I was lurking your forum for the last week and decided to join today. I'm from Texas and study in Bern,Switzerland. I was going to join a local forum but couldn't find anything and a friend from VWvortex sent me to this one. I like that it's still European and I can read and write in English rather than Swiss German.
Back in Texas I'm a dublover and finally picked another one up in Switzerland. In Texas I'm more of a mk3 guy. I have had five mkIII 1998 Gti vr6's all in different forms and uses. 2 mkII 16v's and one MKI GTI. I still have a 1998 GTi Vr6 2.9 with a S/C,1992 Gti 16v(SCCA Time-trial) 1959 VW Beetle and 1969 VW Bus(back cleared out and used for motor,tools,tent transport for weekend racing)
Here in Switzerland I picked up my first Diesel or Turbo & Diesel combined. I bought her last week, a 2002 mkIV PD 150 6 speed. I absolutely love this thing but I'm still new to diesels. The car has 112,000 miles but with a new turbo,injectors,clutch and brakes I thought it was a good deal at 6K for Switzerland. I bought another mkIV tdi that was wrecked and pulled out all the interior and extra parts that I could find. It's kind of a habit of mine when I buy a car, that I have to find another car for parts and goodies. The car had some tan interior that I really did not like at first and replaced the cloth sport seats with some leather recaros and i'm slowly two toning the inside with black and tan....maybe I'll just go all black soon but it's nice to switch it out every once in a while. I have to take the carpet out anyways to install the heated seats cables and new airbag harness and also the subwoofer and audio lines. I still need to find Black carpet somewhere if anyone knows a good place to start. I bought all the cables,cruise control,3 time blinker mod and passat w8 done light from Kufatec in Germany. I also ordered a new front brake kit from stop tech and yesterday I installed my new set of wheels...BBS VZ 16's wrapped in Sport Contact 2's that I found local for 500. I have an extra set of Audi fat fives if anyones wants them,though they are quite scratched.
So today I noticed something odd. I have a bit of oil, kind of like the size of a hockey puck of a stain under the front driver side(well passenger side for the UK guys) bumper that I believe might be coming down from the intercooler. I still need to inspect that but it seems that might whole front end must come off and I'm still looking around for garage space in the city of Bern. Do you guys think it might be a gasket of some sort? I also checked the oil and it was a bit low so I topped it off today. When I'm on the freeway I still have that amazing power between 2k-4k strong but under WOT I get a huge cloud of black smoke. My guess would be that the oil is getting sucked through from the leak up front and bowing it out all smokey in the back.
Anyways,I can't wait to enjoy many reads,discussions and ask questions on my voyage into this European forum. I hope I could make this site my new home for the many more years I will be staying in Europe finishing school and later possibly working here.
