2022 Jetta GLI

Update your progress on your various car projects.

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Basement Paul
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Joined: Sun Jul 17, 2005 9:27 pm
Location: In the dirt.

Re: 2022 Jetta GLI

Post by Basement Paul »

That stuff is so infuriating. Amy's Jeep had 1500 miles on it when someone at Giant Eagle let their door loose into her passengers front door, putting a huge dent and scraping up the mirror. Then driving away while the security camera in that area was on fritz... We did get hers fixed. Now my door forward doesn't match. It's a lose - lose. Sorry about your misfortune.

-BP
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MostMint
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Location: planning a race

Re: 2022 Jetta GLI

Post by MostMint »

And yet my Corolla can be parked anywhere and it never gets touched. Weird. It has some new patina but I'm pretty sure that was applied by my children while they were driving it.
[quote="Basement Paul"]Is that a mint rocketship on the hood?? :shock:
-BP[/quote]
AKROVER
Posts: 177
Joined: Thu Sep 01, 2005 2:49 am
Location: Anchorage, Alaska

Re: 2022 Jetta GLI

Post by AKROVER »

6 months, 8,255 miles, 25 tanks of gas, 34.0 mpg average

The car now has a garage; we got off the waiting list here at the apartment complex. While I can’t really work on a car in the apartment garage, it will be quite valuable to have shelter from hail. It is shocking to see how many hail-damaged cars there are in the area. We also have a 10X20 storage unit about a mile up the street so the Nissan can also find cover if needed, but I will have to organize things a bit better to squeeze it in.

I upgraded the operating system on my phone and now Android Auto works wirelessly. It is nice not having to hook up a wire when just trying to navigate locally.

Overall, I am still quite happy with this car. It really is fun to drive. I am thinking about getting snow tires for next winter as the tires aren’t great in snow, but with the Nissan available, that really hasn’t been much of an issue.
AKROVER
Posts: 177
Joined: Thu Sep 01, 2005 2:49 am
Location: Anchorage, Alaska

Re: 2022 Jetta GLI

Post by AKROVER »

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The GLI has crossed the 10K milestone. That also means it has had its first of three free oil changes. It was somewhat of a rip-off since they charged me to rotate the tires even though I am certain they would have removed the wheels for the brake inspection they are required to conduct. Hopefully next time I will have no need for them to perform that service for me (right now I don’t even own a floor jack), but it was only $24.

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Now that the weather has been a lot nicer, I have been playing with the driving modes. It has five modes (eco, comfort, normal, sport, and custom). Sport mode is something I would only use when I am in the car by myself because the additional engine noise amplified through the audio system is quite annoyingly juvenile (so sometimes I kind of like it). The other standard modes set the steering to the lighter feel and I prefer the heavier sport setting. In the custom mode, I can program numerous individual parameters to various levels, so I thought I would capture my current thoughts.

DCC (comfort, normal, or sport) – This is a shock tuning parameter (DCC=dynamic chassis control) and sport becomes rather brutal. Comfort causes me no complaints about handling and the car rides very nicely, almost exactly the ride quality I want.

Steering (normal or sport) – the sport setting simply makes the steering feel a little heavier, but I much prefer that.

Front differential lock (normal or sport) – After trying sport, I think it fails to unlock quickly when pulling out and turning, causing some unnecessary chirps. Normal has not caused any noticeable bad behavior.

Drivetrain (eco, normal, or sport) – No one knows for sure what this setting does, but most owners seem to agree that on a manual transmission car, this is only a throttle pedal response setting. I had it in eco for most of the time I have owned it, but have been experimenting with sport. I seem to accelerate more smoothly, particularly off the line, in sport mode, but the touchiness of the pedal is quite annoying when simply maintaining speed. I was also struggling with rev matching when downshifting, but that is likely just a learning curve issue. I am now going to try normal to see if it provides a happier middle ground, but eco wasn’t actually a problem so I will likely go back to it if I find normal annoying in some way. No one believes that this actually affects fuel economy in a meaningful way. My experiments with the sport setting didn’t produce any unusual fuel economy readings but weren’t long enough to be conclusive.

Engine sound (comfort, normal, or sport) – Sport is juvenile stupidity, great for me when thrashing in the car, but not for cruising or driving with my wife. In comfort, the economy-car sound insulation transmits enough sound feedback to keep me happy (I hated my Jaguar’s silence).

ACC (eco, comfort, normal, or sport) – Who would have thought adaptive cruise control would have so many different settings? Eco reduces the responsiveness of the system so much that when approaching a slower car, it runs up on it before slowing down and then slows down excessively before finally matching speed. Normal seems to work much better. I haven’t tried the other two settings.

Climate control (eco or normal) – I am not really sure what this setting does. I had been using eco mode and the dual zone automatic climate control had been working very well, but now that we are seeing some warmer days, I think it holds back the ac a bit too much so I will try normal for now.
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MostMint
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Re: 2022 Jetta GLI

Post by MostMint »

if they rotate the tires they may need to recalibrate the TPMS as the sensors have moved corners
[quote="Basement Paul"]Is that a mint rocketship on the hood?? :shock:
-BP[/quote]
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Basement Paul
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Re: 2022 Jetta GLI

Post by Basement Paul »

No sensors on VW wheels. They use speed sensors on each axle somehow. Makes life much simpler.

-BP
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MostMint
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Re: 2022 Jetta GLI

Post by MostMint »

Basement Paul wrote: Sun May 14, 2023 7:49 pm No sensors on VW wheels. They use speed sensors on each axle somehow. Makes life much simpler.

-BP
OK I was trying to save them from stupid random chargeville but to no avail!
[quote="Basement Paul"]Is that a mint rocketship on the hood?? :shock:
-BP[/quote]
AKROVER
Posts: 177
Joined: Thu Sep 01, 2005 2:49 am
Location: Anchorage, Alaska

Re: 2022 Jetta GLI

Post by AKROVER »

The first repair on the VW was with a Permatex windshield repair kit. We got peppered with gravel by a truck going the other way on a 65mph two-lane road in rural Nebraska on our way to Ohio. On the advice of the owner of that Auburn inn that I stay at, I tried the kit. The idea makes sense. It tries to work some liquid resin into the cracks with vacuum and then pressure. The resin is then cured by UV exposure (sunlight for 15 minutes). The final cleanup is with a razor. I will never really know if the kit worked. I have had some ugly cracks in windshields that never ran so if this never gets worse, it doesn’t really mean anything. OTOH, this one had a half inch leg radiating out of the bullseye that wouldn’t surprise me if it was beyond the capability of such a repair technique. If that runs, I wouldn’t necessarily call the repair a failure. The one thing I can say which was a total surprise to me is that the kit provided a significant cosmetic improvement. The chip was quite visible prior to the repair and now I have to look to find it. Mostly all I see now is that one crack, the chip seems to have vanished. For $20, it was worth the cosmetic improvement and the possible delay or prevention of a windshield replacement.

Our trip to Ohio brought the mileage to 18,459. The car performed exceptionally well, averaging 40.4 mpg for the highway portions of the trip and providing a new record single tank of 44.1 mpg. We did have a good tailwind much of the way to Ohio and now that we live an hour further south, we bypass the 80mph speed limits, both of which significantly helped fuel economy. I still ran almost every onramp with my foot on the floor and I often broke into the 90’s when passing slower vehicles so I am really pleased with the efficiency of this fun car.

The car is now exactly one year old and the average fuel economy sits at 34.9. Everything about this car has exceeded my expectations. My biggest complaint is that the audio system is always on when the infotainment system is on. I can turn the volume down to zero, but when I restart the car, it always comes on at a very low yet audible volume. I almost never listen to the radio or to music in the car so I would prefer it to just be off, but then I lose my map. My wife’s complaint is that the passenger seat isn’t that comfortable for her on a long day. It only has minimal manual adjustments so perhaps that is the issue. For me, the driver’s seat is one of the most comfortable I have ever had for long days of driving.

Prior to the trip, I changed the throttle response setting from normal back to eco. I think it provides finer control when cruising along at a constant speed. For accelerating, the normal setting wasn’t really making me super smooth on my shifts. Eco certainly isn’t helping me in that regard, but I don’t think it is hurting me. Since I spend more time holding speed than gaining, I will prioritize that part of driving and then blame myself for any clunky shifting that occurs while accelerating.
AKROVER
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Joined: Thu Sep 01, 2005 2:49 am
Location: Anchorage, Alaska

Re: 2022 Jetta GLI

Post by AKROVER »

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I pulled the trigger on a snow tire and wheel package. I kept looking at our sloped roads and driveway and decided that traction in snow was going to be important. I bought both the cheapest wheels and the cheapest tires that Tire Rack was showing for my car, but not just because I am cheap. I liked the style and the weight of the wheels (Moda MD28) and it was a closeout price. The tires (Vredestein Wintrac Pro) had surprisingly positive professional reviews for such a cheap tire. Tire Rack is really easy to order from and I didn’t think $1200 mounted, balanced, and delivered the next day was a bad price. I was able to reduce wheel diameter to 17” (from 18) which should increase impact resistance and improve ride quality. 17 is the smallest that I could go on the GLI, but I probably wouldn’t have gone any further. I couldn’t reduce width as the math just doesn’t work out in available tire sizes. I prefer narrower tires for winter as they have less float in deep snow, but 225 isn’t likely terrible with a 3300lb car.
AKROVER
Posts: 177
Joined: Thu Sep 01, 2005 2:49 am
Location: Anchorage, Alaska

Re: 2022 Jetta GLI

Post by AKROVER »

A few weeks ago, I took the car to Rapid City for its 20,000 mile service. I was about 600 miles early, but we had a big trip to Asheville coming up. The trip was another successful 2900-mile road trip, although fuel economy was quite a bit worse on this trip averaging only 37.4 mpg.

With the road trip behind us and cooler temperatures being a bit more reliable, I put the snow tires on today. Since liquidating all my tools and moving to Alaska 17 years ago, I have probably changed out between summer and winter tires on various vehicles a dozen times. Today was the first time using real tools and it seemed so effortless; no cranking on cheap scissor jacks or spinning wrenches to get lugs off. Even though it was a decent day, the concrete in the garage was a little cold so I even cranked up the heat. I will also add my endorsement for my Quinn digital ½” torque adaptor that I bought at Harbor Freight. It really makes torquing to specification super easy; set the desired torque and listen for the beeps (or watch the digital display). I think it was well worth the $50 I paid.

I think my car looks good with a little extra sidewall. I might have to experiment with the suspension settings, although I suspect comfort mode will still be my preference. I am also curious about noise levels and fuel economy, although I suspect it will be worse in both.

I have been having a slow leak in my right rear so finally removing that wheel allowed me to inspect the entire tire. I was not surprised to find a nail buried between the treads. That has been an issue for at least six months now. I guess I am lucky the nail stayed in on several long-distance road trips. It was an amazingly slow leak.


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