VW TDI Buy-Back gets rejuvinated and coated

**TTQ B4U** · 07-28-2019, 09:14 PM

So another friend from my racing group has a daily that is a pretty sweet ride, makes a lot of sense and bang for the buck was IMO ridiculous. I wasn't aware they were able to be picked up for such a great price. This is a 2015 unit that likely sat around outside a bit prior to his buying it 2 years or so ago. Not having put much into it except washes, it needed a little TLC to bring it back to new condition.

Keeping in mind his fun rides have demands we stuck to a budget with my Basic Clean and Protect Package paired with GYEON's CanCoat Coating. In the process of reviewing the car, I noticed the anodized aluminum trim had been tarnished/stained as most German car tend to have happen. It's not something that can be easily fixed but I did find that layering on some coating specific to trim and sealing it with a third layer of Cquartz knocked the visibility of the stains down a good 90+ percent.

Anyway, I picked on the owner for letting his daily go but it was fun watching the layers of crud and embedded muck be stripped away. nearly 2.5hrs of washing and decontamination were needed.

Here's what I had to start with:

Lots of bugs on the front, tar and road grime on the rockers and embedded dirt in white paint

The Tail End was about the same with the addition of a lot of ferrous particles starting to rust. It's important to catch and remove these before the rust breaks into the clear coat which will eventually lead to surface rust and clear coat failure.

Following a strong wash I move into remove the the ferrous metals and contaminants chemically. It took two rounds to remove them all. From there it's now safe to clay/nano-mitt the surface to remove more.

His car was LOADED with contaminants.

Here's what a 50/50 of the anodized aluminum issue looked like. After just one layer of trim coating it began to mask and visually be improved.

Now let's look at the final results......

**TTQ B4U** · 07-28-2019, 09:17 PM

**SWETM** · 07-29-2019, 04:53 AM

Great work and write up and pictures as always!

I have heard there are a lot of these kind of diesel engine cars standing around in a few places around in the US. With the VW diesel scandal they offered to by them back. And many did this and now just standing there. It where not any fault on them and just they messed with the emissions numbers. Just get an updated firmware to it and you have a DD dirt cheap. Don't know if they are able to sell them now or they wait for some kind of verdict. But have your eyes and ears open and you could be doing a great deal on them. The mileage is very good on these even in the real world LOL.

Looks great and the anodized aluminum trim came out great. And as you say it's not much you can do about them when damage. Just try to improve the looks of them and that you certainly did.

/ Tony

**TTQ B4U** · 07-29-2019, 05:51 AM

Originally Posted by SWETM

Great work and write up and pictures as always!

I have heard there are a lot of these kind of diesel engine cars standing around in a few places around in the US. With the VW diesel scandal they offered to by them back. And many did this and now just standing there. It where not any fault on them and just they messed with the emissions numbers. Just get an updated firmware to it and you have a DD dirt cheap. Don't know if they are able to sell them now or they wait for some kind of verdict. But have your eyes and ears open and you could be doing a great deal on them. The mileage is very good on these even in the real world LOL.

Looks great and the anodized aluminum trim came out great. And as you say it's not much you can do about them when damage. Just try to improve the looks of them and that you certainly did.

With so much going on in our lives I've not had a chance to even pay attention but if I had, my wife would be in one of these with several nice add ons to make it look and perform better. I'm actually feel dumb because I'm serious and at the price I'd just do a short term loan and write it off as we do now. He paid $21k for this one at 2 years old with 15k on the clock. There's a really really nice one in Cbus right now for like $23k too. Inside they are pretty loaded up and of course German design and quality. Flip a tune on them and they get my levels of torque. His is a Stage II and it moves out.

**TNcoupe** · 07-29-2019, 06:00 AM

When I was in Colorado Springs last year I went down to Pikes Peak Raceway to get a shirt and their field north of the speedway is covered in TDi VWs just sitting around from the buy back.

**Sizzle Chest** · 07-29-2019, 04:29 PM

Some serious contamination on that! Looks so much better!

**SWETM** · 07-30-2019, 07:34 AM

Originally Posted by TTQ B4U

With so much going on in our lives I've not had a chance to even pay attention but if I had, my wife would be in one of these with several nice add ons to make it look and perform better. I'm actually feel dumb because I'm serious and at the price I'd just do a short term loan and write it off as we do now. He paid $21k for this one at 2 years old with 15k on the clock. There's a really really nice one in Cbus right now for like $23k too. Inside they are pretty loaded up and of course German design and quality. Flip a tune on them and they get my levels of torque. His is a Stage II and it moves out.

I think that they had problems with the mpg when they made the 2.0tdi. So the bump down on the mpg vs the 1.9tdi engine was to big. Then to do the big misstake to make it cleaner and a higher mpg than it had was hughe. The 1.9tdi was awesome and got you bump up on both mpg and HP and torque even with the stage I the most has. So you could go up pretty far in HP and torque before you reached the original mpg. With diesel you benefit much with a tune on most car modells. Just take a look at Racechip dot com and you can see what they can do. Have thought to get one for my Kia cee'd SW tdi. But have been thinking on another car soon so I leave it where it is. It had some paint damages when I bought it. And with the rising interest with detailing when I bought this car I would want a car with a better paint than now. VW Golf and Passat is up there in the most sold cars during a year here in Sweden. Take a look at the Passat Station Wagon as for a family car it has a lot of space vs others in the same sizes. And for DD these are very good and same engines as in the little smaller Golf. The Golf is also a great option in their size range and have been for a long time. Here in Sweden the Golf hatchback modells and that kind of sized cars is called Golf class LOL. So the Kia cee'd hatchback is in the Golf class for an example.

The swedes didn't go with the buy back offering and just got the software updates mostly and keeped the cars. And some didn't want to do the software update as many feels like it where running weaker after that. But for warranty they needed to be doing it I think and for the yearly safety inspection too. So my suggestion would be to do a Stage I tune at least instead of the software update. It can be that they need to be uploading the newer software before selling it though.

If you are after a beater car or a car for your kids. VW or Audi with the 1.9tdi engine and a stage I or II tune chip. And they have a great car with a high mpg so they can drive much LOL. VW Golf or Passat or Audi A4 or A6 with the 1.9tdi engine 2001-2005. And a manuell transmission gets you a higher mpg too.