GAFIT I thought the ones on my MK6 were a royal pain, but it seems they have upped their pain game on the MK7. I had to remove the complete air-box to get the bulbs in the drivers side. I used Phillip's bulbs like you did. I also replaced the high beam bulbs. They are a VW only H15, that is difficult to find. I eventually found a set of brighter & whiter bulbs. Since they were such a royal pain to change I decided to switch the DRL to use the fog lights. Those bulbs are much easier to change

Like you I'm going to change out the plugs & stick with the oem brand & heat range.

I'm not sure what a good replacement strut would be. My wife's MINI is due for new struts & rear shocks. I'm going with Bilstein B4 struts from Tire Rack.

 

What they conveniently leave out at the 1:41 mark is that they have also unclipped the front bumper and pulled it away from the car. The headlight assembly goes under the front bumper cover so you have to pull like heck on the front bumper to separate it from the housing.

I was at that step when I started searching for a video and found the one above. It skipped that step, but I saw that the bumper had been pulled out in the video and that's when I realized what I had to do next. Wife came out just before that and asked why in the world I had removed the front grille (which wasn't overly easy to get back in correctly). Thankfully we watched the video together and she realized I hadn't lost my mind.

What do you think a VW dealer charges to replace headlight bulbs when someone comes in with one burnt out? I'm betting many owners get quite a shock!

Ash, I was looking at my DRL/high beam bulb and wondered what in the world it was. Has strange connections. Guessing mine is also an H15? Hopefully mine will last through our ownership period. I'd rather not remove the headlight assembly again.

 

Wow that is some dance to get to the bulbs. I do believe your high beams are also H15 bulbs. I red somewhere that the MK7.5 uses a normal H7 for the high beam. I think many an owner will stroke out when they get the bill from VW for a bulb replacement. Thanks for the video GAFIT it was really enlightening.

 

Sheesh, what a nightmare, I hate videos that make difficult tasks look simple. I saw an amateur video covering spark plug replacement on my Nissan V-6 and just as with the Phillips bulb video, the video failed to mention a number of important steps. Arrrgh.

 

Rolf's 20K oil change and tire rotation today was just under $90 at the Dealer, so I can't complain.

Do y'all change every 5K Miles for peace of mind or do you stick with the factory recommendation of every 10K Miles? I changed the oil and filter myself at 5K and had the Dealer do it at 10K, but I overlooked doing it at 15K.

 

I change our oil only at the 5k intervals. Figure the filter should be good for 10k.

The drain and fill is pretty quick and easy.

 

Filter is definitely good for 10k! I don't think my headlights are that bad, at least I hope not :)

I haven't decided yet lol. For my Fit and the wife's Pilot it was changed when the car told me. I did use RedLine synthetic in the GTI so I should be good for 10k easily but I have an oil analysis kit that I will use to check it. I was thinking 7500 as a good in between and at that mileage will just do the filter too.

 

Our Golf seems to have it's first electrical gremlin. I had a fair amount of those with my last VW. Hope this isn't a trend.

The seatbelt warning chime is going off for the passenger seat even though no one is in the seat. Likely the pressure sensor in the seat is malfunctioning. We'll keep the belt latched until it goes in for the 50k oil change.

 

I'm sure its something small like a sensor but it is not reassuring. When it's really cold out my lamp out indicator comes on and the display says "check front right side marker" There are no lamps out. After starting to read into the VW lifestyle it seems they have a very complex network of sensors that monitor everything!!

 

After starting to read into the VW lifestyle it seems they have a very complex network of sensors that monitor everything!!

When we get near our MK7 or open a door or hood, the car comes alive with all sorts of ongoing whirring and clicking noises. All the MK7s do this I think. I wonder what's going on with this mysterious process?

 

Oh, I hadn't thought of that option. Yes, a simple drain and fill would be much easier. If y'all say the filter is good for 10K Miles, that's what I'll do at our next 5K interval.

I'm impressed -- I just checked the oil level and the Dealer filled it perfectly. Nice.

 

Alco I change the oil & filter every 5,000 miles. I'm using Mobil 1 0w40 full synthetic. OIl & filters are cheap engines are not, at least that is the rational that I use. Many opinions on what oil & what interval. That is just my .02. My service adviser at VW told me to change the oil every 5,000 miles due to problems with the timing chain tensioner. I don't think he was trying to sell extra oil changes since I told him I do my own.

GolNat The lights on a MK6 are not that bad. But to get to the drivers side bulb I had to pull the airbox out to gain access.

As for your bulb out warning I had the same except it was a brake light. It finally stopped working & once I replaced the bulb the warning went away. It was a head scratcher until that happened.

 

A church friend just bought a new Tesla Model 3 and he invited me to drive it this morning, so I enjoyed a good long drive with it.

The acceleration is breathtaking, advertised at 3.3 Sec. 0-60 and it has AWD. I've never driven anything so quick, quickly notching 80+ from a stop on a two-lane blacktop road. It took some time to get used to the self-driving technology. It will indeed self-drive in all kinds of traffic and will even pass slower vehicles on the Interstate when it deems it's safe. Rather than stay centered in the lane, the car prefers staying closer to the centerline, which was of concern to me. Supposedly the Teslas do this so as to give pedestrians and bicyclists extra space, even if none are present.

The interior is minimalist by any measure and owners have noted that this car with a price range of north of $45K should have far better appointments.

The range of my friend's model is about 300 Miles. Tesla is building out a nationwide network of 'Supercharging" stations. I think these take just over an hour to fully charge the battery. Meanwhile, hotels offer charging with lower power systems that take longer. Charging at home with house current takes a long time, something like 10 Hours for a partial charge?

Anyway, it was a rare treat and a whole lot of fun.

 

Thanks for the report Alco!

I've only looked at them up close, but never driven one. What stands out as appalling to me about all Tesla's, including the big dollar models, is the panel alignment and general fit and finish. Compared to an S Class Mercedes, the Tesla looks like a mass produced dumpster.

That being said, the technology is highly fascinating and paving the way of the future. I'm still hoping for something other than battery powered electric vehicles though. The nightmare of battery production and disposal possibly outweighs the benefits of not using gasoline. No one wants to hear that side though.

 

My friend has wanted a Tesla for quite a while and is thoroughly enjoying his new whip. He said that the economic math doesn't play out with the Tesla, but that he wanted it for its fun factor and advanced technology. Tesla does regular software updates and is able to quickly fix bugs and move the technology ahead. The car records every variable as it travels, so Tesla is able to reproduce anything odd that owners report.

I must admit that I kept my hands very close to the steering wheel early in our drive, but I began to relax a bit after perhaps ten minutes. You have to put the weight of your hand on the wheel every so often so that the car knows you're conscious. My friend suggested simply hanging a hand on the wheel at about 4 O'Clock and keeping it there. If you turn the wheel a bit doing that, the car will ignore the input.

The first routine service occurs after two years to have the brake fluid changed and it's done again at four years. Then at six years, the brake fluid is changed again and the battery coolant.

He said if I wanted to learn more, hang around a Tesla Supercharging station and strike up a conversation with an owner! :-)

 

I would love to take a Tesla for a drive. Yes I have seen reviews about the panel situation and the lack of features.

On a side note do any of you guys use VAG COM? Apparently its needed to change anything on the VW like the stupid honk when you lock the doors.

Also if anyone is doing any work and you need to take the intake pipe off the turbo get some of these



I fought with it for an hour before running to auto parts store to pick one of those tools up. Made the job 100x easier!!

Unitronic cable is on its way!!! Stage 1 soon :)

 

Thanks for the tip GolNat!

Can't wait for review of the Unitronic tune!

 

I've read about VAG COM and OBDeleven, but they appear to require some pretty deep understanding of coding. Cool stuff. I think OBDeleven has some easy pre-programmed changes available, but at a price for each?

 

I got Carista when I first got my MK6. It allowed me to make the coding changes I wanted easily. It wasn't very much money at the time. VAGCOM was the only other thing available at the time & it was $$$. Plus I would have had to buy a windows laptop to use it, more $$$.

When I bought this there was just a one time charge with unlimited use. Carista was nice enough to grandfather me for as long as I own my car. They have since changed their pricing structure. Buy their dongle for $29.99 & get a free month which will let you do all you want. This is a simple worry free way to make the changes you want.

CARISTA

 

OBD11 is suppose to be pretty user friendly and is not coding heavy which is why people like it but I don't own an android phone. I did look at getting an unlocked cheap one though as it would still be cheaper then buying VAG COM. Yes I think you buy credits and then certain changes cost credits. I suppose that could get expensive if you make a lot of changes often. I also don't think it is locked into a VIN unlike VAG COM which with the basic cable gives you 3 VIN's @ $200.

I don't own a windows laptop either and was going to run boot camp on my Mac. Turns out my Mac is only compatible with Win 7 and 8 because it is an older one. I found some copies of what looked like legitimate copies of Win 7 and 8 but for the price of laptop nowadays I just bought a windows 10 from B&H. Paid $125 for a Dell with the requirements needed to run various things. I was going to have to do something in order to download the Unitronic tune which is only windows compatible too (which is odd to me). Figured I won't be hogging the family Mac laptop and can just make the Dell my dedicated car laptop.

That was great of them!! I did see this as an option but forgot about it. Thanks for the feedback!! I heard it was not as powerful as the other 2 options but seemed like it could do what I wanted with changing convenience features and its cheaper. I like the cost benefit of Carista and I am sure they will continue to update and add features.

I will report back with my impressions. I am excited and scared lol

Also have a GFB DV+ to install so its ready to handle the Unitronic tune.