Das Auto

It seems that before every big trip we make with the superdeeezle, I have to go under the hood and do a little cleanup. When we first purchased the car, I convinced the LW that we should get a VAG-COM setup for it to interface with all of the computers on this car and I'm glad that I did. The price we paid for that laptop and the Ross Tech software has earned its keep. This time around, the CEL came on and it was throwing the P0128 code for the coolant temp sensor. After some reading, I decided to go down to the local VW stealership and get the factory sensor. It was relatively simple, or would have been if the o-ring from the old sensor been stuck in the hole. That cost me about 1.5 liters of Pentosin coolant at $18/liter and made a really nice pet-toxic mess.

I cleaned that up and then cleared the code only to find that in the last few days, one of the glow plugs took a crap. Of course, it throws the CEL on for the glow plug so that it won't pass emissions. If I didn't have to update the plates or travel through a few "you aint farummdeez pourtz, izzzyu boway?" type states in a week, I'd probably let it slide. So, off to BAP this time for a $27 Bosch glow plug. I changed it in the lot and was off to the emission station for the pre-renewal test. The standard for my car is 30 and it came in at 000 running mostly biodiesel. I think that last year on D2, it showed 10. It's set for an alignment on Monday at 8am and we'll hit the road after that on our way to Van Horn or Midland, TX.