So I have had issues with my MK7.5 GTI Performance Pack for a while now , the car lacking bottom end power , hesitation when accelerating , I changed the Diverter Valve a while back and that seemed to improve things for a while (circa 1 month ) and then the issues came back , no fault codes ever showed in VCDs , the car then got its Thermostat housing replaced under warranty by VW , again the car ran fine for around a month , then the issues came back , the car would also run differently day in /day out !!
While I was on holiday last week in Portugal I had time to do a bit more digging into what the issue could be , and read a lot about cam magnets and the issues they can cause , one being poor idle , I had noticed my idle dropping very low from time to time , so I thought lets change them , I ordered a pair of INA ones from Awesome gti and picked up a set of replacement bolts from TPS .
I replaced the Cam Magnets yesterday when I returned home , a little tip guys , the retaining bolts are loctited from the factory and are single use bolts and are easy to snap as they are not steel , mine were very tight and I had to ease them out very slowly by slackening them a few turns and winding them back in , rinse and repeat and plenty of penetrating oil , also remove the coolant header tank as it makes doing the rear one much easier !!
Apart from the time it takes to get the bolts out its an easy job , so job completed and time for road test, to my amazement my car was transformed , running better than the day I picked it up over a year and 14000 miles ago , bottom end fully restored , engine as smooth as a baby's bottom and the hesitation when accelerating gone and much more willing to rev with consistent power all the way !!
For reference I did the shake test on the old magnets and both were stuck , car is on 46000 m and full VW service history , for a total cost of around £75 I'm over the moon at the improvement in performance , its strange how VCDS didn't show any issues though .
