the part of the spindle bar that's attatched to the crossmember. first off, the nut is INSIDE the crossmember, the bar is bolted into a curl in the member (haha, curl in the member) and the bolt has to come out... ON THE GASTANK SIDE. what manufacturer in their right mind would make it so you have to drop the tank to get the spindle rod off!!! anyway, we ended up dropping the crossmember and removing it that way. all in all, took us about two hours. but still, who would design a car so you have to take EVERYTHING apart just to replace two parts? i know, i know, it's not THAT bad... but it's been a LONG day and i needed to vent.

will post pictures later, photobucket doesnt like me tonight


Andy

it's not how fast you go, it's how you get there that counts.
ZZP XP cam, 1.6 rockers, 105# springs, speedbuilt FWI, 3.3" modular pulley, TOG headers,
3" exhaust, flomatched injectors
'97 GTP 14.06@100.6mph pre cam w/ 3.5" pulley, I/E

all I have to say is trying fixing VW's day in and day out.... you wanna talk about design flaws LOL

I think darkstars has ya there, I worked on my buddies golf before......kinda dampened my dreams of a jetta lol.

or try working on your average late model ford

Try working on a V6 Tiburon.. Not as bad but it's so dam cramped.. When I changed my plug wires I had to pull my upper IM off.. Ya it had 3 bolts on the back side of it right up against the firewall. You had to have the hands of a 3 year to even fit back there to get them. Plus you had to use a wrench at a point because it was so tight a socket wrench wouldn't work.



Had to change sig because some dickhead is mad it went 1 letter over size

Laffs99GT wrote:I think darkstars has ya there, I worked on my buddies golf before......kinda dampened my dreams of a jetta lol.

Golfs are the easiest VW's out there. Ok heres a few examples.... Passat W8, you have to pull the intake manifold for spark plugs, Touregs, some passats and phaetons you have to remove th entire engine to change a cat, beetle convertables have a belly pan with 16 bolts in 3 different sizes, you have to remove it even to change the oil, on a 1.8T passat you need to remove the coolant bottle to get the oil filter out, thats the only way to do it without making a huge mess with the oil, and if you do make a mess theres a hole the size of a quarter cut out of the top of the sub frame so any oil that drips goes right into the sub frame and slowly drips out at random times for the next month or so. The older Jettas you used to have the pull the door panel off and you had access to everything inside the door, touregs and the new jettas and stuff you have to remove the door panel AND the actual outer door skin itself. Half the cars you don't have room to do anything in front of the engine so rather then making things accessable you pull the front bumper off and the front clip seperates from the fender area so you can slide the whole front forward a couple inches.


heres a good one....... try doing ANYTHING on this.....
















thats it for now

Holy crap what engine does that go in?

It comes in the Phaeton.

I've been slowly learning the joys of working a on a volkswagen, like the other day trying to do my front coilovers without the spindle spreader tool. That was a FUN experience.

only vw ive ever worked on (not this specific one, but the same thing)

93 old cutlass convertible with the 3.4 DOHC that thing was a b*tch

91 toyota mr2 alternator. you have to remove the whole rear suspension. lower engine mounts and cross member just to get damn thing out.

1992 Corvette. Had to remove the intake manifold to take out the battery. Insane.

I think some manufacturers just do it on purpose. It's the only explanation.

a late 80's astro...everything is a pain

try to take the starter off of my bird... we broke a socket... (it was the schools tho) almost twisted the breaker bar...

you know why they do it? there are two reasons:

1 - ease of assembly on the manufacturing line. the more cars they can slap together in a given amount of time, the more money they make

2 - so you have to take your car in to the dealership to get serviced. the more people they bring in for work, the more money they make