120,000km 2.5TDi service.....wish me luck

[Seano]

....hope I can afford to eat tomorrow night!!

Just dropped the DOKA in for its 120,000km service plus some attention to rocker gasket leaks and a full driveline lube......all 10 hours plus of it.

So I expect to be poor come tomorrow night...

One query....they are planning to replace everything except the water pump. I thought that replacement of the water pump impeller etc. was a critical part of this service?

Not that I want to make this any more expensive!!

[jets]

Are you still on the original pump? If so I would tell them to change it also. According to someone on the T4 forum , the water pump is often the cause of belt breakage.

[GTI_69]

120000km service OUCH!!!

Cambelt and injection pump belt are meant to be done on this service! My mate works at a VW dealership. He is a pro at these pump belts. He works from home also for extra cash. dealers charge a fortune. PM me if anyone needs his details.

[Golf Loon]

Do the waterpump mate. Make sure they put in one with a metal impeller too.

[WEDEL.1]

....hope I can afford to eat tomorrow night!!

Just dropped the DOKA in for its 120,000km service plus some attention to rocker gasket leaks and a full driveline lube......all 10 hours plus of it.

So I expect to be poor come tomorrow night...

One query....they are planning to replace everything except the water pump. I thought that replacement of the water pump impeller etc. was a critical part of this service?

Not that I want to make this any more expensive!!

Should have bought the 2,0L petrol, as I've never paid more than $A500 for a service.

Perhaps you need to come to SA and the Volksfactory for your service??

Maris

[Seano]

OK........in the end the damage came to.....<sob> $2082

Labour was $95 per hour......9.7 hours for the 120K service plus another 1.5 hours to replace rocker gasket, 0.5 hour to replace oil filler pipe and an hour to do fluid change in gearbox and rear diff.

It's the two hours to do the rocker and oil pipe that 'hurt' because I assumed that since they had to remove half the front to get to the timing belt that it'd be a doddle time wise.....the oil filler pipe is surely a ten minute job!! But of course the smallest time period that VW have is 0.5 hour....

The rest was parts, oils (typical major gouge - $120 for 2 'units' of gear oil anyone?) and GST.......

And now it needs a new upper heater pipe and CV boots on LH side...<sigh>

[jets]

Ouch, that would hurt. Did they replace the water pump & coolant?
I don't understand how they can charge extra for replacing the rocker cover gasket. The cover needs to be removed anyway to lock the camshaft for timing belt fitting. The gasket would normally be replaced at this time.
If I were you would challenge this part of the bill.

[Rebuild]

The rest was parts, oils (typical major gouge - $120 for 2 'units' of gear oil anyone?) and GST.......

VW quoted me $51/L for auto gearbox fluid when i wanted to buy some.

I politely refused, of course

[Seano]

Ouch, that would hurt. Did they replace the water pump & coolant?
I don't understand how they can charge extra for replacing the rocker cover gasket. The cover needs to be removed anyway to lock the camshaft for timing belt fitting. The gasket would normally be replaced at this time.
If I were you would challenge this part of the bill.

It bloody did hurt!! I'm down to my last three packs of two minute noodles!

Water pump wasn't done and I don't recall being charged for coolant...

And the gasket has got me jiggered.....but it's done now. Time to move on.

The mad thing is that I'm not totally certain that a local non dealer mechanic would have done the job that much better/cheaper...

[DVR68U]

$2000 wow , well lets hope that its good for another 100,000kms , i only paided $2000 for my van with 6months rego. but i have had to fix alot of stuff myself lol. enjoy your van they are good cars aswell as vans lol
cheers brenton

[BobD]

One of the reasons that I got rid of my T4 TDI at 108000km was because I had allowed over $2000 for the 120,000km service in my lease and I didn't want to pay it. It was also likely to need a new clutch from what I have heard although everything seamed perfect on mine when I traded it.

[jets]

This is a worrying trend. As these vans get older or reach higher mileages & labour rates continue to climb, it will cost more for a major service than the van is worth. I recently walked around U-Pullit wreckers & saw several Korean cars, undamaged but obviously with mechanical problems waiting to have a few parts scavanged & then crushed.
IMO the only way to prolong the life of our vehicles & reduce costs is to DIY.
I can hear people saying now it's too hard, but unless you are physically impaired & you are not interested, most of the work people are paying for they could do themselves. In a lot of cases the problem is the lack of info & confidence. This forum & others like it can address these problems.
There is a forum in the states where members regularly dismantle their injector pumps & make up special tools so that they can replace a leaking seal without pulling the whole thing apart.
If you are doing a repair or a service on your van, then take a few moments to take some pics. & some sort of write up as golf loon, rebuild & others have done to make this forum even better than it already is.

[Seano]

The hassle, jets, is that it'd just be too long off the road if I did this stuff myself and too expensive to tool up for more of the specialised stuff.

I have done most of my vehicle servicing to date myself....and I still do most of the interim servicing. But I simply don't have the time & skills to do a major service like this one. Nor do I have the the necessary hardware/software to deal with the diagnostics etc.

A good example of something I reckon I can do from a skills perspective but not a time and tooling perspective is changing the front CV boots....there's not much mechanically tricky about the process although it appears to be somewhat fiddly (especially if one is lying on their back) and I'd need some specialty bolt drivers (but I might have at least one lying around)....my weekends are fairly precious to me and such a job might take me all weekend. Not a great look when I'm in the middle of reno's....

Which is why I'm prepared to pay professionals.....but I still don't have to like it.

[jets]

If you can hold off the CV joints a while , I am in the process of a write up with pictures.

[jets]

The hassle, jets, is that it'd just be too long off the road if I did this stuff myself and too expensive to tool up for more of the specialised stuff.

I have done most of my vehicle servicing to date myself....and I still do most of the interim servicing. But I simply don't have the time & skills to do a major service like this one. Nor do I have the the necessary hardware/software to deal with the diagnostics etc.

A good example of something I reckon I can do from a skills perspective but not a time and tooling perspective is changing the front CV boots....there's not much mechanically tricky about the process although it appears to be somewhat fiddly (especially if one is lying on their back) and I'd need some specialty bolt drivers (but I might have at least one lying around)....my weekends are fairly precious to me and such a job might take me all weekend. Not a great look when I'm in the middle of reno's....

Which is why I'm prepared to pay professionals.....but I still don't have to like it.

What I do is break the items of a major service down to small parts & do each part as time permits eg fuel filter change, brake fluid change, air cleaner, pollen filter etc can be serviced over a period of time, as long as you document when you do them. The more complicated procedures eg cambelt & fuel pump timing belt changes you could arrange for your service guy to do.
I have found the cost of tooling is very small compared with paying for the job to be done. I am currently assembling the tools to do a cambelt change myself. I have made the crankshaft holding tool to undo/tighten the stretch bolt in the balancer pulley. I purchased the 35mm special spanner 3355 for tightening the tensioner from ebay & the cord & program for setting injection timing also from ebay.