I must confess, that I am not an audiophile. In fact, my hearing history has never been that good, and it can be vouched from a general hearing test conducted by my primary school, when I was a primary-3 school kid. I failed that test, as I couldn't differentiate between a buzzing sound and a hissing sound (okay, I exaggerated here), and at times had difficulty identify the source of the noise (left or right)! Some doctor says this is a lazy-ear medical problem, all I know is it goes along with my personal character very well (or as a result of my personality), where I am at times stubborn and insistent of my way…

Anyhow, after a huge relief rattling fix at the front console, I thought I will be spared from any further rattling source. Perhaps its an indication of the car getting its age, or otherwise, few months later, an annoying rattling noise, albeit not as irritating as the previous ones, surfaced.

It has to do with the door panel, because each time the noise surfaced while the car is in motion, me or my wife will knock on the door panel a few times, and the noise goes away. But heck, that's not a way we should be enjoying our car ride, is it not?

So I have been wanting to dismantle the door panel for quite sometime, but was hesitant due to busy time schedule and fear of creating more problems as I try to fix one problem. But the urge to fix it DIY just could not resist, and couple the fact that fellow Vortexer VgRt6 did a very well write up on the how-to in removing the door panel. So with some guts and determination, I decided to fix the rattling once and for all, all by myself.

Looking back at the entire dismantling process, I have to say the removal of the door panel is very easy, except for the first step, which can be a PITA! The first step, mother of all steps, is to remove the door handle as shown in the diagram on the left. As I started to pry open the door handle, I notice the inner side of the handle has been abused by the distributors during the servicing & repair trips previously. Nevertheless, the trick is to use a soft flat pryer to insert behind the door handle, as indicated by the red arrow. When the handle is opened slightly by 5-10mm, start moving the pryer to the lower right side of the handle and slowly pry open the entire bottom of the handle. Once you have pryed the bottom of the handle by 0.5inch wide, pull out the handle with a jerk as it is snapped on by 2 clips shown in the diagram below, by the 2 green arrows.

I use a tool (shown in the diagram on the left)
that is specially meant for interior panel opener,
it helps to pry open the door handle easier
without creating unnecessary dent or scratches

the inner side of the handle,
which shows 2 clips indicated by the green arrow,
holds the outer side of the handle, shown in the picture
on the left

Once the outer side of the handle is removed, the next step is to unscrew 3 torx screws at the bottom of the panel, and 1 philip screw at the right side of the panel, as shown in the diagram on the left. The 2 diagrams below give a closeup view of the torx screw and philips screw position respectively. Use a torx-15 to remove the 3 screws below, and a small philip screw driver to remove the screw, which is located just below the front tweeter speaker, due to the space constraint.

removing the 4 screws at the bottom & right side of the door panel

remove the 2 screws in the inner handle, so as to free the entire panel totally

Afterwhich, remove the 2 main philips screws that are found at the 2 end of the inner side of the door handle, as shown in the diagram above, pointed by the red arrows. Once the screws are removed, the door panel is basically secured by the 6 plastic door clips at each sides of the panel. To take out the panel completely, snap out the two sides of the panel, before lifting up the panel as the panel's top rubber lining is hooked onto the door edge. The diagram on the left shows the inner side of the panel when it is taken out. You see the position of the 6 door clips, where the clips (as shown in the closeup photo on the left) are at each side of the panel.

I have to be careful when snapping out the two sides of the panel, as the clips are very fragile, and can break easily if the door panel is pulled too hard. It is therefore better to buy extra clips as spare, so that you can replace them on the spot if you broke any of them.

Closeup view of the door clips. The clip on the left is broken, while the one on the right is functional. It cost $2 each if you buy directly from the dealer.

At this point of time, the panel is not completed detached from the door yet, as there are some wirings and cables that is stilled attached to the inner side of the door panel. Unplug the window lifter harness connector, as shown in the diagram on the left. Next, unhook the door lock cable, which is hooked to the door lock assembly, as shown in the diagram below (left). Unclip the retaining clip, and pull the cable forward (towards the front as indicated by the green arrow, and out of the catch as pointed by the red arrow) so
that the hook can be taken out. When that is done, unplug the door open light harness connector, as shown in the diagram below (right). Becareful the plug could be hot, due to the lighted bulbs.

Unhook the cable from the dock lock assembly (left) and unplug the door opening light

When all these cables and hook are removed, the door panel is now hanging on the top edge of the door with its rubber lining. Lift up the door panel, focusing on the 3 arrows in the diagram on the left, and the door panel is now taken out completely.

With the door panel removed finally, now I can inspect the inner side of the door panel, as well as the door with various assemblies, to identify the source of the rattling.

The inner side of the door panel, and the bare door body with the various assemblies. Those black patches on the door body are actually accumat material, a sound proofing material.

With some shaking and knocking, I deduce the following areas of possible rattling source.

Door open light assembly, is made up of various plastic parts, which produce some low frequency rattling noise when it's shaked slighly.

One of the door clips is loose, that may have not catch on the door hole properly, and loose clip might create some low rattling noise.

The door unlock handle assembly is secured to the inside of the door panel with four clips and a philips screw. It's secured, but due to the rubbing of the plastic clips and the door assembly's plastic edge, I suspect there could be some rattling created as a result, if the car is rolling on an undulated road.

I notice the retaining clip is loose, that plastic piece might have rattled against the door panel or the hook catch.

While removing the panel, the speaker's rubber cap is loose. While this is not a source of rattingly (rubber is the least suspect in all rattling noise), it could create some distorted noise when the speaking is outputting loud music.

With all these possible faults, I use some OWS liquid spray, which rubberised the sprayed surface to reduce unnecessary abrasion that causes rattling. This is the one of the products I used when I try to eliminate the rattling noise at the console area. This is not the best or ideal rattle elimination product, due to its stickness characteristic (that causes the sprayed area to be sticky while it is wet or lubricated). But it serves its purpose, and hence I have not considered those 3M sponge adhesive tape, which could be used in some of the fixes.

Once done, it's fixing back of the door panel time. The mounting of the panel is the reverse of the panel removal described above. Before placing and clipping the outer side of the door panel to the door panel, I drove the car around for a test drive, so that I do not need to remove the door handle again if I have to troubleshoot the rattling noise further.

All in all, it solved my rattling nightmare again, at least for now …

For the uninitiated, one of the beauty of Volkswagen and Audi cars is the fact that they are all built based on some common platforms, according to the model category. Possibly, at least 60% of the parts are common parts, with some part variants exists in one make / model based on the particular make product design and marketing requirements.

To cut the long story short, my Bora benefits from such 'leverage' program. In the case of foot pedals, Bora's stock rubber pedals can be easily removed and replaced by Audi TT's pedals, for both automatic and manual transmission models.

Original Audi TT parts from Audi Germany

Comparison of Stock Bora rubber gas pedal, and Audi TT gas pedal.

Wolfsburg, considered one of the greenest cities in Germany, is also the hometown of the automotive brand, Volkswagen. It's HQ is based there, and has a plant that's one of the largest and most advanced car factories in the world.

In VWVortex, Wolfsburg edition Germany is highly sort-after. In Singapore, all volkswagen BORA are assembled in Wolfsburg, short of being labelled as 'Wolfsburg edition'.

In EBay, there has been seller who had 'Wolfsburg edition' badges putting up for auctions. I could not resist the badges, and when I had my hand on the badges, I must admit I am impressed by its quality, regardless of its authencity.

Does it increase the value of my car, or gave my car some horse powers? Obviously not, but it certainly has given some character and personalisation to my ride.

For awhile, I have been getting irritating rattling and squeaky noise from the console and glovebox area whenever the car rolls on the road (yes as long as it rolls!). The dealer solution is they replaced the entire glovebox and console cage, so they have claimed. But the problem persists, and I was told I must gave allowance for the rubbing “movement”, which means I must live with the squeak 99% of the time I am in the car. It sure goes louder as I drive, and for a while, I was at the end of my wits, resorting to slotting a cloth between the left glovebox console and the gear console. Unsightly as it is, I decided to take out the glovebox with alittle adventurous, spray some OWS lubricants and vaseline petroleum jelly, and it works! At least the source is confirmed, whether the lubricant material is lasting, it left to be confirmed.

1. Open your glovebox lid

2. Remove the side panel of the dashboard by carefully pry open from the edge. The panel is plugged into the side of dashboard by the 3 stud holes as indicated in the diagram above

3. The glovebox is secured by 6 torx screws, of which 3 are at the top edges of the box, and the other 3 below (see diagram above)

4. Use a torx-20 screw-driver to unscrew all the 6 screws.

5. Once you have removed all the 6 screws, pull the glovebox outwards in the direction indicated by the diagram on the right. As the right side of glovebox is mounted on the console by studs and clips, in additional to the 6 screws (you get better idea from the next picture), you need to pull the glovebox out with a quick jerk. Tip: Hold on to the two side of the stowage compartment area, and pull out the glovebox.

6. When you manage to pull out the glovebox, you will see that the side of glovebox is mounted securely on the console via 2 studs with metal clips and 2 plastic studs (red arrow). These studs rub against the stud holes when the glovebox is not firmly mounted, creating the irritating noise even when you drive on a slightly undulated road.

7. I filled the studs and the stud holes with loads of petroleum jelly and OWS interior spray lubricant.

8. Push back the glovebox once I am done with the lubrication. The securing of the glovebox is the reverse of how one would take out the box.

To put an icing on the cake, I took out the headunit today, spray OWS lubricant at the loose headunit metal bracket, and now the metal rattling noise at the HU side is also gone! Now my car rides over humps and stripes with a tud-tud … rather than tud-tak-tek-tin-tak-tek-tud

For some reason, my city halogen light bulbs (H6W) always blew off after 8 to 12 weeks of usage, particularly on the driver side (for RHD car). Upon closer observation, the driver side headlight housing is covered, mainly to provide an air induction routing for air intake. It is likely that this design, couple with the excess heat generated by the xenon light, that cause the light bulb to be blown off easily. Well, just a 'scientific-not-proven but an attempt to be logical' attempt to explain the phenomenon!

LED Trying to find a reliable halogen H6W bulbs in the market is akin to finding a needle in the ocean! To date, only certain mercedez benz ride is using H6W for their city lighting purposes, and they definitely do not come cheap!

It was imperative for me to find one that is robust and reliable, regardless of its price tag. The cost saving of changing a bulb every 3 months justify a pricey tag, if that is what it takes.

bulbs are supposed to withstand heat better (as long as it is operating within a given heat range), and less chances of fusing off due to its diode based technology as compared to filament based halogen bulbs.

However, there are none in the market that has LED in H6W format, and therefore some customisation is requied once more to make this happen!

The closest LED bulbs I can find in the market (from tmtuning.com but now readily available in local market) is a 2 pin one like the one on the left.

The main difference between this LED bulb, and conventional H6W bulb, lies on their connector pin location, as shown below. The left picture shows the LED bulb with the 2 pins position at 180 degree angle, while the H6W bulb has the pins positioned at 270 degree angle.

Because of the pin location, the LED bulb will not be able to fit into the bulb socket without filing off one of the pin. The trick therefore is to file away the positive point (LED bulbs have polarity requirement), so that the bulb can be slotted into the socket easily without any blockage, while continuing to provide contact point to the socket.

When the bulbs are fitted and litted up,

They create the ring effect, giving it a 'virtual bimmer angel eye look'!

Not for the weak heart, not especially when it cost $550 SGD per headlight, and the process of splitting the headlight housing and the lens will turn off anyone unless you are a hardcore DIY enthusiast.

This is just a picture of a headlight that I managed to get hold, and splitted them into two as shown. The process is tough, because you need to use industrial dryer to melt the sealant that firmly binds the lens and the housing together. The sealand is so tough that splitting the lens and housing is a PITA job!

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When I first saw this mod in vwvortex, I was very excited, because it look so elegant and OEM. My first reaction was, “Hey, how can VW ever missed this equipment in their factory assembly line, they should compensate their customers with a recall!”

Of course, the reaction was made in a jest, but very soon, the plan of action is very clear; to get this modification realised by hook or by crook. The thought of installing this W8 dome light myself is also quite taunting. You see, everything that I touched, will either break or become dysfunctional.

But the DIY spirit prevails, and the result was one of the most satisfaction, from all mods I have performed so far.

First thing first, parts required

W8 domelight (gray interior)	3B7 947 105 F2EN	1 ea
repair wire (for 6 pin plug)	000 979 131	2 ea
6 pin plug (male)	3B0 972 706	1 ea
3 pin plug housing (female)	893 971 993	1 ea
repair wire (for 3 pin plug)	000 979 103	2 ea
led wedge-type H12V6 bulb	(non-vw parts)	4 ea

More about the parts

Our stock wire harness is made to connect to a domelight that uses 3-pin plug, and to install W8 domelight, we need to modify so that the stock harness is re-wired to connect to the W8 dome light that uses 6-pin plug.

The parts required are shown in the diagram above (with the exception of led bulbs, not shown). Of the 6 items listed, two of them are optionals. The 3 pin plug housing (893971993) and the female repair wire (893971993, as indicated by the red arrow in the diagram on the left) are required only if you intend to build an adapter (between stock harness and 6 pin plug housing in the W8 domelight), instead of splicing and cutting the existing harness.

Detailed steps

1. Remove the plastic cover from the stock panel, and you unscrew the screws shown in the photo, pointed by the red arrows.

2. Pry open the stock panel. I did the wrong way and end up more effort required to take out. You should be prying first at the 2 points pointed by the red arrows.

3. When the stock panel is taken out, remove the overhead light visor too so that you can run a wire through that area.

4. Once you managed to run the wire through the edge of the windscreen, push the wire down the a-pillar.

5. Run the wire (for dimmer) into the roof fabric linen and through the edge of the roof to the a-pillar.

6. Open the side cover where the fuse box is. You need to access to the bottom of the A-pillar in order to complete the running of the dimmer wire.

As a safety precautious, you may want to take out fuse #14 at the same time, so that any wrong wiring you made in the next few steps (touch wood!) does not blow off your fuse, and you are modifying on a open circuit environment.

7. From the bottom of A-pillar, get hold of the dimmer wire, and pull down long enough so that you can tap on the eur switch later on

8. Remove the euroswitch and unplug the switch. If you are not familiar on how to remove the euroswitch, simply push in the knob and turn the knob to the center position, and pull out the euroswitch.

You will get to see a set of wires, and basically the blue-gray wire that the dimmer wire needs to tap on is pointed by the red arrow points in the diagram. It should be the wire in the position #17.

9. To make sure I got the right wire tapped, I just do a temporary tapping and move on to working on the rest of the wirings & connections.

10. Since I have 2 of the repair wires (000 979 103, bronze tip), I cut them into half, and plug the 3 wires into the housing as shown.

This step is optional and can be skipped if you are not building an adapter.

11. Next I work on the new 6-pin plug. The terminals of the repair wire (000 979 131) should be fitted into position 1, 3, 4 and 5. You will see a small number writing on the plug as pointed by the various colored arrows. (red:1, blue:3, green:4, yellow: 5).

12. We are ready to create the adapter now.

Once all the repair wires are fitted into the 6-pin plug and 3-pin housing, connect the wires up! The wire #1 should leave as it is as we will be connecting it to the dimmer wire later on.

• Wire #4 connects to the stock brown wire (or the wire #1 in the housing).
• Wire #5 goes to stock blue-red wire (or wire #2 in the housing).
• Wire #3 goes to blue-gray (or wire #3 in the housing).
• Wire #1 will be linked to the dimmer wire later

Note that if you are not creating an adapter, and have skipped step 10, you need to tap the wires (000 979 131) directly onto the stock harness wires.

13. Plug the stock harness into the 3 pin-plug housing. Tap wire #1 to the dimmer wire as shown

14. Test the connection, you should have all switches and buttons working accordingly. The led should also lit up when you turn your euroswitch. If everything is okay, tidy up the wirings, use wire connector if possible, and fit the panel back to the roof linen.

15. Put the W8 domelight back to the roof linen. The domelight is mounted and held on the roof via 2 metal clips behind. Here's a view of the domelight when euro switch is turned on at stage 1 position.

16. All the lights are in action by turning the euro switch to full position. You should also test if the light turns on/off when you open and close the doors.

finally, if you have the wedge-type led bulbs, you will achieve the following effect

Other references

1. VWvortex's SoFlaJetta W8 DIY guide
2. Hillside Imports' [Official W8 Overhead console install
3. Cars & Cars Part department (Singapore VW dealer)
4. Alternate part supplier: Hillside Imports
5. Alternate part supplier: Tmtuning.com
6. Additional information from Vwvortex

To be published soon …

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