Comments by "Mikko Rantalainen" (@MikkoRantalainen) on "HumbleMechanic" channel.

Coding full scan and saving results is also important in case any of the modules with coding fail. When you have the original coding saved, installing a spare part and re-entering the same coding get things work easily just as they were working originally.
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5:30 Pro tip: if you have properly rusted parts, start to put the rust removal lubrication as a daily routine for a week before you're attempting to take the thing apart. The rust removal oils (even the high quality really thin oil) will need lots of time to soak the whole thread if there's a lot of rust. The parts will come off much easier if you have oil for the whole thread (including the whole part inside the nut). And do not brute force rusted bolts with extra high torque. Use some tool that does hammering (e.g. air hammer) or apply a hammer to a tight box wrench while applying sensible torque. The hammering breaks the rust without snapping the bolt. Applying heat helps too but be careful not to set things in fire.
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Yes, when the start of the video showed those plugs I expected to see some nice trick where you push your hand to some little hole after removing one plastic cover. Taking the wheel off was a final hint that this is getting ugly.
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I'd guess the reason is either trying to avoid warping the door due temperature changes or to reduce weight of the flap to make it easier to rotate with the servo. Though I really don't believe a steel flap could warp with the temperatures that those flaps see. And the weight reduction is not big enough to really matter. Maybe some kind of relief valve setup in case pressure gets really high the foam will rip?
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15:40 I think WV engines should start without working cam position sensors as long as you have crank position sensor and just keep cranking the engine. If I remember correctly, the engine should start after 8 full rotations. Of course, that will cause major wear to starter and the battery may fail so you still need to fix those sensors.
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@Ut005A It's also VCDS for poor people.
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@Ut005A VCDS may have OBD II scan tool but it definitely doesn't have "ODB 11". The "II" (uppercase ii) is the roman numeral for 2 and it's used to specify that we're talking about OBD version 2 (instead of OBD version 1 or 1.5 that did also exist in one time). The company OBDeleven was named like that as a pun. I've never understood why the protocol uses such a weird names. It would have been much better to use names like OBD, OBD2, OBD3, OBD4. I'd have labelled the current OBD2+CAN BUS as OBD3 because older OBD II compatible tools cannot talk to CAN.
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I would say the tire compound doesn't affect the AWD system if the tire radius is the same. The system is probably designed to have front and rear wheels rotating at the same speed while driving straight. If rear and front wheels have different sizes, the center diff will be active all the time (or in cars where haldex replaces the center diff, the haldex discs are slipping all the time) which will introduce extra heat and wear. If your center diff if torsen type, it could be damaged by the heat, too. The different tire compound should affect the rear and front tires wearing at different speeds and causing different radius forcing the center diff to always be active.
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12:10 If the car has ESP, make sure you don't accidentally rotate the wheel rotation sensor 360 degrees in either direction (that black thing with two plastic poles). Doing that will cause spring coil like wiring to fail sooner or later. Edit: I see you taped it at 14:10
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That's obviously weight reduction to make the car faster!
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@piti_rocks Without center diff or clutch slip the average rotation speed of front wheels and average rotation speed of rear wheels will be fighting against each other. And without clutch or center diff, the only way is to slip at least one wheel or snap a transmission part.
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@FluePeak If you have to work with properly rusted stuff, you either break things or have pretty lax deadline.
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@pedrosergiocaseiro426 It's my understanding that the cars that do not come from the factory with the "passanger mirror tilt down on reverse" option are missing a position sensor from the mirror. The control module will try to run the mirror regardless of the missing sensor and how succesful it's in returning it the original position depends on the wear level of the motor. (If the option is installed in the factory, there will be a sensor that can measure the angle of the mirror so the module can return it to the original position when you take the car out off reverse. Without the sensor the module tries to apply some more or less random amount of motor drive and your mirror may end up in wrong position. If the motor and wiring is good, applying 1 second of tilt down followed by 1 second of tilt up should result in almost identical mirror position – if not then this feature will not work properly without the missing sensor.)
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13:00 turn signal (or any other light) activating extra stuff usually points to disconnected earth. Or poor connection to earth.
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You haven't talked about the bottom of the car body. How much rust does the body have? Here in Finland, those cars would have at least two rusted holes, one behind each front wheel which seems to be the weak part of those cars.
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If the Haldex replaces the center diff, yes, you'll be getting extra tire wear. Also make sure to have every tire with equal wear and equal air pressure or you'll be soon having equal wear in all tires.
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15:57 I would suggest also adjusting the lock to make the door flush with the rear panel or door. This car seems to have rear of the driver's door slightly outwards. Usually either the lock in the door or the bracket that it catches have big holes to allow adjusting the door when it's locked.
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About the "apps" and credits: is the credit payment per use or to activate the app? For example, if you want to use app to disable e.g. sound indicator for locking the doors and want to enable it again a week later, do you have to pay for the app once or twice?
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If "it just needs ____ repair" were actually true, the seller would have already done that and could sell the car without any faults for a higher price.
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@666cemetaryslut Yeah, and the claim that nothing else needs to be repaired is never true either.
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I have this feature in B6 from factory and I would actually prefer not having this feature. It makes making one blink signal very hard which is sometimes used here in Finland to signal the driver behind that it would be a good place to overtake. I think it can be adjusted with VCDS if you have it.
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@robj2704 A block of wood between the parts is a nice way to avoid pushing too far. You can adjust a small block of wood with an axe or sharp knife.
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OBDeleven cannot support iOS (iPhone or iPad) because iOS does not allow 3rd parties to use bluetooth radio. The only workaround is to use custom browser frontend on WIFI AP (which requires that the thing with the OBDII connector includes WIFI access point). This limitation is caused purely by Apple. Android allows free access to 3rd party bluetooth devices and can supports devices such as OBDeleven easily.
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Great video! Too bad that you cannot simply replace the $7 spring but need tens of hours of work to do that. And need to replace lots of single-use bolts and gaskets.
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Yep, customers would need to go along lines of "I pay for up to 4 hours of diagnostics, then you say what needs to be fixed. If I agree to apply the recommended fix and it doesn't fix the problem, I'll pay *nothing*. If you cannot find the fault in 4 hours but provide me a report of what you've checked *and verified working*, I will pay for the 4 hours of diagnosing the problem and look for another shop." As long as customers are happy to take "I guess it could be ECM... it costs quite a bit but replacing it might fix the issue. Are you okay we try that and you pay for the parts and labor in any case?" things are not going to get any better.
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Here's a good article about flat rate and diagnostics: https://www.aaa.com/autorepair/articles/auto-repair-labor-rates-explained The bottom line is that flat rate should not be used for diagnostics. However, that article fails to say what should be done if the root cause is not found after N hours of diagnostics. What kind of report should the customer get and how to proceed then? For me, if I pay 4 hours of diagnostics and the root cause is not found, I definitely want full report about what was checked and found working so that it doesn't need to be checked again by another shop. Flat rate is okay for clear tasks such as replacing the battery, replacing starter motor or replacing timing chain.
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14:00 I once replaced totally jammed tie rod end in an old Saab. I had to cut it open up to the threads on two sides with an angle grinder and it still took two men hanging in the wrench to get it to turn. The thread looked fine so it was just rust that caused it to stay stuck. Getting that tie rod off took maybe 2-3 hours in DIY environment.
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Imagine if "right to repair" were a reality and you could actually fix/replace the software on ECM... Current situation is like "my printer doesn't seem to be working, I guess I have to buy a new computer and try again"! For those having touble following this logic, ECM is technically a lower power computer packaged in aluminium box, running manufacturer tweaked software. And different ECM part numbers actually refer to software running on said computer.
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I'd recommend doing VCDS autoscan in the background while you're doing other stuff to the car. That gets you fault codes for all parts and also collects all currently used coding so you get almost complete backup as a side-effect. That 4WD issue would have probably shown up in the fault codes.
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Is the head spacer added just to allow more boost?
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The real elephant in the room is that Rosstech (manufacturer of VCDS) has to reverse engineer all this computer stuff because VAG doesn't want to tell about these and you're supposed to use the official (crappier) VAG tools only and those are for official shops only. I wish VAG published the data so that we could have real open source implementations and it would be much cheaper for Rosstech and OBDeleven to create these tools. Right now, the requirement to reverse engineer everything sets a really high bar for anybody new trying to enter the market and as a result, we have less competition which results to worse tools than possible. And more expensive, too.
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22:42 You already have induction heater to apply heat. Why not apply it here, too?
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@HumbleMechanic I think you could use pure copper with heat resisting insulation socks to make your own inductor coils as big as needed for any application. The coil is nothing but a low resistor wire that can take enough current without heating itself but only cause the magnetic field to heat the iron.
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29:30 If you have a "GTI" car do not buy any tuning parts before fixing every suspension part to at least to OEM spec. Way too many "tuners" start with re-programming the ECU or getting highly expensive struts before fixing clear problems in the suspension. Only after you have fixed all the actual problems even consider getting extra tuning parts. In most cases, you may have to replace majority of the ball joints and bushings if the car is older than 5 years old and you want to have zero problems.
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From the initial description, I would have guessed no fuel getting to engine and cause as something electrical because it started without warning. Didn't expect to see the chain in multiple parts.
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21:10 Unless the subframe bolts are rusted, losening subframe bolts is definitely the best option because you don't even need to remove those to get enough space. And to restore things after re-attaching the bolt you just tighten all bolts again.
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