djim

Yep, they bloody love a flimsy clip, I've mostly had VAG shite in the past and the plastics on this tailgate are the most brittle and easily broken I've come across. I've had a saved search on eBay for another tailgate trim for this for 9 months and there are none without broken clips any more it seems.

I did some more fixerating on this today, this time the inside boot trim/cover. This is it The problem is that it is held on with a bunch of little metal spring clips held in plastic mounts on the back of the panel. These locate in metal holes in the boot door but they grip far better than they need to and need a firm tug to remove, leading to the the inevitable breakage of the plastic. On mine all the top 4 clips had broken leaving it held on by just the bottom clips and flapping and rattling about when the boot is opened. My solution; rather than try and repair the brittle plastic I bought a bunch of m4 countersunk bolts and washers and I put rivnuts into the mounting slots used to locate the clips \\ then it was just a case of drilling some holes in the panel to line up with the broken clip mounts and FIXED. It is way more secure than it was before and doesn't look too bad. I might go back with a black marker and colour in the bolt heads but otherwise i'm calling it fixed. I'm off to Wales with the dog tomorrow, a 500+ mile round trip, ending with some light off-roading across a couple of fields at my parents which should be a fun test.

Smart motorways are actually a good idea not a revenue generation scheme

Righto, quick update on the latest trials and tribulations. First up, the passenger carpet was getting damp again, like really damp. I have already cleaned out the scuttle drains and I suspect that some small amount of water is getting in through the cabin air intake but while poking around i found the real culprit this is up above the footwell behind the glove box and the little bit of sponge visible is wet and was visibly dripping. turns out this is a very sensible* place to put the drain spout for the air con. Yet another common-ish problem apparently in these is that the bottom of the drain comes out under the car and if it gets blocked at the bottom it fills up and drips into the cabin instead. Taking the glove box off gets better access the spout thing on the right is the drain, conveniently running past some kind of delicate electronics in the silver box. Yep, that'll be blocked then. Good jab with various implements and all back together, hopefully the weather will warm up and dry the carpet and 2" of sponge underlay before it starts to smell too bad. The next job was the drivers window. This failed with various nasty grinding clunking noises a week or two ago and stopped going up and down, diagnosis: window regulator, another common failure on these apparently. I opted for the cheaper repair kit of cables and fittings rather than the full kit which includes sliders and is assembled, partly due to cost (£8 vs £20 or so) and partly because the full replacement needs rivets to be drilled out and replaced but I don't have a rivet gun. How hard can it be? Turns out not too bad of a job but it took me a few hours and naturally it was raining. First up the door needs to be stripped down and the the windows, runners and frame can be unbolted and removed as a whole unit. Quite a clever solution actually, once the door card is removed (2 screws and some wires) then mark up the position of the bolts and shims to make it easier to put back and it is just 4 torx bolts and a couple of minor trim bits to be separated. There are a couple of these shims, this one does the L/R angle and another the front back. Removed On the workbench/dining table with the glass already removed. The cable had snapped and bound up in the mechanism so I just cut it loose. I couldn't find any instructions on how to repair rather than replace this mechanism so I was a bit worried that I would mess it up but it mostly went together easily. The real bugger was the cable winding spindle thing. I didn't take any pictures of this part but the cable is wound around a drum and the motor turns it to wind it up and down. the repair kit came with a new drum and housing but to keep the cable tight it is spring loaded at both ends and you need 7 hands to hold it all together and a special trick to do the last wind of the cable otherwise it is not tight enough. Here it is after i wiped my actual blood off it. note the 2 springs are fully compressed, there is literally no extra slack in the system. After many false starts I found this video of a different window regulator cable being wound and it gave me the secret. the key bit is from 2 mins and the trick is to mostly wind the drum but leave enough slack to get it all together then twist the drum (2.25 in the vid) to put the last wind it and it juuuuuuuust about pops into place. I lubricated the system, replaced the glass and then it was back on to the car. No pictures because i was losing the will at that point but it went back together OK and now the window works again. Hopefully I can stay out of that front door for a while now. Next I'm getting it serviced and I need to fix the tailgate inner trim/cover and then it is rustproofing the rear subframe so that will be a fun one.

Have we had this yet? Could be a good little runaround for someone in this weather https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/375278282308?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=k1sajhigqbm&sssrc=2047675&ssuid=nHzN5iNQS9u&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

I had a bit of time last weekend so it was time to get the height sensor fixed to stop the car complaining and to get the headlight height adjustment working again. The car has height sensors on all 4 corners and they work together to let it adjust to the selected ride height and trim the height as required. This one was working kind of OK when driving locally, presumably because the pot holed roads around here are bouncy enough that the sensor is always working up and down and giving plenty of signals. The error comes up when I'm cruising on the motorway so I'm guessing the sensor had developed a worn/dead spot at its most common height so when the car is relatively stable for a while the lack of signal from the one sensor compared to the others causes the error. That is my complete guess anyway, the sensors themselves are completely sealed so there is no way to diagnose or repair, just throw a new one on. A VCDS scan showed it was the front left sensor giving spurious readings and some googling revealed the part numbers (4Z7941285 for LH and 4Z7941286 for RH fact fans) which includes the linkage. You can get the sensor by itself as it is shared across a bunch of VAG and other models but worth getting the linkage too as it will be inevitably seized. I rolled the dice and went with one from Ali-Express as they are less than half the price of getting even an eBay one here and I'm 99% sure in this case it is exactly the same thing and the quality was fine. Ease of replacement is largely down to how corroded the old fittings are. Set the height adjustment into service mode by holding both up and down buttons together and then once the wheel is off you can get easy access. It is pretty obvious that they have a hard life exposed in the wheel well. Here it is. I was fully expecting the bolts holding the sensor to snap or round but they came out after bit of a clean and were good enough to re-use. I'm surprised that the wiring for the connector is so exposed but the connector itself was clean and dry inside so I guess it is fine. Old Vs New The old sensor was very stiff compared to the new and the bottom joint was frozen solid which can't have been helping. Of course the bolts holding the fixing plate to the sensor were completely goosed. they needed a 5mm allen key which I managed to get into the head after a bit of cleaning but of course it rounded out right away. To the vice. Some saw and file action got them off. I found a couple of new bolts, cut them to length and cleaned up the bracket and then it all went together OK. I didn't take a picture of the finished article but I'm sure you get the idea, it all went together smoothly and connected up. I also expected to need to adjust the ride height with the new sensor in place but the car is perfectly happy with it as-is and no adjustment was needed. I'm quite tempted to do the other side too as it is only another £30 for a new ali-express sensor but knowing me I'd break something taking it apart so I think I'll leave it for now. I didn't mention previously but the car passed its MOT in January too with a few advisories for rear subframe rust (3rd year running) and it needs front drop links so that is now on the list too. I'll probably have the garage service it and do the droplinks at the same time as it is coming up for a fluids service and I want them to check the levels in the transmission and diff etc. The subframe rust will have to wait for better weather and a big dose of motivation from me but I'll get there.

Now that we are out of the longest month I'm also starting to get some mojo back about some of the many small jobs so here are a few from this week. First up, the rear washer stopped working again. I could hear the pump and on investigation I opened the boot and was greeted with a dribble of blue water, thankfully not finding its way into the cabin but clearly spraying around in the door. Yep, there's the problem. I struggled to get the pipe on when I replaced it but it clearly needed more to stop it flapping about so it was cable ties to the rescue and it should hold for a while now. Next up, soundz. one of the rear door speakers was buzzing away and harshing my mellow so a new second hand one was purchased and replaced. The door cards are pleasantly simple to remove on these, probably the simplest of any car I have had to work on, unlike the boot inner trim. There are no clips to break or ping off, just 2 screws at the top of the door and then a good tug upwards to lift the whole thing off and swing it away. The speaker was just 4 screw and the cable to swap over. It looked like there was nothing at all wrong with the old one although it sounded terrible, but with the new one installed, no more buzzing. WIN. Next was the front door mechanism. These, along with I think all other VAG stuff of this era have a delightful trick which is that the microswitch that senses the door being opened is built into the lock. Once this stops working, the car doesn't know the door has been opened and so tries to lock your keys and children in the car unless you either start the car or open a door where the switch does work. On my old B5 A4 I had the pleasure of coming back from a 5 mile run, tossing my keys on the drivers seat and then shutting the door, whereupon the car locked and I had to hobble another 4 miles home and then back on my bike with the spare to get them back. The front door card is a bit harder to remove because it has more stuff on it, but still the basic 2 tiny screws and a good tug to get it off, then unclip a bunch of wires and stuff. Getting the lock mechanism out is just 2 of those not-torx star head screws that VW love, some clips, and then you need about 3 tiny hands to wriggle and fiddle it out through the opening. I managed to break the bit that connects the external key lock to the mechanism so it all has to come out again when the new bit arrives but I now know exactly where I will cut my hands up so it should be easier next time. This is the microswitch that doesn't and this is the cam it rides on that activates it. some combination of wear and time just does for it and it is obviously quite a close tolerance as in the summer it fixed itself on hot days. I feel like I could have made it work by elongating the holes to move the switch slightly closer or something but a new mechanism is not expensive so on it went. Lastly, was the front headlight washer. This has 2 jets on each side and one had lost its nozzle meaning that washing the screen also gave a big jet of water 10 ft over the car. You can't get replacement nozzles, just the whole washer mechanism and full replacement is a whole under-tray off, bumper off palaver, however you can replace the jetty-bit with some careful unclipping. First up, with your favourite plastic spudger, prize open the washer flap. It is spring loaded and it is vitally important that it doesn't pop back in once you take it apart or it will be a bugger to get the mechanism out again to reassemble. I just used mole grips. Unclip the cover and then you can release the spray jet head thing which has a sort of ratchet clip holding it in on the top that can be gently lifted with a small screwdriver. the jets then just slide out. Take the new one apart in the same way and pop it in and you are good to go. So that is it for now. Next up I have a height sensor to replace as it is throwing an error code every now and then, and then it will need a fluids service in the next 1k or so but I'll save that as a treat for when the weather warms up again. Thanks for reading.

Right, time for a long update on the old girl. I had yet another problem with the air suspension in November. No leaks that I could identify and none of the shocks were losing air over night but the pump would struggle to charge up the air tank and would stop running and time out with an error on the dash. This was OK on short journeys and tended to happen at the end of longer drives, presumably when the pump got hot and was getting worse as days went by. I ran a VCDS scan and it showed a pump overheating error and given that the car now has 2x new front air shocks and a replacement valve block I self diagnosed a tired pump (even through I rebuilt the pump seals) and fired the parts cannon at a replacement pump for around £120 from the ebay. I fitted it in a fun* evening on the drive at llpm to my neighbours delight, and there are no pictures because it was fairly unpleasant work lying on my back with a head torch trying not to drop a heavy pump on my face while being showered with rust and crap. (and it was windy, it is ALWAYS windy whenever I'm under a car, it can be calm as you like until I crawl upder and then it is a blizard of leaves and dust swirling around, does anyone else find this or have I angered the wind gods somehow?) The good news is that cured the problem and made a noticeable improvement to height adjustments if I make them so I'm pleased with how it worked out. Next up, I started getting a damp passenger footwell so I went looking for leaks, and cleared a load of crap out from around the engine bay and under the battery. There was water there but not enough to cause an issue I don't think, but it is definitely draining now. My daughter later confessed to spilling her water bottle in the car so it may have been a false alarm but I'm feeling better that it is done. As it was winter and I really couldn't be arsed to be out dealing with it in the cold and thankfully it has largely worked as hoped, hauling things, bouncing over potholes and on one occasion fording a flooded road. After a rocky start I'm really pleased with it.

Hi Dave, thanks for the info, there look to be a load of useful docs there, I'm also a cool dude who loves reading a good manual so the vag-hub could be a gold mine. Probably won't tell my lady friend that is where I'm getting my reading material these days though. The old bus is doing fine thanks, I started drafting a post the other week but bored myself into submission. Basically since the garage fixed it it has been working fine and has hauled the fam around without too many issues. The snag list includes such delights as replacing the headliner (a 4+ hour job apparently if you can find one) and replacing the drivers door lock mechanism, or at least fixing it so that it recognises when the door is open and doesn't try and lock me out with the keys inside. Classic VAG fair really but I'm starting to enjoy it again and it handles the crappy roads and potholes much better than my last car.

Thanks, yes looking back now I went down a bit of a rabbit hole and spent nearly as much on dongles and harnesses as I spent on the head unit, whereas a better Bluetooth adaptor would probably have done the job 99% as well. I think I’ve been lucky so far as the dongles I’ve bought (for a Passat, A4 and Seat EXEO respectively) have just worked. Anyway I’m quite pleased with it and my 10yo thinks it is ‘very cool’ so I’ll take that as a win!

Sounds interesting, do you have any more info? I think i saw something like this on eBay but i can't find it now.

OK, another tick in the Win column for the Al Weird, I've successfully updated the stereo! It was a right old to do and my partner and kids have made it very clear they don't want to hear about it so Im going to share the tedious tale here. The car came with a double-din symphony with cd and tape but as all I really do these days is play music and podcasts off my phone I needed a way to do that. I got a bluetooth dongle that pretends to be a CD changer but I couldn't get the symphony to recognise it. This might have been possible with VCDS to tell it that there was a CD changer in the boot but I couldn't figure it out / it wouldn't work. Around that time one of the fine shitters of this parish offered up a sony head unit with apple carplay for a good price so i got that and then started to find out what was required to fit it. Iv'e fitted a few stereos in the past but that was in the 90's and mainly involved joining a bunch of wires together with bullet connectors to an inadvisable homemade mdf bass box so I was hoping it would be a lot more straightforward and I could just buy a patch cable, and that was mostly the case. Because the Audi has a Bose sound system I needed to get a special one to work with the amp, and then I also decided it would be nice if my steering wheel controls also worked so I found a Connects2 box that can be configured to work with the stereo to do this too, along with various other gubbins, fascia replacements, phone cable etc. I pulled out the old symphony, and connected everything up. it took a while as I needed to route the microphone so I could use the new unit to make calls and I also 'modded' the ashtray by removing the pop up lighter socket so it would be a place to keep the phone cable when not in use. Wired it all up and it worked but something was clearly not right, the speakers would all POP loudly whenever I did anything, change channel, change track, adjust a setting. It was painful to hear and I was worried I would blow a speaker. Back on the internet on various forums this seems to be a common issue. the Bose amp is quite tightly tied in to the OEM stereo and just feeding it the raw line level inputs was upsetting it without the head unit doing whatever it does to manage the situation. There is a lot of very mixed advice about different things people have tried with their different setups, get a different harness, run the speaker output from the head unit through a separate conversion to line level rather than use the built in line outputs, replace all grounds, ground the wires better, pull the whole lot out and replace with a complete new system, but in the end I loaded the parts cannon at another dongle. This one is a filter that is designed to remove ground loop interference and it takes line level input and sanitises it before it goes to the amp. The result, success! The harness now looks like this. This rats nest includes 2 sizeable boxes and about a mile of various cables but thankfully the head unit is single din size so much of it can go below in the bottom half of the double-din slot. Without that there is no way it would fit. Winner! so far it mostly works apart from the DAB radio which doesn't because my arial is shit so that is next on the list, and also I need to update the firmware of the head unit because we live in the future and everything needs regular updates it seems. I think I'm starting to get my mojo back with this car, hopefully i can get a few more bits done before winter sets in and working on the drive becomes untenable.

So, it has been a while since I've done an update on the wagon of all woe(d). After the broken pinch bolt situation I had a few goes at it over a couple of weeks to get it out and failed completely. At the same time it was pretty hot and the roof liner dropped completely and the rear boot interior lights also stopped working. At that point I lost my mojo with it and left it parked up while the summer holidays happened, we went on holiday, and generally didn't spend time under a wheel arch hitting things with hammers. Eventually I dropped it off at my local garage and they did it with real tools by getting a proper torch on it along with an air chisel so it is now back up and running. 2 hours labour including fitting a new engine snub nose mount I asked them to do. Look after your professionals kids. I'm now driving it daily again and starting to get back in to the swing of things but I needed a quick win. Enter the great lads of Aliexpress who sent me a pack of stickers which enabled me to change this Into this The sticker was wrong for the arrow swooping round an A button so I left that but I'm not sure what it is anyway. (re-circ but with aircon? but I'm pretty sure the top re-circ button keeps aircon on. anyway I'm to lazy to look it up). I'm quite pleased with it and it looks good in the car, perhaps this will become a keeper after all. I'm also trying to install a double din Carplay headset which is thwarting me at every turn because bose but I'm making progress. if the parts arrive it should be fixed tomorrow and I'll show you the horrendous chain of bulky dongles required to make it happen. It sounds really good already but is also horribly flawed so a mixed bag 🤣

No problem, I can't seem to embed a zip here so I'll DM you rather than a wall of PDFs and jpegs. If anyone else wants the info let me know. I sold it to a guy who collection missioned down from Manchester to Brighton and drove it back, must have been in 2010 or so. It is currently SORN but was on the road in 2021. There are a few pictures of it floating around online in various stages of pineapple, here is what it looked like when I had it.

I realise that it might not be around for long or required but I've just uncovered a bunch of useful Mexibug docs I have saved, including Wiring diagrams, service schedule, adjusting the (hydraulic) tappets, Digifant ECU and 1600i engine spec, parts cross ref with other VAG etc. etc. Let me know if is of interest to anyone and I'll post it all up.

It's a strong look (on the way to Cornwall in my mexibug in 2006, Dartmoor I think)

This is a fun watch if you think you might want to give it a little more pep😁

Your TVR is the absolute hotness.

Mine has been mostly fine, I've not had a chance to do much recently apart from drive it but I took it to Cambridge and back yesterday to drop the kids off with their grandparents and this afternoon it had the dreaded sag, this time on the passenger side. I've been meaning to replace this shock anyway and now with the kids away for a few days, tonight seemed like the perfect time. Wheel off and time to attack the dreaded pinch bolt. I was fairly confident this time round after doing the other side. I've watched about 20 Youtube vids of different techniques for removing it, and learned that the uprights on this are the older steel versions not the alu ones with really stick. Also, I've been spraying it with WD40 every week or so which I hoped would do something. Not looking too gnarly. This airbag looks better than the other side did too but it is getting replaced anyway. Step 1, loosen it off and then pound on it from various angles in the hope of getting it to move. No dice obvs. Step 2 then. My plan was to snap off the bolt head, same as on the other side and then use the threaded part and some spacers to draw it through. Once it became clear it wasn't going to turn or move the bolt head came off OK and I put some spacers in and started winding the bolt on. Initially it started to move and I kept banging the other end for good measure and spraying it with lubricant. Then bang, fucked. The nut end of the bolt snapped off leaving nothing to get purchase on. Now I'm pretty sure it was moving, and I don't think I was really going for it so I have to assume the the bolt was made out of cheese. I'm not a 9st weakling but I'm hardly Geoff Capes either and I was only using a 16mm halfords ring spanner with no extra leverage so I am quite surprised that it was enough to snap the bolt from the tension. Anyway, after that I half heartedly hit it with a hammer for a bit and gave up in disgust so now I've effectively immobilised it on the drive until I can figure out how to sort this. Various options really. 1- keep lubing it and smashing it with bigger hammers until something hopefully gives. 2- get it recovered to the garage and let a real mechanic have a go with an air hammer, though if that doesn't work, unless they have a special tool to press it out it might need to be drilled I think. I'll probably be looking at new top arms too at that point and possibly a replacement upright/knuckle thing. 3 - buy something like this at great expense in the hope that I can sell it on for not too much of a loss after so some other poor VAG owner. What fun, if anyone else has any suggestions I'm all ears. Still, once this is done that only leaves the rear shocks and it will basically have all new air suspension so we will get there in the end.

No need to apologise @richdcoll, keep em coming, yours looks very smart in green and I love the recaro's, were they an option on the Allroad do you know or are they out of an S6? The steering wheel suits it as well.

That sucks, not too spendy to get a replacement I hope?

Well I know we like to celebrate the mundane on here so here is an extremely dull update. After sorting the rear washer last week I still wasn't happy with it so I checked the spray nozzle for blockage and it looks to me like the jet itself is tiny. New one ordered from eBay with what looked to be a bigger jet (actually I ordered 2 as the first one I managed to break in a ham fisted way when fitting it moments after it arrived.) old on the left, new on the right. You can just about see past the blurriness that the old one is definitely a smaller jet. Fitted it and now the rear window gets a good soaking when required. I've been putting off the other bigger jobs due to time constraints (driver door lock, headliner droop, left air shock replacement, new radio) but I'm pleased to report that things have otherwise been working fine and it has been coping well with 300 or so miles per week and returning an (indicated) 36 mpgs in mixed rural driving which I'm happy with. Also worth noting that my partner and eldest have decided they prefer my other car (Seat EXEO) because it has heated seats and auto folding wing mirrors so there you go, it is all about priorities I guess.

Yes! With 2 Allroads you can be winning all day, even when one is being difficult! Seriously, that sounds like a proper bargain, looking forward to seeing it, you should definitely start a thread. Is the interior green too? 5 or 6 years ago I had the lust for a v8 auto allroad C5 that was for sale near me, met green with full green leather interior. I ended up getting an outback but I still feel like that was one that got away.

A minor update this week but I've managed to do a few bits to the old heap to try and keep on top of things. The old aerial looked mank so a new stubby one was procured. to That's got to be at least 2 more HP's right there. New cabin filter. The old one weighed significantly more than the new, I think it has had a good innings. Finally a new rear washer hose No other pictures as it was raining and I was in a hurry. That was a delight to install as I broke 2 more of the remaining clips on the boot trim. I'm still on the lookout for a replacement but given how flimsy this one is I have to assume that getting one that doesn't have broken clips will be basically impossible now they are all 20 years old. On a positive note I've now run a couple of tanks of redex diesel system cleaner through it and whether it is that, doing some decent miles, or just in my head, the engine feels smoother and pulls harder now. Next up, headliner I think as the kids keep poking at it.

Well that didn't last long. Since the other day the headliner has dropped across the front drivers quarter of the car, if that makes sense, and the rear washer, always a bit feeble, now fills the tailgate with water rather than spraying on the window. Frankly it needs to sort its attitude out.