With the engine bay looking pretty complete there's still a few parts I'm waiting for, the seat belts from Safety Restore were on their way back to me by this stage. They have been a pretty phenomenal company to deal with.
The coolant elbow turned into a bit of a faff, FCP Euro claimed 2 days before they could ship but nearly a week later they still hadn't shipped it so after a bit of to and fro with them I decided to just order one from the local VW dealer which was special order and had to be pre paid.
Once that was done I went back to FCP to cancel the other one only to be told it had arrived and been shipped out D'OH!!
Next day FCP order arrived with my elbow.......as it turned out the one I ordered from the dealer I ordered wrong in any case so all a bit of a balls up.

 

Seat belts in hand I fitted those, they replaced all 6 gas charges for the pre tensioners and re set the belts so it was merely a case of fitting them back into the car. I took my VCDS cable and a new laptop with me for this purpose so plugged that in and cleared the codes, light out. Win.
Did a full scan and clear only leaving a couple random codes for things like low refrigerant pressure etc.
Coolant elbow in hand I completed the cooling system and filled it with coolant. I didn't have a vacuum filler so back to old school way of doing things, fill it up and idle it till the thermostat opens. Sounds simple right?
Anyway, that wasn't so easy. Left it running for a while and got two fault codes for trapped air in the heater pump.
Even a VW pdf suggested a vacuum filler for these codes but there has to be another way, using VCDS I ran the output test for the heater pump and circulation pump many times to purge the air out which worked.
Left the engine running with VCDS hooked up waiting for the thermostat to open, which didn't. Hmmm.
Temps got up to 108 deg c, cooling fan came on but the radiator outlet stayed at 20 deg c which made me worry that electric stepper motor thermostat was cooked. These combined water pumps have a host of issues and I started thinking mine was fried.
A bunch of research later I found VCDS can open and close the thermostat as a basic setting, tried this the next morning and basic setting completed successfully backed up by audible noise from the pump. Ok so what is it. Ran it again and same result, bottom hose stays cold but this time with the engine at 108deg I shut it off and used basic setting to open the thermostat which immediately increased the radiator outlet to 55deg so
my theory was the car wasn't getting hot enough just sitting there idling. As a backup I ordered a new pump anyway from FCP just in case.

Following morning with VCDS monitoring temps I took it for a drive, no insurance or registration I kept it very local but trans shifts nice and getting on it a bit temps soon rose and as predicted the thermostat opened and all was normal. Just over thinking it but considering it was crashed anything was possible, including a blown head gasket.
Car went well, boosts well and no fault codes. You do notice the lower HP a lot as these are only rated at 228hp but in time an IE stg 1 will go in bumping that up to 300hp.

Registration time, being that it was an out of state car I needed a VIN verification done but insurance is a big deal here so one is reluctant to drive an unregistered car in Arkansas and I thought I couldn't get insurance on a salvage title. (I learned later I could have done that)
We ended up going down to the DMV to ask what was required and my paperwork for the repair aspect was all in order, I was told I needed a VIN verification and insurance for the title to be switched from Salvage to Rebuilt. Tags and a plate would be able to be processed the same day.
DMV and Police do VIN verifications but the car would ideally need to be towed as it wasn't insured, decided to call by the Police station on the way back and the officer there called the local Sheriff to ask if he would come by the house to do it, no problem! 45 mins later the Sheriff was at the door, took less than 5 mins and the job was done. Super nice guy too.
Off to the insurance office, lady there didn't think I could get insurance with a foreign driver license but I showed her the insurance I'd had on my Mustang back in 2016.
She made a call to head office and sure enough that wasn't a problem, 30 mins later insurance sorted and back to the DMV.
With my VIN verification, insurance and repair paperwork the registration was processed and I was given a plate and tags. Too easy.
When registering a vehicle in this state you pay 6.5% sales tax but since mine was under a certain value it was only 3.5% plus $25 for the registration.

Next job on the list was the A/C, as I've had to replace the condenser with a new one the system needed a re gas.
Again super easy in the land of the US and A, go down to your local Walmart, O'Reilly auto parts or Autozone and you can buy cans of R134A for around 10 bucks each.
R134A is not something you can even get easily in NZ and what is available is expensive.
They have large cans here as well with a gauge and trigger but these are more for topping up rather than a full system fill. Not to worry though O'Reilly and Autozone have FREE yes, free loan tools to do this at home so you pay what the tools cost retail and when you return them you get a full refund.
In my case it was just over 400 usd for a set of A/C gauges and a vacuum pump, took these back to my brother in laws and pulled a vacuum on the system and then with the cans I'd bought from Walmart gassed it up. It took one full can and we weighed the 2nd one to ensure the correct amount went in and also putting in some compressor oil due to what was lost with the condenser swap.
Nice cold A/C for 25 bucks! Just so so easy.

Next morning I could actually drive my newly repaired and registered car down to O'Reilly to return their tools and test the A/C properly, works flawlessly.
One tyre had a cut in it and I'd ordered another one the same off Ebay which had arrived several days earlier so I took that down to Walmart Auto Center for them to fit and balance it. Nearly time to hit the road for a 1200 mile road trip to help a friend.

The front of the car looks clean with no plate on. Great job.

With all of that done we hit the road on our 3 day 1200 mile road trip East taking us through Arkansas, Tennessee, North Carolina into Virginia. Did 500 miles the first day which was a little much and had nothing but a low tyre pressure warning come up. Interestingly service stations here charge you for air! Yep couldn't believe it at first but then 2 bucks isn't exactly a lot either.
Car went well other than a very noisy growly tyre in the back, has a horrible vibration too at 70mph right where you mostly sit at.
Next stop took a look at that and its some cheap nasty rock hard 480 treadwear chinese garbage tyre. The other side rear is a Firestone which is quiet so I'll end up getting another one of those to match giving me two pairs on the car.
Keeping an eye on coolant and oil until I know what it's habits are but all seems fine so far.
Before we left I was messing around with VCDS and enabled auto roll down / up of all the windows from the keyfob.
There were a couple of existing codes in the right doors, one of which was no communication to the right rear door and the passenger sill entry light doesn't work either. The door codes stopped the window roll down working but once you clear the codes it does work a couple of times till the codes pop up again.
In the next couple of days I'll spend an evening at the motel messing with that, checking door wire harness first and going from there. Those couple of codes are the only ones in the entire car so I'd like to resolve them.

With our 1200 mile drive taking us to Newport News in the state of Virginia to help a friend with a not so nice situation he's found himself in, he was certainly glad to see some familiar faces and appreciated the help.
The Jetta once again coming into its own, carting around 3 people and all of their belongings with ease. Believe it or not but everything fits in the boot which is pretty amazing and I love it.
Many runs to Harbor Freight tools, Home Depot and Walmart to get things we need to solve one of his problems.
It's returning around 16-17km / L which is really amazing, uses zero oil or coolant and after around 2000+ miles now the oil is still perfectly clean.
Got another Firestone tyre shipped to me via Ebay and had that fitted locally, lucky I was there watching him as he was going to put the wheel back on without balancing it WTF?
Once I told him I wanted it balanced he charged me an extra $10 on top of the $30 fitting fee (USD) which I thought was a excessive.
The final straw was him using his impact to put the wheel back on, at that point I told him to go away and did it myself by hand.
Tyre fitted my horrible noise is gone so all seems well, need to get it on the highway and see how it is at 70-80mph.
It's funny how NZ has gone crazy with banning plastics and conserving energy etc, once you've been here a while you realize all of that is a total waste of time as everything here is wrapped / packaged in plastic, fuel is still cheap so lots of people still drive large pickups with V8's and supermarkets hand out plastic bags by the 100's.
The amount of plastic waste at our Hotel breakfast is crazy, it's just the way it is.

Quote from: 80 Vert on May 27, 2024, 12:32:44 PMCar went well other than a very noisy growly tyre in the back, has a horrible vibration too at 70mph right where you mostly sit at.
Next stop took a look at that and its some cheap nasty rock hard 480 treadwear chinese garbage tyre. The other side rear is a Firestone which is quiet so I'll end up getting another one of those to match giving me two pairs on the car.

I almost replaced a rear wheel bearing with the noise I was experiencing on the Mk5 Wagen not long after I bought her. The owner of the shop I took it to grinned and said "let's get it on the hoist'. He then showed me how 'blocky' the tyres were. "Two things: 1. the wheels are wrong, not right offset for the car and 2. cheap Asian tyres, get decent brand". Some may offended by the latter, but Edwin is Asian.

Yeah a bad tyre can certainly cause you to think the bearing is bad, mine was the same in that it was a very chunky blocky type of tread. You could run your hand across the tread and feel the high points of the tread in the way it had worn causing loads of noise.
In saying that, now that it is quiet with the replacement and its 95% better there's still a very slight vibration somewhere so I think an inspection of all the wheels is what I'll look at next but I'm not wasting any money on it because a new set of wheels and tyres will eventuate anyway.
Don't think it's in the front as there's nothing felt in the steering wheel.

The other thing I keep meaning to make time for are the couple of codes still in the right doors, the front door had that lock / unlock switch code but the switch works fine. Then the other day I went to grab something out of the passenger door and the interior light didn't come on and neither did the door open display on the MFD which suddenly made me realize that its the microswitch in the door lock itself, not the manual lock / unlock switch.
A quick google shows these locks to have loads of issues (Jetta / Tiguan) like Mk4's of old and are made in China, of course.
New ones are cheap though from VW so a new one is coming from FCP Euro. Door locks fine and I could leave it but I'd like it all to work.
Other than that its phenomenal, racking up the miles like crazy. Doing long distances with little to no stop start driving really does make a huge difference in keeping the oil clean as it's still like new.
By the time we are ready to push off again I would have added another 6-7 k miles and I'll service it with liqui Moly before parking it up. Need to also see if I can use a hoist somewhere to do a service on the DQ381.

Awesome......as close as I can get without saying I'm envious.

VW Life.......
New door lock delivered from the dealer was only USD 60 so I could now change this out, removed the door card to reveal someone had been there before me and not put things together as they should be.
This car has Kessey as well so the outer handle off and also the interior mechanism as it's connected to the door lock with a cable.
The outer handle had always felt a little strange pulling on it and now that it was all apart easy to see why.
The pin securing the return mechanism and spring had a piece broken off it but luckily what was left of the pin was long enough to be able to keep it secured at both ends.
Old lock looked like it had been replaced already with a used one before but this time it had a hole right through it, from what I have no idea but I was pretty confident this was the issue.

Everything back together the interior light comes on, door open displays on the MFD and the sill entry illumination works again as well.
Cleared all of the codes and we'll see if the rear door no communication goes away as well.
With the new lock installed the window roll down / up from the key works at last too, a nice feature in the hot weather.

And a vcds re scan today reveals a 100% fault free car. That door lock solved 5 issues in the end.
Pretty happy with that.

Surfing the net one night I decided to check out Facebook marketplace in the local area we were staying in to see if there was anything useful for sale, although nothing performance related there was a guy selling a brand new set of GLI monster mats for 50 bucks which was an absolute bargain.
Contacted him to ask if it was all 4 which it was so I met him a few days later at a gas station down the street and bought them.
Turns out he bought a 2022 GLI brand new and these were in the boot, he had a preference for an other brand of mats so had never installed them.
Since I'd planned to get a set of these from the beginning I was pretty happy to score these.


This week marked the end of our stay in Gloucster Point Virginia so it was time to start thinking about how I was going to get everything back to Arkansas. I came with a whole lot of tools I had borrowed off my brother in law but we ended up buying a bunch of stuff here for the thing we were tidying up.
Namely a compressor!!
Anyway, started by emptying out the boot and filled up the spare wheel area as neatly as I could, extension leads, air hose, socket sets, spanners etc etc.

Boot carpet back in the waterblaster goes in along with more tools and the compressor. Pretty tight fit and had to unbolt the compressor cover and take the wheels and handle off to squeeze it in just leaving enough space for our bags and other junk. Can you say full? 
I am constantly amazed just how good this car is, I absolutely love it.
Taking the scenic route back, around 1500-1600 miles. Be great to be back on the road again.




 

Having taken a week to drive the scenic way back to Arkansas and our US trip coming to a close the car needed a much deserved service.
The car had been serviced only 100-200 miles prior to the accident which I didn't know till I arrived and as such I had already ordered everything I needed from FCP Euro but decided to not use that till it was due again.
Once we arrived back I had around 6200 miles on the odometer and for some reason these engines in the US use 0W20 oil which I really don't like being so thin in hot weather. Not sure if that's what was in there already but I had decided to order Liqui Moly 5W30 which is what I'll run from now on.
Pulled the car on to the back porch at my brother in laws to get out of the sun and away from all the bugs to drain the oil and change the filter.

Nearly time to look at storing the car away for a while and luckily my brother in law has a 48 foot Semi trailer sitting on his property which would be ideal but being high off the ground wasn't going to be easy to get the car in. What to do??
Easy when you have a Caterpillar skid steer, he dug a hole, dragged the trailer up the driveway and plopped it in the hole which got us about half way there closer to the ground with the rest being taken up by a dirt ramp.
A few months ago he'd also bought a new car so with the trailer sorted it meant that my car, his new car and his skid steer will all fit in the trailer out of the elements which is awesome.

Thankfully the trailer is just that little bit wider than a container meaning that it's pretty easy to open the doors to get in and out with the car squeezed over to one side.
I ran the car as low on fuel as I could due to most of the 87 and 89 octane here having as much as 10% ethanol which isn't great for long term storage but the 91 octane seems to be free of ethanol.
Brimmed the tank with 91 octane and added some Sta-Bil as well in an effort to keep the fuel fresh-ish for the next little while.
The battery I bought new when I arrived as the old one was dead but leaving it this long sure wasn't going to be good for it so we ordered a solar panel off Amazon with a built in charging regulator. This seems to work pretty good, 20 Watt with a max of 1A output already had the battery fully topped up after 8-9 hours connected so I think that will work pretty well.
We also added some ventilation to the trailer for those hot summer months but the double wall of sheet metal with timber paneling on the inside seems to also keep a lot of heat out.
Backing the car in I had a chance to reflect on what has been a pretty epic trip, the GLI performing flawlessly the 11,000 km driven. Until next time my friend.

Going through some pictures tonight I realized I actually really miss the GLI quite a lot, it did everything so well and really was a pleasure to drive. Can't wait to go back to the States actually, it can't come soon enough.
Is it as mint as I'd like, no but then that's probably not a bad thing seeing how it gets used and stored.
There are things that I will probably tidy up, mainly interior stuff that has just been used and abused a bit by previous owner / owners.
Also would like to do a full cut and polish on it next year as I have a polisher and compounds already, service the trans, VAQ diff etc as that's well due now at 100k km.
Wheels and tyres is something else that I'm looking at as someone has done a pretty poor job painting the wheels and the tyres are nothing to write home about. Great tread but nothing performance orientated.
Anyway back to pictures, on our way back to Arkansas we went thorough North Carolina and of course Rte 129 Tail of the Dragon is there, since we did this in 2016 in the Mustang it would be a crime not to go that way in the GLI.
Completely repaved which must have been some feat considering the corners and camber of the road but as per 2016 the road was amazing, actually North Carolina has some really great roads.
The US is such a big place, to think we did 11,000 km and only covered a small part of it.