Learn Me: VW Touareg TDi

To be clear mine is a TDI that was fixed in October of 2019. The 4 year 48000 mile emissions warranty starts from the day it was out back into service.

BTW my wife is absolutely living the car. I sold my tow ranger and now this will be hauling junk cars and the boat come the summer. I plan on doing all the fluids when the next oil change is due in a few thousand miles. We also sold the wagon a few days afterwards with no problems getting what we wanted.

Vigo said:

Congrats!! I'm poring over 2g Cayenne Hybrids (on the same platform) after being really happy with the 1g Cayenne we've had for 1.5 years, which put me in the odd position of liking it so much I want to upgrade to a 'better' one way before I've actually lost interest in the one i have. 

We have been searching 2g's as well for my wife. I was mostly looking at the NA, v8's though as I thought the SC v6 hybrid sounded scary from a reliability standpoint. Have you done much research on them? There are some nice looking hybrids around here, but I just figured they were too complex. 

In reply to Vigo :

Ugh, now I'm shopping for Cayenne's, something I had never considered.  Look what you've made me do!!! :)

First update on the Touareg:

Nothing to report. Wife has put a few thousand miles on it driving it back and forth from Raleigh and Greenville. It also went to Greenville to pick up my Corvette. It’s now at 106k and change. First maintenance will be done at 109,500 or so. Driving it back and forth to WV this weekend so it’ll be about due by the time we get back. I’m pretty sure she likes the car more than me. It still smells nice.

So, if you’re considering owning one of these, or a modern VWAG car for that matter, you must have an advanced diagnostic tool. Vagcom or similar. I have been using the OBDEleven app that is perfect for people that want access to the individual modules, but don’t really care about the nitty gritty of coding custom things in the car. It’s also much cheaper than vagcom and comes in a nice ready to use package. About $70. You’ll need this to change the fuel filter.

Now – I’ve started gathering fluids because I’m going to change everything, so I know where we stand. Note that VW says everything in this car is “lifetime” except for engine oil. Yea….

Engine Oil - 9 liters (must be VW 507.00 approved) Rowe synthetic from ID parts

Diff Oil – 2 liters – Best I can tell her car has no lockers, so it will get straight mobil1 75w90

Transfer Case – 850ml – Going to buy the expensive VW approved stuff because I can’t find anything that makes me feel ok otherwise. Although I doubt a $10 bottle of Valvoline would do it any harm.

Trans Fluid and filter 10 quarts – I’m using Toyota approved stuff off amazon because the tranny is an Aisin unit and I don’t need to put overengineered 3 times the price liqui-moly in there. Filter from Rockauto.

Oil, fuel, cabin, and air filter – Mann because they are the OE manufacturers

Spark plugs – Having a hard time finding these

All in all, it’s about $300 worth of consumables. However oil changes are 10k mile intervals and the rest of it probably once every 50k miles or more. It’s more for piece of mind.

You don't need OBD11 or the like for the fuel filter change.  Remove old one.  Suck out fuel from the canister.  Put in new fuel filter.  Cycle the key a few times, then start the engine.  Done.

Use Mobil1 5w30 ESP if it's a TDI.  Changing the tranny fluid is a gigantic PITA.  Porsche interval on it is ~150k miles, I'm not touching it until then!

Took the family trickster on a 1000 mile journey. Got 26-27 mpg the entire trip. Only casualty was the power folding mirror that decided to stop working in the driveway as we were leaving. Wife still loves it.