vw cooling systems are the devil!

[treed2 at u.washington.edu (T. Reed)]

So last friday I moved to the other side of the state to change schools,
and in the last 10 miles of the 5.5 hour drive, my Scirocco overheats. I
pulled it over and suspected the electric rad fan because it was what had
most recently given me problems (it kept blowing fuses; turns out the
shroud was contacting the blade somehow! yikes!)

Nope.. the fuse is fine. I feel the radiator.. ice cold. Hmm... not good.
Since I just put a new thermostat in less than 6 months ago, I figure I've
got an air bubble.. but how? I didn't touch the cooling system. That part
is still a mystery.

Anyhoo.. I spent 2 hours lying in the rain under my car, in the parking
lot of my new apartment (which "forbids" any automotive work) with a
flashlight in mouth, draining coolant and pulling power steering bolts and
whatnot off to get to the thermostat housing. I drilled a bunch of small
holes in the thermostat and put it back in, and everything back together.
Then I started to fill the cooling system again and I heard a dripping
sound.

Ah, shit. The o-ring for the thermostat didn't seat right, so I pulled
everything apart again (I'm pratically hypothermic at this point..) and
reseated it, checked for a leak and then put everything back on.

Filled up again and idled it for a minute, then drove it about a mile
before it overheated again. What the hell? The heat was on full blast,
but the air from the vents was ice cold. Maybe the thermostat really was
bad!

Nope, after I let it cool down it burps up a bunch of air. Okay, now I'm
good right? I top it off and drive it 2 miles before it almost overheats
this time. Finally got some hot air by the end of the drive, though.

Over the next 36 hours I burped it 4 more times before I finally had a car
that could sit in traffic or cruise on the highway without overheating
again. Finally back to normal..

What did I learn? Well.. since I didn't fill through the upper radiator
hose.. I wound up doing the next best thing. Heating the car up to "very
hot" and then parking it and using channel locks to release the hose clamp
on the upper rad hose. Then kinda pushing down on the hose, I was able to
get the bloated, air filled hose to expel a large amount of trapped air.
As things cooled down I repeated the process.. warming the car up again
then bleeding out more air.

After another heating and cooling cycle the car was golden. The reservoir
level dropped to the point that I had to add another 3/5-ths of a gallon.

Anyway.. I still hate VW cooling systems. I didn't need all this in the
midst of everything else I was dealing with. I think I now know why VW
stuck with air cooled for so long.. they couldn't get the water cooled
stuff right!

-Toby