Enthusiasts / DIY Mechanics in Surrey?

M

martin_addlestone

Registered User
Joined
Feb 8, 2013
Messages
36
Reaction score
0
Points
6
Location
Euxton, UK
HI Guys,
Just bought my wife a B5 1999 tdi avant auto and I also have a 1.8 petrol sat on the drive.

I would really like to swap the seats and wheels over (maybe other bits?) that are in much better nick on the 1.8 before selling it for peanuts on gumtree.

I have also been reading on here the weird and wonderful things you all seem to do with VAGCOM / VCDS and would be really grateful if anyone could come and 'plug and play' a bit with this diesel?

I haven't tinkered with cars for some years now and don't have a lot in the way of tools, but my local garage want a fortune to swap a few seats and have no interest in adjusting setting with VCDS etc.

Of course Beer / food / travel / money etc can all be arranged as required.

Please just drop me a PM

Thanks
 
Why dont you swap the wheels yourself one by one ??

as for the seats why dont you spend a little money on a socket set and do it yourself then you get the job done and add a little something to your personal tools ??

then you just need someone with vagcom !!
 
as bradderz said ^^.. do it yourself (not being harsh lol) is more rewarding than paying for it.. and you get to give the carpet a good clean under the seats with some freshly smelling carpet cleaner.

Ttake the seats indoors and give them a good going over, its probably the only time you will have them out to do it.

£30 will probably get you a basic set. :) give it a try... u got nowt to loose
 
From the Hayes Manual

1. Move the seat rearwards to the extent of its travel and fold the backrest fully forward
2. Disconnect the battery negative cable (im guessing if you have heated seats only)
3. At the rear of the seat, prise out the trim cap and unscrew the securing bolt from the end of the outermost seat runner
4. Unscrew the securing bolt and remove the rear inner seat mounting bracket
5. At the front of the seat, Unscrew the securing nut and withdraw the bolt from the mounting bracket
6. Extract the locking pin and slide the seat to rear to release it from its mountings
7. Unplug the wiring from the underside of the seat (where applicable) and remove the seat from the vehicle

Theres no pics on that writeup... just follow that and ur a winner
 
Cheers guys, you are probably right, just hard finding the time these days.

The removing the battery piece - is that likely to be because I have side airbags? Do I need to 'wait 30 mins' before messing with them? Also I don't have the radio code for either car, so thats gonna be a pain!

The wheels, of course I can do 1 by 1, it was more the seats (and maybe the roof bars - are they easy?) I fancied a hand with!

Might also buy the cable from E-bay and have a look at some of your old posts Bradderz to see what can be done.

Thanks again

Martin
 
haha, i dont have the luxury of side air bags... just a wind bag next to me some times (shhhh i never said that!!)
 
Steve_D said:
haha, i dont have the luxury of side air bags... just a wind bag next to me some times (shhhh i never said that!!)
Click to expand...

i dont have side airbags to my knowledge you got me thinking now lol but yours should have it in the belt buckle as standard so it suggests removing the negative cable just as a safety precaution.

And i could totally agree with the moaning passenger, cant live with them but cant live without them lol im forever taking an earful on the car its been called every name under the sun but i just ignore her and still buy **** for the B5 as she calms down within a day so i just keep doing it lol
 
  • Like
Reactions: Steve_D
audi upgrades
Bradderz_1988 said:
i dont have side airbags to my knowledge you got me thinking now lol but yours should have it in the belt buckle as standard so it suggests removing the negative cable just as a safety precaution.

And i could totally agree with the moaning passenger, cant live with them but cant live without them lol im forever taking an earful on the car its been called every name under the sun but i just ignore her and still buy **** for the B5 as she calms down within a day so i just keep doing it lol
Click to expand...

Yeah my buying has just started but at the moment its all money saving or safety stuff (T-Stat for fuel and Brakes for... ya know)

Martin still has the coding issue with his radio's though? arnt they on stickers on the radio, i'd check there first.. other than that its a dealer job to get the codes back
 
Cheers Steve - although I can also sympathise with the 'spend control' - have either of you ever tried swapping the roof bars on these - I have nice silver ones on mine, hers are black and she wants me to swap them if I can ?
 
Roof bars equals dropping part or all of the roof lining and removing B pillar trim maybe even A and C as well they do bolt on though.
 
martin_addlestone said:
Thanks Ian - that sounds like a 'no. sorry love, can't swap them' to me :)
Click to expand...

pmsl! yupp sounds like a good answer! removing the roof lining is an ****! its clipped on and all the surrounding trims needs to come off. reight pain in the ****. Depends if you want the challenge haha.

Good luck with the seats though. let us know what you do. If the weather holds out, im going to remove mine tomorrow bring em in and give them a good old clean. The rears are a bit harder... only slightly.
 
Swapping the seats is a doddle, shouldn't take anymore than 40 minutes for each front and that's being very comfortable.
They are fairly cumbersome so having a spare pair of hands is no harm. I did mine in twenty minutes each and it was the first time I tried them.
Do disconnect the battery though for 20 mins before hand(to stop the airbags going)
With regard to the vcds, I wouldn't mind finding out a bit more myself. Does anyone have some basic stuff done on a previous post?
Might be a good sticky post for some of the 'experts' to start for us novices
 
Ok with regards to VCDS, DO NOT get them ebay crap things, their not worth the £7... if you think you're going to get one... send
me the money i will make use of it, buy a lead weight and send it to you :jester:

No seriously, they dont read anything apart from the ABS module, very poor and to be expected, they are not genuine. i did get one, but went in the bin the same day. Theres a section on here on VCDS, many members will accept a small charge, some maybe a beer token (depends if their feeling generous) to scan your car for you. then you will know if its worth shelling out £250 on the cable.
 
I live in addlestone, give me a shout if you want a hand
my vagcom isn't working as my laptop has corrupted itself, but can help with seats etc.
 
Still debating (with myself) if it is worth devaluing my lovely 1.8 that is currently a really nice specimen and as such should sell OK just to prettify my wife's oil burner.
Maybe the best solution is to flog mine as is, buy the A3 oil burner that I want and then decide from there what mod's to make to each.
Perhaps I can buy here a nice clean interior, maybe even leather in a few months, or find a cheap upholsterer (it's mainly because the drivers seat has a cig burn that she wants to swap them) etc and as for the wheels no doubt I will be wanting to upgrade my A3 ones so I can address this then.
Of course the weather is also kind of pushing me towards not doing anything - no garage I'm afraid :-(
 
Steve_D said:
Ok with regards to VCDS, DO NOT get them ebay crap things, their not worth the £7... if you think you're going to get one... send
me the money i will make use of it, buy a lead weight and send it to you :jester:

No seriously, they dont read anything apart from the ABS module, very poor and to be expected, they are not genuine. i did get one, but went in the bin the same day. Theres a section on here on VCDS, many members will accept a small charge, some maybe a beer token (depends if their feeling generous) to scan your car for you. then you will know if its worth shelling out £250 on the cable.
Click to expand...

Cheers Steve - I did think £15 sounded to good to be true, I'd rather pay someone who has the proper kit to have a tinker - only really wanting to activate the anti-hijak and thinks like that, maybe once I start to understand these lovely Audi's a bit more I will see the value in the proper kit.
 
I have the eBay cable and software from Aragorn and have no issues at all can do logging, fault reading, central locking coding and probably other stuff i haven't yet used !!
 
I've got the £7 lead from ebay and the latest VCDS download from their site and it works for me, I reset the airbag light and can get information from all the on board electrics. I know I have a HID sensor out because of this!

I'm in Guildford and dont mind dropping in on the way past to reset the airbag light if thats the only issue with swapping seats.
 
Hi all - sorry i've been quite this week, bust time at work. Decided against swapping any bits over and have put my 18 SE up for sale as it.

Instead I want to get to grips fixing the faults I have found with the car so far (that you guys have all helped me to identify):

New Thermostat and Temp sender
New glow plugs (I hope thats the cold start problem)
EGR blanking
DPF removal (I do have a DPF right?)
Oil and filter change
Fuel filter change
Check Woodruff Key
Hook her up to a VACOM and see what's what
Tracking and balancing
And after all the above look at a remap (if the autobox is good for the extra torque?)

Unfortunately my usual mechanic has gone out of business, can anyone recommend someone in the Addlestone / wider Surrey area who could undertake some / all of the above?

Cheers

Martin
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

I
Opinions needed please. Any mechanics in here?
Replies
1
Views
712
Markey
Markey
J
Snub mount DIY
Replies
6
Views
3K
jcb
J
E
TQS Exhaust DIY
Replies
9
Views
1K
EricTQS7
E
G
diy induction kit
Replies
9
Views
2K
Randomjim
Randomjim
J
clutch DIY
Replies
14
Views
4K
boost-addict
boost-addict
Top
Back