Well we tried….

So my Jetta is apparently having an issue with keeping its cool.  That is to say it’s overheated twice in two weeks.  =P

I let my dad know what was going on and being the awesome dad he is, he offered to come and check it out with me. Because I have the manual we thought that even though it would probably be challenging, we’d at least have the information we needed to do the troubleshooting/repair.  Yeah, that wasn’t even close to being the case.

The first step was to remove the thermostat and see if it operated properly at temperature.  Ok, that sounds reasonable.  To get any access to the area in question we removed the bumper and jacked up the car.  Then we checked out what the manual had to say.

Dad and me consulting the manual

Hmm, it says to drain the coolant and then remove the thermostat (figure 25).  Well let’s see, we found the plug to drain the coolant but before doing that, we wanted to know where this cap to the thermostat housing was.  First my dad gave it a try.

Dad checking out underside of Jetta

Then we both gave it a try…

Trying to trace the cap that holds the thermostat in place

Hmm, this isn’t working, ah, I’ve got an idea!

Who would have thought a knitting needle would come in handy for working on a car?

Yes, it’s the lighted knitting needles Mandy gave me for Christmas.  I haven’t had a chance to use them yet but they are the perfect tools for providing light into the nooks and crannies (Mmm, makes me hungry for an English muffin) of my tightly packed Jetta hood.  Ok, now properly armed with the right tools my dad and I once again tried to trace the tubing to the thermostat cap.

Teamwork

Finally with me using one lighted knitting needle from the top and my dad using the other from the underside we were able to pinpoint the most likely location of the thermostat cap and…. it’s totally inaccessible without completely taking apart a bunch of other components.  My dad still gave it a shot by disconnecting what I think was the air filter housing and removing the top plastic covering of the engine but still no luck.  =(

Well even though checking the thermostat was a no go we were still able to make some improvements to the Jetta.  Since we had the car on stands we decided to take off the front tires and replace the plastic wheel wells that were destroyed a couple years ago when the front bumper got ripped off after driving over a concrete parking block.  I’ve had the replacement parts for about a year but didn’t have a jack low enough to get under the car so it’s had to wait.  Thanks to my dad bringing out his floor jack we were finally able to install the new wheel wells.  Sweet!  =)

After we got that taken care of we put everything back together and first thing Monday morning I’ll be making an appt. w/ the Dublin Volkswagen service department.  Even though we weren’t able to fix the problem, I had a lot of fun working on the car with my dad and we only lost one screw so I call that a success.  Hey, at least we tried.  😉