Fergo308's My14 103TDI Pacific Tiguan

[fergo308]

Hi all,

Well,we finally bought one! My wife and I took delivery of her new car last Tuesday,a 1/2014 compliance ex-demo 103TDI Pacific Tiguan in pepper grey with factory leather interior.

We added a genuine towbar kit and let the aftermarket girl sucker us into putting leather protection onto it before we picked the car up.

Big props to Barloworld VW in Mascot,they got the car ready on time and were great throughout the whole process.

Seeing as I sell Super Pro product through my business,I'll be fitting their entire catalogue to the car over the next year or so,starting with their roll control 24mm adj. swaybars.

The car drives beautifully as it is,but anything can be improved right?


Justin...

[tigger73]

Congratulations on the new set of wheels. We expect a full DIY for all the suspension parts


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[IN2VWS]

Congratulations.......Coincidentally, we took delivery of our new 103TDI Tig on the same day as you did.

[fergo308]

Cheers guys.

Tigger: I'll do my best. I may not write full DIY's,but will post photos and give feedback as things get done.

In2vws: Nice! Which combo did you get?


Justin...

[IN2VWS]

No extras...Just stock standard 103TDI in Wild Cherry Red.

[tigger73]

Tigger: I'll do my best. I may not write full DIY's,but will post photos and give feedback as things get done.

Hey no problems - just thought it would be a good way to get a "free" plug... plus if the products are DIY friendly it may help others looking at doing some suspension/handling upgrades.

I know some of the things I wouldn't attempt myself and definitely best to get professionally fitted with the right tools.

[fergo308]

In2vws: I saw a tig in that colour at the dealership when we were buying ours,it's definitely not a common colour out there,so you're going to stand out from the rest!

Tigger73: The torque arm insert and rear sway bar are pretty easy DIY bolt-on jobs,but the rest require professional knowledge and tools.
I helped a mate fit a front sway bar to his Octavia yesterday morning. It's quite involved and the car needs an alignment afterwards as you have to remove practically the whole front end to get it in and out.


Justin...

[fergo308]

Ok,so I've now fitted a Super Pro Roll Control 2 position adjustable Rear Sway Bar to my wife's Tiguan.

My initial impression is two thumbs up,as the difference was immediately noticeable. The car feels much more stable in the rear,which allows the front to tuck in with a sudden direction change without the rear end getting light and pulling the whole car off-line. I've set the bar to the softer of the two positions as the front bar is still original.
Driving in manual mode you can be far more aggressive with your turn-in and swerving from side to side is less onerous than before,even on the stock 16's. I imagine I'd notice an even larger improvement on lower profile tyres.

The bar I fitted is the RC0006RZ-24,which measures 25mm in diameter,and is solid compared to the ~22mm thick,hollow OEM bar as shown here:



The kit includes two new D bushes,replacement lower link bolts,nuts and washers,fitting grease,a sticker (my toolbox now has 10 extra HP!),and some generic fitting instructions.




As this job is well within the scope of the weekend DIY'er,I'll give you all a quickish how-to for this job.

Tools required:
*3/8" ratchet with 2" and 5" extensions.
*M6 Multi hex socket
*M10 Multi hex socket
*16mm spanner (ratchet spanners are ideal)
*17mm spanner (ratchet spanners are ideal)

How-to:

Ideally,you want to do this job on a four post hoist,or with the rear of the car up on ramps,sitting on it's suspension at normal ride height. The D bracket upper multi hex bolts are obscured by the rear driveshafts with the suspension at full droop,which them means that you have to jack up each lower arm independantly,remove the bolt,and then do the other side. As I did the job in my driveway at home and wasn't in any great rush,this was the method I used. It's not a big deal,it just adds a few extra steps to the task overall.
Overall time to do the job (drive-in,drive-out) should be around 90min if you're on the ground using jack stands and taking your time,and well under an hour if you're on a hoist.


First up,check that your new kit is complete as shown above,then remove the OEM bar.

Remove the lower link bolts first (M6 multi hex socket and 16mm spanner),and put the bolt and nut aside,these will NOT be re-used.




As mentioned previously,the upper bolts are obscured when the rear suspension is at full droop,like so:



You will need to remove the lower D bolt first,then jack up the rear LCA until the head of the upper bolt is clear,and then you can remove it.




Once the LCA is jacked up,it will be clear like this,and you can remove the upper bolt on that side:



Once the bar is un-bolted,you will need to feed it out around the rear diff and exhaust. The trick to this is to swing the left hand side out and down first,and then rotate the bar around until it's facing towards the rear of the car and feed it out of the rear of the car,between the diff housing and the rear muffler. You may need to push the exhaust down ever so slightly to get the D bush bracket through.

Once the bar is out of the car,you need to remove the original D bush brackets,as these are re-used. Mount one flange side of the bracket in a vise and twist the bar away from it until the bush pops out of the bracket. Remove both D bush brackets.

Open the supplied tube of grease and lube up the bar well on the inside of the two flanges,as well as the inside of the two supplied polyurethane bushes. Apply a decent smear of grease to the inside of the D bush brackets also to ensure no unwanted noise occurs later on.
Once it's all greased and put together,it's ready to put in and should look like this:



Feed the new bar in the same way you removed the old one,but don't fit the D bracket bolts just yet.
First,feed in the new swaybar lower link bolts into the bottom half of the OEM link,making sure that the head of the bolt faces the OUTSIDE. This is important as while the bolt will go in and bolt up either way,the end of the bolt can foul the trailing arm when the car is back on it's wheels if it's put in backwards.

The correct installation setup for the bolts is as pictured:



The OEM lower swaybar link bushes are on an angle that's ideal for the car being at ride height,so they will be very hard to install at full droop if the bar D brackets are installed first. Fit both link bolts into the links,and attach them to the bar loosely BEFORE you attach the D brackets to the sub-frame.

Once the links are on,you can install the D brackets back onto the sub-frame. Tighten the end links up fully once the D brackets are installed.
And the job is done,bar putting the car back on the ground and putting your tools away!

The finished product looks like this:






Super Pro also offer a thicker 26mm option for the rear bar on a Tiguan / Mk5/Mk6 AWD platform. This would suit people who are looking for the flattest possible handling setup,or who regularly carry a lot of extra weight around in the car.

If anyone has any questions about the above,or would like a price quote on this or any other Super Pro product,please let me know.

Regards,


Justin...

[tigger73]

Awesome write-up

[fergo308]

So,not a huge amount to report of late.
I towed my weekend car down to Wakefield park behind the Tig the other week and was quite impressed with how it went.
Fuel consumption went up from an average of ~8L/100km to around 11L/100km with 1750kg worth of car and trailer behind it,which was quite impressive to me,especially as I wasn't exactly going slowly...

I've ordered new Swaybars for the front and rear of the car (rear upgrading to the 26mm from the 24mm),so will do a write-up on the front install soon.


Last week I finally got around to fitting Super Pro's SPF3365-70K Torque Arm Insert Bushing kit to the car,and my initial report after a post-install test drive around the block is a conditional thumbs up.
Vibration at low revs and sitting at idle is increased,and in our case it was increased enough that we couldn't leave the bushing in for more than a few days and have now gone back to stock.
It's my personal opinion that these are only suitable for the petrol engine-powered vehicles,which is a real shame as the performance improvement was instantly noticeable,just so was the noise.

With the bush installed,the jerkiness when the DSG hunts for a gear between coasting and putting power down is gone, and the driveline feels more responsive overall, especially in sports and manual modes when feathering the throttle driving through a set of twisty corners.

There are three duro grade options for this kit (70K is listed as suitable for diesels, 80K for street petrol & 90K for race cars only), and the stiffer ones can be used in the petrol-burning cars as they don't have the same susceptibility to cabin NVH that the diesels do.

Installation shouldn't take anyone more than 10 minutes, including jacking the car up.
Installation guide:
Tools required:

*21mm socket
*Breaker bar
*Soft-faced hammer
*Torque wrench (If you're as fussy as me)

The kit looks like this:




　
The Insert Bushing, a smaller and larger washer,a tube of assembly lube,and an instruction sheet are included in the kit.
　
Ok,the stock bushing (1K0199867P) in later model VAG vehicles (as in from 2009 up for most models and 5/08 for the TT) looks like this:




　
Lube the bushing up all over the top faces,ready to install.




Line up the insert's 'fingers' with the voids in the OEM bushing,then tap it all the way home with a soft-faced hammer.







　
Slip the smaller gold-coloured washer into the hole in the base of the bushing:




Fit the larger washer onto the OEM bolt,and install it,torquing according to OEM specs. I personally went for 120nm,as this felt comparable to the torque required to remove the bolt.




　
The final result should look like this:




Clean off any excess lube that you've pushed out during the instsall,and you're good to go!


　
I have my 3 day old SPF3365-70K kit sitting spare in my garage now,so if anyone is interested in it,or in a brand new one in a different duro grade,shoot me a PM and we can discuss it.





　
Justin...