Any TDI owners here?

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1

Anyone have a VW TDI? I have a 2002 Jetta TDI and love it. Getting between 40 and 50 mpg and over 600 miles per tank is awesome. Hopefully after the gas stations switch to summer diesel I will be getting into the 50s. Before winter I had a mild tune done and adjusted the timing, so my fuel economy should have gone up. But it went down during the winter because of the winter blend diesel.

I know VW has been in the news a lot lately regarding the whole emissions cheating stuff, but I don’t really care about all that. In fact, I removed the EGR from my car completely. From a technical standpoint, having an EGR on a diesel engine is a terrible idea. Recirculating the dirty, sooty exhaust gases back into the engine is just plain wrong. I had to remove and clean the intake on my car. Seriously, go look up “TDI clogged intake” and witness the horror.

Anyway, if you commute a lot and want a car that gets good fuel economy, seriously consider a TDI. They may require a bit more maintenance and care, but in my opinion they are well worth it in the long run.

Anyone else have and like TDIs? What have you guys done to yours?

2

My dad had a Skoda Tdi in the past.
The engine itself was decent, allthough the egr was indeed a known issue.
Also the rest of the car was not that great.
Well known VAG problem, with the electric windows falling down etc.

3

I have an 06 Jetta TDI and it is a mechanical nightmare that I can't wait to unload. My future car purchases will only be from Toyota, Mazda, or Honda.

4

There's a really great TDI community that has an excellent list of known problems for a few of the generations, so it's pretty easy to do some preventative maintenance to get ahead of most problems. Also gives you everything you need to fix pretty much anything that goes wrong.

The previous owner of my car didn't take very good care of it, but using the guides I have been able to completely refresh the suspension and do a few minor engine repairs. When I get some spare cash I have to hunt down a few oil leaks.

But the way I see it is it's a mechanical object, it can't be perfect. It can't last forever. When I did the suspension refresh the car had 205k miles on it. Every single part I replaced was original from the factory, never replaced. I think getting 200k out of original parts is pretty good. The engine is starting to show some wear, so that's the next step. But now I am at 210k, and most cars would need some love at that mileage too.

@ninerdelta
Yeah, everything I have heard is that mk5 and up aren't very good. Mk4 is basically bulletproof, as long as you take care of it.

5

I agree that some the Tdi´s are decent engines, especialy the ones from lets say 1998 till 2000.
There are a couple of Fases made, and some had their problems.

My dad currently drives Mercedes patrol.
But the Skoda was a 1.9Tdi 90HP from 2003 if remember right.
We did not realy had major issues with the engine it self.
Just a EGR clean but that was about it.
Of course the 90HP Tdi isnt that fancy but yeah, pretty bullet proof.

Also yes. ☺

6

Yeah, I got the 1.9L ALH. I think they were made from 1999 to 2003-2004ish.

Great, peppy little engine. Lots of people getting over 500k miles out of them.

It's too bad the newer TDIs aren't as good, because I like the body styles. My sister has a 2006 gasser and it looks nice.

7

Yeah the main reason that the newer tdi´s were not that great is probably because all the emission laws and stuff.
In 2005 in the golf mkV they replaced the 1.9Tdi with a 2.0Tdi, and that thing seem'd to had allot of issues.

In 2008 VAG abandoned the pumpe duse ( not sure if thats correct translation)
They now use commonrail.
But the VAG commonrails are not as good as Fiat groups JTD or Mercedes CDI,
who are allready working with commonrail technology since the late 90´s.

8

I'm on my second 2000 Jetta TDI. Had to get another after the first was rear ended.

The ALH engine is nigh bulletproof.

There's actually two good forums for TDI owners (TDIclub, and myturbodiesel), and many more general VW based info at VW vortex.

I'm probably due for a partial suspension refresh. Some work was done, changing some of the bushings front and rear, ball joints etc. But the front struts look like they are getting tired after 16 years, and the rubber mounts for those up above have probably been squished down a might bit.

My intake I haven't checked on recently, but the EGR is bypassed on this one. Cleaning it out when it does have the stock EGR, and then not babying the engine at low revs for months goes a way to preventing buildup. For the most part, that issue with the EGR was only in the earlier years of your car's life, because the Ultra low sulfur diesel (ULSD) switch happened in North America about a decade ago, and put the fuel to the same specs that Europe had when the car was designed and introduced.

One issue to mind, as I'd had to change it on both TDIs -- mind your steering rack. If the power steering pump squeals at all, get the proper, expensive fluid and top it up... if it repeats and you see leaks near either bellow on the steering rack, you have a new rack to swap in on the horizon. The earlier the better, or like any power steering failure on any car, you risk causing damage to the pump as well.

This second TDI of mine, didn't shift as well as the first, and at the end of last month, I've lost 5th gear. I thought it was a shifter issue, and tried adjusting and repairing... but it's actually bits in the transmission to service.

Having the bottom engine cover and side skirts keeps the engine cleaner. If you're missing yours, the stock sideskirts are easy enough to get again, but the cover is better replaced with a metal skidplate. The oil pans on that generation of TDI are cast aluminum, and the 1.9L engine sits about an inch lower than the gasoline engines do. (This why both the skidplate and having refreshed front suspension bits are important - to keep that oil pan from scraping or striking)

Most of my fixes to the car have been sorta-kinda returning the car more to stock condition. Or substituting other model parts in (mostly for the interior). I'm lucky, in a way, because Canada had the Mk4 carried over as the City Jetta until 2009, so I've managed to swap parts in from 6-8 year newer cars than mine.

Work done:
* Replaced carpet with a 2006 City Jetta. The pegs for the stock mats changed, but you can get replacement clips for the mats to match.
* Swapped out Wolfsburg seats, front and back, to get rid of the mismatched set of seats the previous owner had in place. Seats in the Mk4s are all interchangable.
* Added a "tuning" box that affects fueling - it's a glorified Evry mod. But it gives lots of pep to the car... at the cost of some city mileage.
* Replaced the stolen aftermarket blingy-ricey radio installed by the previous owner with a Blaupunkt unit, that has the same ISO plugs as the early model Mk4s, so there was no rewiring mess to do while we were in the midst moving appartments!
* Found the Blaupunkt too blingy, the lighting does not match the rest of the car well enough, and I slowly acquired a stock stereo and CD player (early Mk4s had them as two single-DIN units).
* Learned to disassemble seats in the living room, to my wife's chagrin, and added lumbar support from a set of leather seats to my Wolfsburg seats. The seats are universal for parts, so any thing another seat has can be hobbled into yours. Reskinning seats, as well, is relatively easy, but some tools are required.
* Changed the back half of the center console to a late model year Mk4 console, that has cupholders beside the parking brake, instead of hanging cups above the shifter and stereo.
* Bought a cheap leather jacket, and learnt to sew my own gaiter and shift knob out of leather, to replace a very tired and smelling-of-cigars one I pilfered from a wrecked Turbo Beetle.
* Swapped out the stock 4 spoke, buttonless steering wheel for a... Mk6 Jetta's buttonless 3 spoke steering wheel. Just to be different.

I've got to get some delayed because of winter maintenance out of the way.
* Replace trim from sound deadening work, which was semi-successful (IMO, refreshing the suspension should be done first)
* Test, acquire tools, and refresh the throw out bearing on a transmission I picked up to replace mine. Got it cheap, but it engages all gears properly, and is filthy.
* Replace the missing bottom engine cover with an aluminum skidplate that was already purchased

Less critical, but interior work still needs doing.
* Fix the heated Wolfsburg seats I put into the car, in case I actually experience a COLD winter.
* R&R Headliner, recovering it while it's out. Haven't decided on what material and what colour to go with, so that's waiting for warm weather and a fabric purchase.
* Will probably make a leather cover for the rim of my steering wheel, because "black" Interior parts in the Mk6 are not the same shade of black in the Mk4.
* May consider re-upholstering the A/B/C pillar trim, after I decide on the headliner.
* Timing belt change is on the horizon. I have 295,000 km on my car, last belt was changed at 220,000 km. This was two owners ago, so I do not know if they used the original belt kit the last change, or the higher mileage 100k miles/160k km belt kit that the 2002 and up models had stock.

More research/testing/parts required to...
* Hard-wire my dash cam, so it has a dedicated USB plug.
* Splice in a second 12V cigarette lighter plug off the center console
* Change out LEDs on the interior (minus the door lock light, it's molded into the trim). I was contemplating a switch from red to blue, but it's SO hard to match the blue on the instrument cluster to get the right intensity and shade. Probably going to opt for white LEDs. Need to sort out proper resistors for the LEDs so I don't have 7 levels of brightness from the various switches and backlights.
* Change out LEDs on the instrument cluster. Still have to buy the surface mount PLCC-2 LEDs for this. Changing out the blue for another colour (white?) requires about 22-25 LEDs to be swapped.
* See if during the LED swap, I can dim the WAY too bright high-beam indicator light, so it's less bright and won't wreck my night vision while driving.
* Want to persue making a small carputer as CD "changer" with the OEM stereo, so that I have the ability to play mp3 or FLAC files instead of burning audio CDs like it's ... 2000 again. Others have made code for this, have some parts and both an Arduino and a RasPi that reserved for this project. Need time to investigate code and how to interface with the car.

And... there's future projects, for when I have a house, and am free to use a garage bay as a shop.

Looking forward to gearing up for the transmission swap. Without 5th, driving on the highway will be both more costly, and much louder. And with the tools I need for the swap, I'll be well prepared for the next timing belt change.

9

Wow, you have a lot of good ideas I might use. I frequent TDIclub very often, tons of good info. Same for myturbodiesel.

I really need a belly pan on my car. And side skirts. It had the plastic side skirts when I got it, but no bottom cover. I am saving up to get one of the really nice, full coverage full protection skid plates. Not sure which one I will get, though. There are a few out there.

Never had problems with steering. Like I said, though, I do have a few oil leaks that I will have to track down when it's warmer out. I will be thoroughly cleaning the entire engine and bay, so I will be able to see everything. I will check the steering then as well.

I have the auto transmission, and I am noticing it having some mild shifting issues. Nothing terrible yet, but I have read that they go bad fast and hard. I will have to save up for a manual swap. When I bought the car I tried driving a manual (for about an hour with my brother-in-law) and just couldn't do it.

I also want to keep my car as stock as possible. Apart from some very mild mods to the engine, I don't plan on anything too extreme. My brother-in-law, however, wants to get a TDI to see how much power he can get out of one. I got mine because I thought it was going to be economical, and so far it has been.

Here's everything I have fixed or modified on my car in the year and a half I have owned it:
-replaced glow plugs and coolant sensor
-cleaned pedal assembly contacts (had a code for TPS sensor)
-installed coolant heater (frostheater or zerostart)
-replace starter (twice in a week)
-replaced fuel filter, cleaned with Diesel Purge
-replaced small outer lower grille inserts
-exhaust broke just before catalytic converter, removed everything from downpipe back (very loud, drove like that for a few months)
-replaced driver door lock/window control switch module
-replaced cabin filter
-replace driver door postion switch in lock module
-replaced stock 15 inch wheels with 17 inch Long Beach wheels, bought four new Kelly Edge All Season tires
-major suspension refresh: swaybar endlinks and bushings, all four springs, rear shocks, front shocks/struts, shock and strut mounts/bearings, lower control arm bushings, ball joints, outer tie rod ends
-wiper blades
-glow plug harness
-EGR and EGR cooler delete, clean intake and intercooler
-malone eco tune, delete EGR from computer, adjust timing
-add triple cigarette plug under steering wheel, turned on and off with ignition
-install komfortblinker
-install oil pan heater pad
-attempt to fix heated seats, driver seat element burned out, passenger control module broken
-add short length of exhaust pipe and turn down so exhaust dumps center of car, before rear wheels

I need to do the timing belt. I had the timing adjusted just to help with starting and running in the winter. Sometime this spring or summer the belt needs to be changed.

10

My two jettas were the only manual cars I had. I can't say I was or a perfect with a manual, but the TDI engine with lots of torque on hand low makes it a more forgiving car to learn on than say... my friend's Accord that he tried to teach me on two years prior to the first Jetta.

If you're living in an area where you need the frostheater/zerostart coolant recirculator, I'd advise against clearing out all the EGR cooler components in behind the engine. The current TDI does have a physical EGR delete (and codes keep popping up because it's only physical, not deleted in the ECU), but does retain the air (exhaust) to water heat exchanger. If needs be, I'll have to get to taking pictures and check out how it routes. But this second car had far, far superior heating in the cabin than my first did after I toyed with it.

The first Jetta, when I did the 2nd of 3 timing belts it had while I owned it, I bought a Dieselgeek EGR cooler delete kit, to bypass and remove that air-water heat exchanger... and that left the cabin in the first of my Jettas a LOT colder in winter. It's possible, with fuzzy memories and not having the car here, that I didn't route the coolant hoses that went to the heater core in the cabin properly in that car, too.

tl;dr: Hopefully you can get roasty hot air from your heater core after you attempted the EGR cooler delete, otherwise you may want to consider reinstalling the cooler.

And ugh... heated seats, I'm having issues with too. Part of the reason I added lumbar support, was to disassemble other seats to find good pads/parts to swap into mine, and help diagnose the no-heat issue.
I've been avoiding buying a new heated seat control module to test with, because the other parts are cheaper to fix, since anything in the circuit that's faulty is enough to prevent the heated seats from working.

The driver's side, no heat because... either the heater control is pooched, or the thermistor sensor in the back of the heated seat pad has burned out. I have thermistors now, so I need to do another weekend disassembly and solder/sew job.

In this case, the thermistor is really suspect, because I can jumper the heater control connector at pins 2 and 5, and low and behold, I get that heated seat to roast my behind. (It's also a great way to drain your battery, so don't jumper that control and leave the car sitting for most of the day)

The passenger's side seat, the heated seat pad on the seat back is burnt, so it's resistance is too high. It's also possible the heater control in the dash there isn't working, as well.

From the other seats I've disassembled for discovery and parts, I have separated out a working heated seat pad (tested with the jumpered pins above), but it will need to be sewn n after I un-stitch the passenger side seat. The pad is sewn into the seams on a cloth seat. The good thing is, the part number for the pads are identical for all the seats they ft into Mk4 volkswagens (and the B5/5.5 Passats) If you're handy with a sewing machine, an inexpensive repair can be had.

The good thing about a timing belt coming up: The tool you need to hold the engine up for the timing belt change should also work for supporting the engine while you swap transmissions. Since I'm due to change or fix a transmission, I'll buy an engine support bar for that, which will double as support for the engine when the timing belt is changed. And, when you're nearng the timing belt change -- double check you've got the parts for a 100k mile timing belt, not the early model 60 mile kit. And, consider getting a proper copy of VCDS, so you can check your fuelling/timing for the diesel pump. You can time it roughly without, but mileage may suffer a bit.

11

Yeah, I don't know what it was about the manual. I have very little experience with manuals, so for me it was understandable that it was difficult for me to do it. But my brother-in-law has a lot of experience and he was having one hell of a time getting the hang of it. He said it was the weirdest, hardest manual he had ever used. By the end of us trying the clutch was starting to burn so we gave up.

When I did my EGR and EGR cooler delete I got this short hose that goes from under the vacuum pump right into the firewall. With the cooler in place it was between those two points. I have not had any problems with cabin heat all winter. I'm in west-central Wisconsin, so yes we do get some pretty nasty, cold, snowy winters. I suppose it wouldn't really hurt anything to leave the cooler in place. To me, though, it served no purpose anymore, so I just took it out and bypassed it.

I am not sure if I will be doing the timing belt myself. I might, but I'm not sure. I live pretty close to a TDI shop that has tons of experience with everything TDI related, as well as VCDS. I've used them for a few things and they've been really good to me. One of the guys there even offered to do the timing belt job at his house (off the books sort of) for a bunch less than the shop charges.

I don't know what I am going to do with the seats. A part of me would like heated seats, but another part of me hates the light tan color the entire interior is. Everything looks so dirty and gross. I think my plan might be to get dark seats and interior parts to swap out all the tan stuff with. Plus winter's pretty much done, so I won't need heated seats for a while now.

I was also looking at making some kind of computer with an in dash display, but I have been having a hard time finding a good screen that fits right. The other day I realized that I might be able to use a replacement tablet display (maybe an ipad, maybe some 9 or 10 inch class tablet) and use an LVDS converter to be able to use HDMI with it. I just have to find a display that I can verify uses an LVDS interface. Then I have to figure out a way to convert the touch interface to USB, which may be pretty hard. If I decided not to have the touchscreen I could probably use a replacement screen from a small laptop or netbook with the LVDS converter. But I really want touchscreen, so I would have to figure that out if I wanted to do it.

12

i would recommend to let the shop do the timing belt change.
It shouldnt be that expensive.

Are you having plans to chiptune it?

13

I think they wanted about a thousand dollars to do the timing belt change. If I bought the parts and did it myself it would be about half that, maybe a bit more. The guy at the shop who offered to do it on the side said he'd do it for about 800. The car has almost 210k on it, so I would want to do the high-mileage timing belt kit that also replaces a bunch of other stuff at the same time, which increases the cost even more.

I've only done a Malone Eco Tune. I don't know if I will be going much past that. Maybe a stage one later on, but I am not really looking for more power, just more economy.

14

Hmm thats a bit expensive for a timing belt change.

15

I've checked around a bit, and that's pretty much the going rate for timing belt changes. Between 800 and 1200. At least in my area.

If I bought the high-mileage timing belt kit with all the "recommended" parts and pieces it comes out to about 600. I've been using idparts.com almost exclusively for all my parts.

16

Belt, spanners and waterpump.
Those parts are pretty expensive over there then.

A relative recently changed their timing belt including spanners and waterpump for arround €500,- on a Skoda octavia tdi.
But that was included parts and labour.
But yeah we live in Europe.

17

$800-$1200...That's a sane price for a timing belt done by a shop. You're lucky, in that you have a trusted/competent shop to rely on close by. I'm going to ramble over my timing belt experience, but given you have the advantage of a shop to rely on, don't fret if you don't want to jump in and try that fix yourself this time around.

In comparison, when I did the timing belt myself, I had access to my father's garage, with an engine hoist to support the car, and access to one of my parents' vehicles if I had to run to get other things.
Moving away, I had a smaller tool set, not always a good place to work on the car, and had various bad to very bad experiences with shops that supposedly specialize in VWs here in Edmonton, Alberta, and have since been leery of trying a third one. Oh, let me correct that - the one good shop was the corner mechanic near my house that fixed the one shop's problems. So, one in three good, spending over $2,000 each visit.

Doing it yourself isn't terribly hard, I found the one step that was tricky, was ensuring the injection pump was locked in position properly. I had changed out the cylinder head on the previous car before this (a 4 cylinder Ford Tempo), so I'd done sorta-kinda similar engine work. I also read copiously, settling on using mainly the myturbodiesel.com timing belt guide (which requires you to sign up for the site, so you can see the continuation of the process from the wiki, onto their forum).

Don't worry if you balk at trying to do the belt yourself. It's not an impossible job, but it's an interference fit engine, so if it's not done following steps properly, pistons can hit valves (or, vice versa), which means a non-running engine with more work and downtime.

I did scare myself, at one point, because I didn't have that injection pump locked properly, so it was mis-timed, 2 or 3 teeth off, and I could crank the engine, but couldn't start it, and had to recheck everything. I spent a whole weekend, two days, to do the timing belt, solo, with lots of runs back to the computer for more research, printing out the guides, etc. I had the time, and certainly didn't want to rush and have a bad result. An experienced mechanic, used to the job, it'll take 2-3 hours of their time start to finish -- a morning, an afternoon.

18

Re: Your seats. If they're tan cloth... I can understand why you'd want to swap out. Unless you're a neat freak, keeping up that light interior is hard. I saw one at the wrecking yard the past weekend, and... even the light grey seats are better than the tan. Just go for dark seats that have working heating pads. It's a simple swap, and as long as you don't turn the key on while the seats are unplugged, you won't have an airbag light to reset.

Just ONE Caveat about seats to mind: The airbag connectors changed from early to late, and 2002 is the year they changed... possibly mid-year. So, before you commit to new-to-you seats, ensure your connectors are the same. Or you'll have to craft up adapters, like I did for my 2000.

The upside of an interior swap - if you're careful with swapping out the other tan interior bits, swapping out everything can be done bit by bit. Seats and most trim parts, less the console, are fairly easy to swap out piecewise.
And if the trim and the rest is in reasonably good shape, or you're willing to clean them up ... there are strange people that like the beige interior, and would buy up trim and/or door cards and/or seats and/or carpet to fix or swap into their own.
Keep this in mind for the pillar trim and your headliner, if they're beige as well.

To be thorough... to get the carpet out, you need to remove a LOT of the lower interior. Technically, you have to remove the dash for carpet removal/replacement, because the metal center brace bolts to the shift tunnel. You can remove all of that... or, use a carpet knife/sharp boxcutter to cut the one piece of carpet hidden behind that brace, which the ABS module sits overtop, and is surrounded by trim on the driver's side and in front by the console.

Just be forewarned, even though removing the carpet is straight forward... you might end up seeing that the factory sound deadening mats are not adhering to the floorboards, or you'll notice that a plug might not be in place anymore.
Or you'll find that like I did, in my car, and decide to spend some time without the carpet in, to remove sound deadening and replace it, and add a bit more ... and ...

Well, if you go down that rabbit hole, you'll be a pro at removing and replacing seats, and remember that the winter rubber mats won't slide around on the bare floorboards like the carpet mats do. :)

Re: the manual transmisson. My prior experience was on a 1952 Ford tractor when I was ten, and a 2005 Honda Accord. I can't remember if the Accord's clutch was nice or not, all I can remember is that it needed you to rev to 2,500 rpm or so to ease off the clutch and into gear, so I stalled countless times. I fared worse with the tractor, no fault of it's own. My dad wasn't a patient teacher. Ultimately it was my mom who helped me, and she herself doesn't know how to drive a manual. She did teach me to use an electric sewing machine properly, using the foot pedal to ... ease in to start stitching, and ease out when you're done, or need to change directions. It's the reverse of how a clutch works, but the easing in/out is the key part of me not stalling like on the prior two manual vehicles.

I haven't thought of a display for a computer for the car, because I'm still stuck sorting details for a headless computer-as-CD-changer. When I get that far, I can consider deleting the stock CD changer, and start on either making the board that runs the CD changer interface with a screen (for song title display, queuing, or selection). Or I'd start ganging Raspberry Pis and Arduinos together, and have one dedicated to display, and leave others for other tasks. Without mounting a screen like they have in police cruisers, there really isn't a whole lot of room in the console where the radio sits. If/when I get this thing working, I'll share what I did. I'll keep watch to see if you sort out a display.

19

A few questiones, 2.0TDI? Model year? Official dealer?

Friends sister, main dealer in austria, same thing, timing belt, water pump, spanners, plus oil and filters on an Audi A3 - 2000€. Reason? Supposedly they have to take the engine out to change the timing belt.

20

No its a 1.9TDi, from 2003 / 2004 pre facelift model.
And no official dealer, just a randon car repair garage.

2.0TDi would probably be more expensive yes.
But €2000,- damm?