One job that needed doing was replacing the O/S ARB bush. The previous owner had replaced the one on the N/S, but had not done the O/S one as it wasn’t as bad. On cold mornings I could hear a squelching noise from in front of the driver’s footwell when going over bumps, very similar to the noise worn console bushes made on the Mk1 Fabia we had some years ago. Given what a pain replacing the Fabia console bushes had been, I sincerely hoped it was the ARB bush and not the console bush making the noise. As the previous owner had given me the new O/S bush with the car, I fitted it in the hope of curing the noise and fortunately it did! I was very happy and relieved it turned out to be an easy fix.
With the arrival of lockdown and some nice weather, I got out with the Vactan and treated the front wishbones, and rust patches on the rear axle beam. Not a glamorous job, but hopefully one that will keep the rust monster a bay for a bit.
Photo before the Vactan has dried and turned black:
When I had changed the gearbox oil, I had noticed that there was a lot of movement in the gearbox rear pendulum mount, so I ordered the cheap Febi Polo replacement. It was easy to fit once the undertray was off and makes it feel smoother when coming on and off power.
My next fillup, which was mainly commuting, got me up to just under 68mpg. I have a suspicion that much of the improvement over the previous tankful was probably down to now running on summer diesel, as we tend to switch over in the UK, from winter to summer fuels, in mid-March. Summer diesel has about a 5% higher calorific value than UK winter diesel, so should show a similar increase in fuel economy.
Having seen some of the pictures on here of very congested EGR valves, I decided it would be good to clean mine out. The hardest part turned out to be cutting down the allen key with a blunt hacksaw blade. Once I’d done this and could get in to slacken off the allen bolt, it came to pieces quite easily, although quite a lot of it has to be done by feel.
The EGR valve itself was a bit mucky, but I had expected more buildup of deposits after 155k miles. I think the car has not suffered from too many short journeys in its life, which bodes well for the future.
After a bit of a scrape and strub, the EGR was looking much better and I put it all back together again.
My most recent modification has been the addition of wheel spats, extending down from the bottom front of the wheelarches. Rotating wheels are not good for smooth airflow, so blocking air from reaching them is actually good for aerodynamics. Audi added small spats in front of the front wheels on the 3L and FSI A2s, but larger ones have now become commonplace in front of all four wheels on modern car designs.
I made mine out of the same 4mm Correx plastic sheet that I had used for the grill block. The front ones fit with a slot around the undertray on the inboard side and a couple of small self tappers onto the wheelarch liner on the outer side. The rear ones I was able to attach using the wheelarch liner screws.
My last fillup was 70.5 on the DIS, but actually only 69.6 at the pump, so I'm still looking to get over 70mpg for a tank. The rear seats are out now, to save a bit of weight and see if that makes the difference!