2022 Jetta GLI

[Basement Paul]

Cars getting licked by bison is not a common problem around here. Location, location, location.

-BP

[AKROVER]

With a bunch of road trips, we burned through almost another 10K miles in just a couple months. The car now has 37,600 miles. Technically, the car still has a thousand miles before it is due for its next service, but we have a 3000-mile road trip coming up, so the car needed service sooner rather than later.

Today I did something I haven’t done in over 20 years; changed my own oil. After the last free visit to the dealer went so poorly, I began looking into my options for routine maintenance on the GLI. I quickly ran into two problems. First, VW has its own oil specification. There is a dye in the oil that will tell them if you didn’t use the specified oil and give them an opportunity to deny a warranty claim (not that there is much left on the warranty). Very few places have this oil. Certainly, none of the local shops use it. Even the auto parts store couldn’t get it. The second problem is the drain plug is supposed to be replaced every time the oil is changed. No one has the drain plug, either. The pan and the plug are plastic, so I suspect the plug risks leaking if reused. ECS Tuning out of Wadsworth OH sells an oil change kit for my car that includes oil, filter, and drain plug. It wasn’t cheap, actually a couple dollars more than the coupon I had for an oil change at the dealer, but I avoided a one-hour drive each way, the abuse and delays at the dealer, and the 400% markup on the air and cabin filters. My tool collection expanded again with a set of ramps and a drain pan. I did have to watch a couple of YouTube videos, one to figure out the cabin filter and one to reset the service indicator.

The car is ready for another Bandit run across the country packed with regional beer, but Grain Belt supplies run low this time of year; I couldn’t even find it in Rapid City last week. We have a planned stop in Iowa so perhaps I will find some there.

[MostMint]

ECS tuning is less than 10 minutes from my house - could pick up your next oil change kit. Maybe some kind of barter for some Grain Belt?

[GMJohnny]

AK is going to need a semi to bring Grain Belt to Cleveland.

GM

[Basement Paul]

I always changed my own oil in my Golf. Castrol made an oil I believe that met all the criteria for the factory warranty, and I never changed my drain plug. It was the same plastic one that just took a big screwdriver to remove. I had it about as long as you do now. As long as you have the receipts for the oil/filter specific to that car, you won't have any issues. At least that was the case when I worked at the dealer. I've never heard of any die in the oil, it just needs the correct specs, and there are several oils out there that should meet those specs. Even when I worked in the service dept at VW, we never used that line to sell you an oil change.

-BP

[AKROVER]

I always changed my own oil in my Golf. Castrol made an oil I believe that met all the criteria for the factory warranty, and I never changed my drain plug. It was the same plastic one that just took a big screwdriver to remove. I had it about as long as you do now. As long as you have the receipts for the oil/filter specific to that car, you won't have any issues. At least that was the case when I worked at the dealer. I've never heard of any die in the oil, it just needs the correct specs, and there are several oils out there that should meet those specs. Even when I worked in the service dept at VW, we never used that line to sell you an oil change.

-BP

VW Spec 508 0W-20 oil is a relatively recent thing (yours was 502 5W-30). There are multiple brands available that meet the 508 spec, but none are typically stocked at retailers. Summit actually sells 508 oil, too, but that is not local for me anymore. The dye thing apparently is just for the 508 oil, but I learned that from the internet, not the dealer. The only way the dealer tried to scare me was with their lousy service and ridiculous prices on air filters. The owner’s manual, OTOH, tries to tell me that no one should ever attempt their own oil changes.

I hadn’t realized that the seal on the drain plug is an O-ring, not threads, so chances are that can be reused many times without any problems. I see now that ECS sells replacement O-rings, too, although the price isn’t that much cheaper than buying the plug with the O-ring already installed. The lip of the plug does flex as the tooth approaches the notch that it snaps into, so that could be a failure point with repeated use. Now that I have seen how that plug works, I probably wouldn’t hesitate to reuse it a few times. I even kept the old one as a spare. OTOH, they are only six bucks each, four if you buy a pack of ten. Something to contemplate for next time.

I really like the oil filter. It is top mounted so a lot less messy and a lot easier to get at than any filter I have ever changed. It is also just a filter element (the housing is reused) so the old filter is always open for inspection. I probably should buy a 32mm socket for that so that I can use a torque wrench, but someone had already marked the tightening point on the filter housing and that felt about right to me, even though I have little idea what 20nm feels like. What is it, 9.8 newtons per kilogram, 2.2 pounds per kilogram, and 3.2 feet per meter? I used to be able to do such math in my head.

ECS tuning is less than 10 minutes from my house - could pick up your next oil change kit. Maybe some kind of barter for some Grain Belt?

Sorry, MostMint, ECS's free shipping pretty much cuts out your middleman dealing, but I will try to cover you with some Grain Belt anyway.

AK is going to need a semi to bring Grain Belt to Cleveland.

GM

Hmm, how many cases fit in a 4.5X8 foot trailer?

[Basement Paul]

If you're buying multiple oil changes, Summit does ship free over $109, so probably three oil changes worth. I didn't have to jack my Golf up to change the oil, it was pretty handy having the filter on top, just like an ecotec GM motor.

-BP

[AKROVER]

41,338 miles, 35.4 mpg average

With good weather this fall and a new fun car to drive, the VW has been getting very little use since our trip to the wedding in Ohio. I can’t believe we haven’t yet seen any snow. There has been snow at higher elevations and there have been a couple of storms in the northern Black Hills, but I haven’t even seen a snowflake yet. Since we are overdue, I decided to change the tires yesterday. I feel so efficient with such tasks, now. I also finally removed a dead bird from the front grill. It had been there for a while. I remember seeing it on the road, attempting to fly away as I approached at 70 or 80, but I never actually heard it hit. I found it a few weeks later stuffed into one of the honeycomb openings in the lower grill. I kept hoping it would just fall out.

With the tire changeover, I tried to measure the sound difference between my two sets of tires. Last year, I thought the winter tires seemed quieter. I used a Tascam digital recorder to record the same drive and then analyzed the sound in a program called Audacity. The results do show the winter tires being slightly quieter, but not by much and not at all speeds. The weird thing is that sound level doesn’t always increase with speed. I also tested the Jaguar where I found that sound does reliably increase with speed. The Jaguar tested as a lot louder than the VW with either set of tires, but I think the reason the Jaguar seems more peaceful to me is that the sound is mostly engine sound. I also did a spectrum analysis and that perhaps showed something important. There were some strange peaks with the summer tires that might be annoying harmonics. My sensitivity isn’t likely to sound volume, but sound quality. I suppose I didn’t really need to conduct a test to find out that I would rather listen to a V-12 screaming in my ears than low level tire noise, but I think there is a quality of sound difference between the VW’s summer and winter tires.

The summer tires are getting a little thin and uneven. I probably should have rotated them once this summer cycle. I think they will go another season, though.

[MostMint]

Are your summer tires the original tires that came with the car? Also what is the UTQG date code on them?

[AKROVER]

Are your summer tires the original tires that came with the car? Also what is the UTQG date code on them?

Yes, the summer tires are the original all seasons. Date code is 3321.

[MostMint]

Those tires were made on week 33 of 2021 so it seems they sat around a bit before you acquired the car.

OK so apologies if we've had this discussion before.

Having worked at a tire company I can tell you OE tires are built to the car manufacturer specifications not the tire manufacturer specifications. Often times the car manufacturer puts up really dumb specifications that the tires have to meet. The tire manufacturers know that when those tires wear out about 1/3 of car owners will buy a new tire that is the same manufacturer and model as the OE tire so they put up with meeting car manufacturer standards for that chance at additional business.

As far as sound, I can't guess how VW prioritizes sound (vs grip, wear, cost, weight, etc). I can guess that tire noise on 3 year old half worn tires are nowhere on the priority list.

If you want to make this a longer term experiment, when you replace those tires with aftermarket replacement tires I suggest running this test again with the replacements, and then when they have 10k, 20k miles etc. My guess is the all season or summer tires will then be quieter than the snow tires - assuming similar quality.

[AKROVER]

Yesterday, as I was about to leave for a dentist appointment in Rapid City, I found the driver rear tire flat. I had to quickly switch to the Nissan and drive it into the windstorm that was hitting Rapid. Flat tire, dentist, and driving the Xterra in a windstorm is not a great start to a day. When I got home, the repair was quick and easy. I found the remnants of a self-tapping screw embedded in the tread. I plugged the hole using the kit I bought over a year ago for a nail in one of the summer tires. The tire was still holding pressure today when we went to the grocery store. It is good to be self-sufficient with such problems.

[AKROVER]

I thought this was cool. We travelled over 100 miles at an average fuel economy of >50 mpg. The trick, of course, was that we were skiing at Loveland (base elevation of about 11K feet) and we spent the night in Fort Collins (roughly 5K). Had this South Dakotan not been white-knuckling through Denver traffic, I would have taken this picture with only 50 miles, but at average fuel economy of 77.4mpg.

[AKROVER]

Today I changed back to the summer tires. Current mileage is 45,639. The snow tires now have about 9K on them, which means the summer (OE all-season) tires are at 36K. The snows still look good. The summer tires are looking old. We probably drove them way too much last year without a rotation, but both the fronts and rears look similar.