Oh, and the light went off. So, mission accomplished.

The overall diameter is the same, but the wheel is taller with a shorter tire. They’re also a full inch wider, so they fill out the wells a lot better. The cornering is “vastly” improved – very difficult to even squeal them in the turns. Very entertaining on our windy country roads.

These were from TireRack.

If we were to do it again, it would take a lot less time.

• Remove driver’s side strut – 20 mins (which was about how long it took)
• Remove passenger’s side strut – 1 hour (actually took like 5, but now we know what we’re doing).
• Change shocks – 15 mins each
• Replace driver’s side strut – 20 mins
• Replace passenger’s side strut – 30 mins

So, the two of us can probably do it in about 3 hours. One person would take longer.

The back is basically cake. Jack up the car about 6 inches to uncompress the shock a bit. Undo the top mount with an impact wrench, get on your belly on a creeper and undo the bottom bolt. Fiddle with the height of the car with the jack until you can pop it out (you don’t want to jack the car all the way up lest the spring fall out now that nothing is holding it in). Change the mount onto the new shock, put it all back in.

The only wrinkle was the driver’s side (again) because there’s this molded plastic enclosure which gets in the way of putting one bolt in straight. It took us like an hour on that side and 15 minutes on the other side. If we had to do it again, I’d be more careful on the bolt and it would likely only take us about half an hour to 45 minutes. (Which I expect it to when we do Liz’s next weekend. See, we did the fronts like 6 months ago, but never got to doing the backs until now.)

The new suspension is basically in the ballpark of “factory sport” stiffness, like in a GTI, which is vastly improved over stock. It’s no R32 suspension, but it was like $300, not $1200.

Lizzy contends that the old suspension wasn’t really actually blown, and even hadn’t softened up that much – it was that soft to begin with, I was just coming from American cars which drove like waterbeds, so it seemed stiff, and as I got more used to it, I wanted it more stiff. I tend to agree – checking the book and doing the procedure on the shocks I pulled out, they’re still technically good – slightly softer than new, but not really needing to be replaced for another 40k miles or so.

Oh, and the brakes have another 40k miles on them, at least, so I left them. I have the new brakes, and it’s not like they go bad, so when it needs it, I’ve got them.

Night folks.

Anyway, I HATE the right side McPherson strut assembly on Jettas and Golfs. Anyone who has had to change one out knows what I mean.

The Bentley book says “unbolt the drive shaft from the transmission flange”.

Are… you.. serious?

Folks on the internet have found another couple of ways – either use a claw-type spring compressor (which I don’t have, because I got a nicer one.. which doesn’t work on stuff on the car) or loosen the subframe attachment bolts.

I ended up loosening the subframe bolts, and with a little persuasion (rubber mallet) down and over (rotating the steering knuckle a little bit) got it done.

Took me like five frikkin hours to get it undone. If I had to redo it, it probably would only be an hour, because I know what I’m doing. But still…

Meanwhile, it took me about half an hour to get the left side one undone (and that includes jacking up the car and pulling the wheel off).

Lessons learned:

1. Impact wrenches rock.
2. I’m sick of those silly “change a tire” jacks (I’ve been using them to jack up the car and put them up on blocks), and I’m going to get a proper jack. I was looking at a standard 2 ton wheelie floor jack, but then I saw these. We’re going to hit Tractor Supply tomorrow, and if they have any, I’ll get a pair. If not, I’ll just grab a regular floor jack.
3. I also need a 1/2″ to 3/8″ bit adapter, because I have many 3/8″ drive sockets, but a 1/2″ drive impact wrench.

Aaanyway. So, the car is like half done.