[Guide] Fixing VW Jetta MK6 Rattling Door

Volkswagen.


A brand that is perceived to be premium in this part of the world.
So as expected of a premium brand, one should be expecting a car that is solidly assembled with every single switch gear, panels and trims to be solidly in place.

So it seems.

Less then 1 year into ownership, to be more precise, 7 months later, my rear passenger door develop some annoying rattling sound.
Yes, rattling sound in a Volkswagen. In this case, its my Volkswagen Jetta Mk6.

"What a rattling sound in a less then a year old Volkswagen? Sure or not?". 

That is the exact question my friends asked when topic about my car arises.

It can be heard on the move over some slightly uneven surface, over bump or when you open the door and shake it.
It annoys the hell out of me and the thoughts of making an appointment with the Service Center to resolve this seems daunting. I need to leave the car in the Service Center for the whole day and this don't guarantee that they will be able to resolve my issue.

Time to find a solution to this rattling door.
I took matter into my own hands.
I brought my car to my usual place at EA Autoworks to work on it. They have the tools and here I have some folks to back me up in case I need assistance and I am very confident in their superb workmanship.

So the first step is to dismantle the door to find out the source of the rattling sound. Troubleshooting by ear seems to point the source towards the upper left hand side of the door.

This is how the door looks like behind the panel.

Removing the big rubbery plastic cover for better access.

The troubleshooting is focus towards the upper left hand side of the door. Namely this area.

But guess what, after we have dismantled the door panel, shaking the door did not produced any rattling sound. We were stumped. So we fitted back the door panel and shake the door again. The rattling sound came back. Puzzling indeed.

We removed the door panel again and did a more thorough study. 

Finally we found out the source of the rattling sound.

It is from the tweeter.

How did the tweeter cause the ratting sound?

The tweeter is supposed to be lock in position by its place holder. But it seems that this particular tweeter has come loose from its holder and because it is loose, its free play will knock/rattle against the panel thus causing the annoying rattling sound. 

Since the source of the rattling is found, the good folks at EA Autoworks helps me to secure the tweeter firmly in place with some very fine wood shreds and some industrial or audio equipment glue.

We then fit everything back in place and then we do the "swing" test again.

The rattling is totally gone.

I then went on a test drive on a nearby superbly uneven road and thankfully, the annoying rattling sound is no longer there.

Problem solved.

Never felt such satisfaction in working and resolving issues on your own cars with your own hands.

With some assistance from the good folks in EA Autoworks of course.

The "Altis"

I don't know why I named it Altis.
Maybe out of pure cheekiness as the troll in me is very strong.
Anyway the name stuck and it kinda grew on me.

Time really flies when you are having fun.
I still remember the "Altis" sitting in the delivery bay awaiting to be collected way back in November 2012.

43km on the clock with the MFD totally as it is direct from factory.
Yes the time is off because it is yet to be configured.

Duh.

I can't believe its already 9 months since I took delivery of the car.

9 months and 23k km of fun, even as a daily drive.

Life is good.

A fun daily drive car and a mad weekend car.

[Review] Ultra Racing 23mm Rear Anti-Roll Bar for VW Jetta

Having tracked the "Altis" several times in Sepang and also some competitive events, I figured out areas that needs improvement for the "Altis" to suit me.

One of it is to make the body roll more controllable.
So off I go to my usual place, EA Autoworks to get the necessary parts and services.

The area of upgrade for this time will be the rear anti-roll bars.
The "Altis" comes with 16mm rear anti-roll bar as standard fare from factory.

I am going to replace the stock 16mm rear anti-roll bar with Ultra Racing 23mm Rear Anti-Roll Bar.

 

The replacement process is straight forward and as simple as ABC. Literally.

Raise the car on the hoist. 

Remove the stock anti-roll bar.

Fit in the new anti-roll bar.

Voila. Work completed.

It's time for a test drive at the nearby "handling test course".

The effect of a bigger anti-roll bar is immediate. The car stay flatter around corners now as it is having a much higher resistant to roll now.

Make no mistake, at its limit, the car still have the roll angle of the stock anti-roll bar but with the bigger Ultra Racing 23mm Rear Anti-Roll Bar, the car take a longer time and more force to get there. So this indirectly translate to a "flatter" cornering experience, in layman terms.

As the "handling test course" did not allow for a much higher speed of cornering, it is left to the usual "test track" of many regular driving kakis.

A date is setup with the regular people for a dash uphill.

What ever experience felt during the "handling test course" is replicated at the corners of the "test track".

As the "test track" allows for a much higher speed run, the improvement is more apparent.

The "Altis" has a much sharper turn-in now compared to before and this allows the car to literally dive into a corner later without much worry about the rear swinging wildly about from such last minute maneuver as the up-rated anti-roll bar keep the weight transfer in check.

Taking sweeping corners are now better as the weight transfer is more gradual, thus the car sit flatter through most of the corners and this allow me to have more time on the throttle and less time correcting the car mid-corner. Indirectly this translate to a "faster" drive as you spend more time on the throttle.

All in all, I would say this would be a good up-grade for those who don't want to sacrifice the comfort of stock suspension while at the same time looking for some improvement over their stock suspension.

Just remember that this is an improvement but do not expect the level of handling improvement that coil-overs or sports springs provides. 

Note to kids:

Changing to a bigger anti-roll bar is not magic. You still need proper coil-overs or sports springs to improve your vehicle handling.

VW Jetta MK6 in Sepang International Circuit

I never felt so much at home then in the tracks of Sepang International Circuit.

After finding out how the car would feel during a recent event here, I've finally gotten the chance to test out the "Altis" on the famous tarmac of Sepang International Circuit. Not once but twice actually.

The first time the "Altis" entered Sepang, I did not do any adjustment whatsoever to the car like tyre pressure and such and the car is entered as it is, in its very condition it arrived.

After spending a good 70% of the session learning the car, I then go into "time attack" mode for the final quarter of the session.
Managed 3:05 with the car in moderate to slightly heavy traffic condition.

Not much comment on the time as I need a reference time to base on for future track reference.

It was a good session as I get valuable personal data on how the car behaves and what improvements need to be done.

A couple of months later, I have another opportunity to run the Jetta in the track again and this time, the only "tuning" I did was to check the before and after reading of the tyres and the pressure is adjusted accordingly before each run.

Same thing follows, the first 70% of the session is spent getting the readings and correcting it accordingly. The final 30% is spend on "time attack" mode.

Frankly I can feel the improvement just on playing with the tyre pressure alone. I got more traction and the car ESP kicks in much later allowing me more throttle time.

This time I managed to bring the car below 3 mins to 2:59.47.

This particular session also did confirmed what exactly needed to be done.

A group pic after the second session.

Although the timing is not based on Sepang transponder, but I have the chance to do a cross-checked as the Lancer above is running on a transponder and I have the opportunity to cross check the app reading with the transponder reading.

The difference is only 2 hundredth of a second.

Now bring on the 2:50 barrier for this car.

"Altis" on dyno

Right before the car hit the magical 5 figures, I figure that I better get a power reading first as usually the magical 5 figures is where the green light for modding starts. Well at least for me.

Haha.
Hopefully the missus won't kill me.

So where else if not at GT Auto, a place I always frequent for dyno or car tuning purposes.

On a bright saturday morning, after sending the missus to work, I drop by GT Auto to have the car placed on the dyno machine.

It was after hooking up all the cables that Thomas from GT Auto realized that the ESP cannot be turned off in this car.

So as a solution, the dyno reading will be run in Link mode where both the axles will be placed on rollers like how a 4WD vehicle will be dynoed.

With both the axles safely placed on the rollers, the fun begins.

Due to my excitement in looking at the output of the car, I forgot to take more pictures of the dyno process in progress.

ARGHHHHHHHHHHHH !!!

Anyway, after all is done and dusted, my final results is as below.

Considering the stated factory output of the car as 160PS / 240NM, I am quite happy with the power that my stock car is putting out.

Wonders of running it hard since day one.

With this base reading in hand, the next stage can now earnestly start.

Discovering the "Altis"

After gotten the car for exactly 4 months, I've finally have the time and place for me to test out the car at the limits and getting to know its threshold.

Where else if not at this event that I've attended back in early March 2013.

Prior to this, off and on I do try to discover what is the limit I have but since it is on public road, those test are limited to the occasional corners like thoue found in Kerinchi and Penchala link.
Taking into account that it is a public road, those test are not really at the limit. More like 40% at most.

Curious to know more, the GAB Racing Speedfest.my Track Day & Time attack event allow me the place to find out more.

I am glad to say, I found out more about where my limits are and what are my reserved before things start to get hairy.
I get to know how much the ESP allows me to have fun before kicking in, how much and how hard I need to kick the pedal in order for the ABS to kicks in and more.

I can say that I am glad I decided to join after much consideration and I am certainly pleased with what I've discovered and also what improvement that needs to be done to tweak the car to my driving style.

GAB Racing Speedfest.my Track Day & Time Attack Challenge

Held on the 3rd of March 2013 at PLUS SPEEDWAY CIRCUIT, GAB Racing Speedfest.my Time Attack Challenge is an event specifically targeted at those who wants to know what grassroot Motorsports is all about.

We all know not many can afford the expensive fees of the Sepang Track and thus Speedfest.my take this chance to bring motorsports more accessible to the masses.

In order to achieve this Speedfest.my, together with their sponsors, RSONE AUTO PARTS SDN BHD, RADICAL CHASSIS SOLUTIONS SDN BHD and MADDRIVERS GARAGE arranged a Time Attack Challenge event for those who are keen to explore or get to know more about grassroot motorsports.

Speedfest.my inagural event saw a total of 44 cars participating. We have cars ranging from the usual suspects of Satria and Satria Neo, Swift Sports, Myvi, Civic EF, Nissan S15, Toyota MRS, Mazda MX5, Honda S2000, BMW E36, Wiras, normal family sedan like the Kia Forte, Proton Inspira and Toyota Altis and heck even a bone stock Perodua Kancil 850cc manual.

The 44 cars are divided into different classes from A (Below 1600cc manual), B (Below 1600cc Auto), C (Above 1600cc manual), D (Above 1600 cc auto) and E (Track / Non-production cars).

The day started off with an introductory to the course where all cars will lined up and then lead onto the track to get a feel on how the track is like. This is a course where having a million horsepower is useless and this is a very tight and technical course where driving skills and precision is the order of the day.

Basically this is how the layout of the track looks like.

A chicane is placed on the downhill section to slow things down and also to prevent untoward incidents.

The format of the event is that each cars and participant will have their timing taken from the moment they start until they cross the finish line.

The participant with the fastest time in their respective category will be the winner.

At the end of the day after all the tyres screeching and engine noises has died down, its time to announce the winner.

For Category A, which is for Manual Transmission Car below 1600 cc, the winners are as follows:

1 - Mohd Azman - Proton Satria 1.3 - 0.5890

2 - Tommy Ho - Proton Satria Neo CPS 1.6 - 0.5953

3 - Ridhuan Ramlee - Proton Satria Neo 1.6 - 1.0125

For Category B, which is for Automatic Transmission Car below 1600 cc, the winners are as follows:

1 - Syed Dzulkarnain - Proton Saga - 1.0441

2 - Ong Jun Hui - Proton Wira 1.5 - 1.0800

3 - Wan Norhafizan - Proton Saga FLX 1.6 - 1.0872

For Category C, which is for vehicle with Manual Transmission above 1601 cc, the honors are as follows:

1 - Mitch Chong - Proton Satria 1.8 - 0.5782

2 - Mickey Teoh - Toyota MRS 1.8 - 0.5900

3 - Yong Kok Kit - Proton Satria 1.8 - 0.5934

For Category D, which is basically for vehicle with Automatic Transmission above 1601 cc, the results is as below:

1 - Nicholas Leong - Toyota Corolla Altis 1.8 - 1.0365

2 - Ng Khang Chun - VW Jetta 1.4 TSI - 1.0428

3 - Kamahlaan - Kia Forte 2.0 - 1.0609

For category E which is the category for Track / Non-production cars, the honors are:

1 - Rod Anders - Open Buggy - 1.0001

2 - Hafiz Isa - Proton Satria GTi 1.8 - 1.0200

3 - Matthew Salleh - Open Buggy - 1.0384

All in all, everyone had fun testing their vehicle and at the same time gain valuable insight into their respective rides and also an eye opening experience on what grassroot motorsports is all about.

Not forgetting too the ideas exchanged, new friendship are forged, existing friendship strengthened, all this in the spirit of motorsports.

Congratulations to the winners and also to all the participants in this event.

I am sure everyone look forward for more event like these in the future.

Just a note to the organizers tho, can we have a more structured run instead of having every single participant lined up waiting for their turns?

Finally keep the racing off the streets and make our roads a safer place to be.

Opinion: "Performance" Oil Filters - Works Engineering

Before any hardcore supporters of the brand goes amok on me, please take note that this is only my personal opinion.
If you don't like, don't read la. Easy right?
t(-.-)t

This is to share my opinion on "performance" oil filters.

Now before I go further, the product that is the center of my opinion today would be non other then Works Engineering High Performance Oil Booster Filter.
Yeah serious. That is the complete name.

If you are to ask me if oil filters increase HP, I would have bitch slap you on the spot. Serious.

How is it that an oil filter is able to increase the power of your engine? 

Do they even know what they are doing?

First a failed camshaft. Story here.

Now this?

For those that are not in the know, basically how engine works is like this. 

When you do an oil change, you basically release back the lost engine power that is lost and this will make you feel as though as your engine is making more power. 

In ACTUAL fact, you are just gaining back all your lost power since the last oil change.

How?

As your engine oils gets dirtier (from giving protection to your engine parts, DUH!), you lose efficiency and thus in the process, losses a couple or so HP/Torque. That is why you hear people complaining about engine being sluggish and such but once an oil change is done, the engine felt better and more responsive.

This is an on-going process.

Simple car maintenance 101. It will not get any simpler then that.

Now lets relate to the mentioned product. 

Notice how it say that you need to do the following:

"However, to maintain optimum low pressure loss properties, it is recommended to change the filter every 3000 km when an oil change is performed."

Basically what it say is to recommend a user to do an oil change every 3000 km in order to feel the filter effect.

Isn't this bullshit plain and simple?

A regular oil change interval is 5000 km and to use this filter, you do it at every 3000 km instead?

Shorter interval means fresher engine oil means more responsive engine means u have less power loss means you feel you have more power when in fact you are actually minimizing the power loss due to dirty engine oil.

Please do some thinking here.

1 + 1 = ?

So now to claim that an over-priced oil filter is able to add HP, in my opinion, would be a plain con job.

Not sure about you but I am surely not falling for this con.

Just another car wash ?

Gave the new ride a thorough wash a couple of weeks after getting the keys to it.
(Yeah, I know, this is supposed to be posted 3 months ago so problem? HA HA)

P/S: yeah, a new ride, a VW Jetta.

Figured to get my lazy ass to give it one thorough wash as I am free that weekend and if I don't, I will be hard pressed to find another opening.

So on a bright sunday morning where everyone is still sound asleep in their bed, my lazy ass is up and running  for the job ahead.

A good 6 hours later, this is the result.

Fresh from the shower.

Re-parked for detailing under the shade.

After detailing. That's like another 2 hours or so.

What detailing?

To me its waxing.

Cleaned and waxed the headlamp.

Overall view.

Dun pray-pray, I put my heart into this ok?

After all is done and dusted (about 8 hours plus in total ok), I realized that I've forgotten to take a pic of the cleaned interior.

Cue face palm.

Anyway, having a spanking clean ride in the porch, more so after you have personally cleaned it yourself, the satisfaction, only a true car nut will know.

It's the best feeling ever.

Ahhhhhhh....

Now to make time for the next session.