Car Stuff

The Rabbit (aka Klopfer) is quickly approaching its 100,000 mile service. Need to call Dick's Autohaus to schedule an appointment to have it done there (why pay for the stealership to do the work?) Since I have the parts, will probably go ahead and replace all four rotors and sets of pads at once, if I can get the damn bolts off this time. I also have OEM front fogs lights on order from ECS Tuning to finally install even though I have had the appropriate switch on the car for over a year (and a year fog with the current tail lights).  The plasti-dip on the front badge came off when I washed the car last week, so I am going to use some actual paint this time when I black it out.  I will also (when I have time) priming and painting the rims black with wheel paint since the finish on the rims is looking pretty bad and there is some curb rash on them.

The Jetta SportWagen is almost out of it's bumper-to-bumper warranty range, nearing 36,000 miles since November 1st.  This weekend I installed my birthday present from Chrissy, OEM front fog lights ordered from OEMPlus.  They look awesome, unfortunately, I thought I had the appropriate CECM to plug them directly into to the controller and have them work.  The rule of thumb used to be, if you had the multi-function display in your dashboard, you had the high-line CECM which is compatible with front fogs.  Apparently, that is no longer the case, and my car has the low-line CECM, so doesn't have the proper pins for front fog lights.  Because of this, I then had to re-work the wiring some and use a relay to power the fog lights.  I am not 100% satisfied with the wiring right now, but it is safe, and will suffice until I get around to reworking it a bit.  This is why we ordered the rabbit fog lights from ECS rather than OEMPlus.  The OEMPlus kit is designed to plug directly in like they do in the factory.  We know the Rabbit has the low-line CECM, and the ECS kit uses a relay in its wiring harness already, so I won't run into the same problems.

I have also now ordered the dash cubby for the JSW like the European cars have, and the driver's side taillight with the rear fog in it, to further convert the car to euro-spec.  I almost never have to use the rear fog over here, but occasionally it is nice to have on 213 in the mornings or the Bay Bridge.  Also, it works better for getting tailgaters off your ass then tapping the breaks.  Just flip that on for a second, and it makes them think you are tapping your brakes, but doesn't have the risk of collision of tapping the brakes.

This coming weekend we are going to Dubs on the Boards in Wildwood, New Jersey, but won't be showing off the car, just going to check out all the other cars.  We will also be going to H20i in a couple of weeks down near Ocean City, MD.

Lastly, I still need to take some good photos of the JSW for the garage portion of my website, but it won't be happening today.  Overcast, rainy, and the car still needs a bath too.  Maybe Saturday if it is nice, since I will want to give the car a bath before driving to Wildwood.