After two days in Erick's garage working on the VW, we finally gave up on the SOB and taking it to his mechanic friend.

Sat - was spent replacing the driver front wheel bearing which resulted in making the noise worse. but it was probably because I didn't completely torque the wheel when I put it so it was loose.

Sun.. we look over the car to tighten everything up. For giggles we look at the passenger side and I take off the hub cover and immediately a lug nut falls off because it broke off the hub!! I go to take the others and manage to break 4 out of 5 lug nuts! Try to extract the nuts to no avail but at least now Erick has a air hammer. We tried to take the whole hub assembly off but that didn't work because the bolt that kept the control arms to the assembly refused to come off as well!

What a weekend. Thanks Erick! Let me know when you hear from your friend.

 

Not a fun weekend, eh, JT?

 

it was fun, just not as productive as i would have liked.

 

That's one of the things I'm minorly paranoid about with my A4. It's the first european car I've owned, and the first car I've had with lug bolts instead of lug nuts. If you break or cross thread a lug nut or stud, they're cheap and easy to replace. If you cross thread a lug bolt or shear one off in the hub, you're in for a lot of work.

I put a tiny dab of anti-seize on the threads every time I put the wheels back on, so they won't rust in place. Don't put too much on, though, you don't want to run the risk of it loosening on you!

 

my passat is over 9 years old. it was a combination of that particular wheel being worn so the lug nut well is deeper, which caused who ever was working on it to really over torque the lug nuts to get the wheel to make it flush against the rotor.

but... Erick and I are now experts on taking off the hub assembly except for getting the bolt that holds the control arms in place. how the hell does VW expect you to take it off!!!!

 

VW tends to do things differently as ive noticed from my old 02 jetta that is now long gone.

I remember having a very minor problem which would normally take a very short time to fix and it ended up being a 2 day thing! To cut it short, my driver side windows automatic power window regulator had unbolted off its position somehow, so i figure itd be an easy task to take it apart and check it out myself, and man there are some parts that were on there that did NOT seem necessary AT all! I couldnt even get to the regulator without breaking or cutting something!

i took it to the dealer the next day. What a waste of time that car was!

-sonz

 

the germans tend to overcomplicate their cars. not sure if it's just cause they are german and that's how they do things or they enjoy forcing you to go to the dealer.

i know about the window problem, that carried over to my passat