TDI Maintenance Question

[bbroski]

I just purchased a 2001 TDI GLS, it has almost 50,000 on it. In the maintenance part of the owners manual it says to have the brake fluid changed every 50 or 60 thousand miles. Has anyone had this done or does it really have to be done??

Also I was wondering if anyone who has a TDI knows if there is any other regular maintenance I should do?? This is my first TDI and want to keep it a long time. IE: Glow Plugs, Fuel Injetctors???

Thanks for any help it is greatly appreciated.

Oh, also anyone know where to find a GOOD shop book, not one of those cheap $20 ones at autozone or something?

[SnoopisTDI]

Look for a Bentley manual, you can get them in paper or on a CD. They are great!

If you have a laptop, you might want to consider getting VAG-COM. It's not a requirement, but great to have- you can make a connector pretty cheap or buy one, then I think you just download the software. This is great for checking trouble codes(it's pretty specific, I had a bad glow plug and it even told me which cylinder[although it was backwards LOL]), and also making other adjustments. Anything from adjusting your EGR settings, changing the way your horn honks when you lock it, changing injection quantities, logging boost data or other stuff like that, changing from english to metric, the list goes on.

The best on-line resource, bar-none, is www.TDIclub.com.

As for maintenance, do you know when the fuel filter was changed last? That's a good place to start if you don't know when it was changed. If it was changed at 40k, you probably don't need to change it, but draining the water separator(on bottom of fuel filter, be careful it's fragile) isn't a bad idea.

I would also check the "snow screen," as we call it. This is a screen in the air intake before the air filter, and it can get plugged up with twigs and bugs and stuff. Some people just cut them out, but I left it intact and just clean it every 10k or 20k miles. It might be a good idea also to peek into the intake manifold or the EGR to see if it's plugged up with soot or not- if it is, cleaning it out can regain some power and mpg for you. Some people have intakes plugged up at 20k miles, other can go 100k miles, it just depends on driving habits and stuff like that. There are ways to avoid this, but I'll let you read about them on TDI club (egr mod, old navy ccv).

I'm not sure about the break fluid, I'm at about 46,000 miles now(02 Golf TDI) so I'm probably getting close to that too. The Bentley says to replace the brake fluid every two years, regardless. I'm coming up on three years, and considering a break up-grade so I'll probably just replace fluid at that time.

If it is an automatic, the timing belt should have been changed at 40k miles, if it's a manual then it will need to be changed at 60k miles.

That's all I can think of right now. Enjoy your TDI! Oh yeah, make sure you check out the "ventectomy!"

[bbroski]

Thanks very much for the info, I will have to check out that site.