Bruce In Philly

It is with shame and remorse I .... I must share this humiliating experience. My buddy and I were beaten by a VW Toureg Diesel...... It is at an indy shop this morning for work we couldn't finish...........

Back story: My buddy is a neurotic sort who buys and sells cars at a rate of about 1.5 per year. He hates everything he buys... owned em all.... He is into cars and had an SCA license and raced Spec Racer Fords for a while. One of the things he hates is handling.. in all cars. So, when he buys a new one, we start to mod it. Springs, sways, and shocks. Sometimes a goofy camber bolts for more negative camber. It is great fun... he does the research, we wrench at my house.

In all this work, we never had a failure..... lotsa problems, some panic, some hammer swinging... but we get through it.... and I got some cool tools now to boot! (BTW, both of us are hacks.)

With this Toureg, he had a local indy install some Bilstein shocks (kept OEM springs).... we did the sways, but I was busy so he had the indy do the shock swap. Now with Dieselgate settlement looming, he wants to restore the car to stock and sell the Bilsteins on eBay. We did his rears a few weeks ago.... compressed the springs etc etc...... went well... we were full of confidence.

This weekend we attacked the fronts....... oh oh oh oh ...... shame. We put the car up on jack stands, pulled the wheels and started on unbolting the various pieces parts... control arms etc.... We removed the passenger side strut first.... YouTube guy showed it just swung out.... well we could not get it to swing out..... so, I did what any ignorant, shade tree mechanic would do... I used my boot.... I stood down on the wheel hub.... boink!!! it dropped and the strut swung out! Yeeeehaaa......, Then we compressed the spring, made the swap, and back together it went. Then we started on the driver side.....

With parts dangling, I could not get that hub to drop.... no way.... at this point, my buddy saw an oil spot under the other side.... oh oh.......... well..... when I used my boot, I pulled the front drive shaft out of the front differential and I popped a seal out. oooops. The shaft must have gone back in as the wheels turned find no grinding and one turned the other.... but that darn seal... staring at me... laughing at me.... mocking me.

We bolted it all back up, one shock not completed, popped seal on the other.... now it is sitting at a BMW indy outside of Philly......

We are ashamed. Beaten...... gasp.

Peace
Bruce in Philly

PS: I did replace all four shocks on my 2009..... I did the the rears with my buddy, and did the fronts all by myself..... car didn't explode (yet).

starvational

First thing that came to mind when I saw your title was that you had gotten dragged by a Touareg in the 911

Louis de Funes

so did I and I was thinking how is that possible

Tj40

I have a Touareg, first time my Porsche fan friend saw me he commented 'I see you brought the reasonably priced Porsche' !!

Bruce In Philly

Funny you should mention this..... the suspension configuration is the exact same... supposedly. This is what my buddy the owner said, and then it appeared true as I was scouring the net looking for solutions for my seal and strut problem.... both vehicles certainly looked exactly the same in the guts of the wheel well. My buddy said the sway bars are stiffer in the Porsche and so are the springs IIRC, but the design is the same.

Odd, I just checked the front differential for the Ceyenne and Toureg... the part looks the exact same but the VW is more expensive!! Huh?

http://porscheparts.checkeredflag.co...83490117X.html

https://www.vwpartswarehouse.com/p/V...C1409506B.html

Peace
Bruce in Philly

Mumbles

A very big start

Tj40

Porsche is cheaper?

That's a first!!


It is funny looking around the VW and seeing all the Porsche part numbers though...

ocgarza

Kudos for the "hung-ho" attitude on the DIY suspension mods. Now, about applying for that suspension mechanic job for the Toureg RSR endurance racing team, you might want to hold off on that one.

Supermode

Dude, change your tittle. Its confusing!

SAN997

I'm sure you are correct, however, doesn't the Cayenne come standard with "active chassis control", which is just hydraulically activated suspension to counteract body roll? I doubt the VW has this. But yeah, you are paying for the badge and active roll control.

vvcobravv

I dragged a 997 S the other day in my F15 BMW X5 50i (The 4.4 liter TT V8 SUV). They are no joke, mine is bone stock too. Probably would have been a different story if he had the PDK.

X5
http://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/...0i-test-review

997
http://www.motortrend.com/news/by-th...rera-s-148971/

Edgy01

My friend's (rare) Toureg with the V10 twin turbo diesel would probably do a job on many Porsches!

starvational

Car and driver ran 12.4 in the quarter mile with the '09 manual, but damn that X5 running 12.8 is close enough that the driver mod will usually determine the winner 😜 Beastly.

Mark Dreyer

I've schooled many people in my Touareg TDI on freeway cloverleaf twisties. That SUV can handle! I'm looking forward to buying a Cayenne diesel after buyback of my VW.