Blog Summary at 30,000 Miles

I was inspired to write a GTI ownership blog based on one I had seen written by a major car magazine. Their blog was a big reason I decided to pull the trigger and get the car.

My blog is mostly a journal of what goes on with the car, but I thought it might be helpful for prospective GTI owners, especially if you were concerned about reliability, dealership problems, or issues like the seats. If you're on the fence, give it a read.

At 30,000 miles, I'm still writing, but the service coverage is now over and the warranty will be up soon. There weren't a lot of surprises.

I ditched my initial dealership for poor service and found another truly excellent one (Dorito Brothers in Walnut Creek, CA). I had one initial quality issue with a broken stereo pre-set button, something that could have been resolved easily, but ended up souring my dealership relationship. I also had plenty of self-inflicted wounds by installing an after market stereo replacement.

I wouldn't do that again, mostly because of the complexity of modern electronics. Using my Vag Com cable, the GTI checks 14,000 different faults on start up. Two of those killed my battery by not being turned off when the stereo was installed.

Other than those things, and the fact that the tires seem to magnetically attract bolts, the car has held up pretty well. The GTI had the usual German car problems of rattles (finally fixed yesterday), expensive parts ($20 windshield wipers and $120 battery cables) and funky ergonomics. If you aspire towards a BMW or Mercedes, you'll certainly get that premium feeling at the parts department. You may want to save up with a Japanese car though.

It also has a "ticking time bomb" of brakes and tires needing to be replaced at around the same time (36,000 miles or so). You would certainly save a bunch of money by going with a boring, non performance oriented vehicle, especially something Japanese (even my wife's Golf will need an expensive transmission service soon), but you wouldn't have nearly as much fun. Plus the car has an excellent safety record.

I'll keep writing the blog, as before, mostly for myself, but I thought you might want to take a look if you're uncertain. As for myself, my eye is wandering a bit at this point, and if Alfa Romeo makes it back to the US, I might jump ship to something Italian. As you can see, I have a masochism streak.

30,000 Mile Service (and then some)

Some work I got done today at 30,096 miles:

• Oil, Lube, Rotation. In addition, they changed the brake fluid.
• Electrical. The culprit for my dead battery was, as you might have guessed, the aftermarket stereo system. The tech went into detail on how the electrical system would bounce up to 600 milliamps, traced back to faults in the system looking for the radio.
• B-Pillar Rattle. Fixed with "anti vibration/rattle tape" and it appears to be gone.
• Wiper Blades. All replaced at my expense at an average of $20 per wiper

Wear Item	20000 miles	30000 miles	Replacement
Brakes, Front (mm)	14	10	5
Brakes, Rear (mm)	12	8	5
Tires, Front (/32)	7	6	3
Tires, Rear (/32)	7	5	3

Looking at the wear rate of the brakes, I've probably got another 8,000 on the rear and 12,000 or so for the fronts. I've got another 10,000 miles or so for the tires as well. So it may be an expensive Summer, based on my driving patterns.

Total expense for the service was $63.87 for the wipers. They were an item I requested and the first time the blades have been replaced in 2 1/2 years.

Dead Battery

29,681 miles and the battery is dead. You could tell it was struggling for about a week before it finally gave up. I was hoping it might be the cold. Not the case. The AAA guy ran a diagnostic and believed the alternator killed it, recommending I take the car in to have it checked out.

Bolt Magnet and TPMS

I've driven the GTI about 27,000 miles and have had four tire repairs for bolts in the tread. Thankfully, each was a relatively inexpensive fix and each allowed me to get to a repair facility without leaving me stranded. Still, it seems to attract these bolts more often than my last car, although I can't, for the life of me, think of why that might be. The good news is the Tire Pressure Monitoring System (TPMS), usually alerts me to the problem right away, the exception being one time a couple weeks ago when the "alert" was a bolt slapping loudly into the pavement.

The TPMS uses the traction control to check the rotation of the tires and alerts you when one is out of whack. It's not terribly sophisticated, but it does instill confidence, especially with low profile tires (I know, 18's aren't really low these days). When there is a problem, it's excellent in helping identify the issue, and although it won't tell you which tire is low, it will let you when your futile attempts to add air has finally failed. Let's put it this way, it's a helpful enough safety feature that I would consider it a deficiency if I had to buy a car without it. That said, the lack of climate control is one of those I still can't believe is not offered.

What else is there to report about the car? I've had no other problems or quirks of late, other than the occasional recurrence of the passenger B-pillar rattle. I noticed that using a different door seal protector (Zymol Seal) made the car incredibly quiet for a couple weeks.

I still baby the GTI quite a bit, only using Chevron premium fuel (despite this), mixing my 1Z washer fluid, and continuing with the Zaino polish with 1Z wash with wax additive on the outside. I've resisted changing anything to after market other than the Pioneer navigation system, which got the 2012 update installed this week. Different wheels would be nice, just to make it look a bit unique. A Stage 1 APR tune would be great, just to unlock the power held back by the computer. Other than that, the car is pretty wonderful in every way.

Mileage: 27,500

Rear Shelf Rattle

The rear shelf in the GTI attaches using two prongs with a rubber surface. These rotate when the rear hatch is opened for cargo access. However, the shelf rattle constantly over every ... single ... bump.

So I picked up some sticky backed felt, used for protecting furniture. It was thicker than other felt I've found, which is good for sound insulation, but it refused to mold to the prong properly. I glued them down with super glue, which seemed to do the trick.

Mileage: 24,662

Leaky Oil and Battery Issues

The day began with the realization that I was leaking oil. I parked someplace slightly different and noticed several circles on the driveway, one for each day since my oil change this week. So I brought the car into Dorito Brothers and they eventually got it fixed. The rookie technician hadn't torqued the oil pan bolt properly.

90 minutes later and we were back on the road, although the Pioneer system was completely dead. When I got home, I did my battery disconnect trick, which worked fine to reset the unit, although the bolt on the negative battery terminal cable was really stripped at this point.

I went shopping and found a couple "standard" bolt replacements and since the wife was back in Walnut Creek, I had her check to see if I could purchase a 10mm bolt from Dorito Brothers. It turns out Volkwasgen doesn't sell that part. You have to buy the entire $125 negative terminal cable. Later on I discovered the bolt was integrated into the cable, so that was really the only option.

Ebay came to the rescue. I wouldn't normally buy used parts, but the negative battery terminal cable is probably the simplest, brain dead easy part on the car. So $25 later and I'm waiting for my cable to arrive from Texas.

20,000 Mile Service

I just had my 20,000 mile service and my records showed 7/32nds on my tires and 12mm front and 9mm rear remaining on the brake pads.
  
I can forecast when I'll need new tires based on a few numbers. 3/32nds is when the tires need replacing. The Pirelli P-Zero Nero M&S start at 11/32nds. 7/32nds wear at 20,000 miles means I've used 50% of my tires. I'm good for another year, perhaps.

The break pads started out with 14mm front and 12mm rear. Doing a bit of research, 5mm is probably a good time to change your pads. So doing more math, I've used about 22% of my front pads and 42% of my rear pads. So I'll likely need a rear break job when I get tires in another 20,000 miles.

This also seems to be the case on the Rabbits we looked at, as all the CPO rabbits seemed to have gotten a break job at around 35,000 miles.