I finally love my New Beetle again!

[TheClunker]

Lord, it's been a long ... six months? Year?

However long it's been since I started having trouble with my New Beetle, I'm just glad everything is finally sorted out - for now. I bought my 2000 New Beetle, Valerie-Sunflower, in April 2009 (nine years old at date of purchase, but only had a little over 47k miles), and have been having problems with her off and on since very early after purchasing:

1. She was eating catalytic converters like crazy. Some poking around and it looks like the PCV valve was letting oil blow back through the intake. Replaced the valve / hose and so far - knock wood - the most recent catalytic converter I put on her has been holding for about four months now. Plus I put a cherry bomb cat on there so she sounds great with the RPMs cranked

2. Random CELs for cylinder misfires and "extreme lean condition" errors - found a frayed vacuum hose, and thankfully haven't seen a CEL for a while now.

3. She was drinking oil like nuts, found that the seal around the head cover (not the head gasket itself, thankfully) was messed up. I haven't checked her as closely lately but I'm assuming that's been fixed now (we'll see). The leaking PCV valve could have also contributed to this.

4. Shimmy-shake in the steering wheel when braking - bad rotors. They had just enough life left in them to take a resurfacing, probably their last one.

5. Rough starting when the engine was cold and ran kind of sluggishly - this magically disappeared after her 80k mile maintenance, which included new spark plugs (probably the issue). I'm running a bottle of Gumout through her for good measure on the recommendation of some folks.

6. Misc. wear out things (window switches broke, radiator had to be replaced ... uh what else ... I know there's more I'm forgetting). Those two and a few other things were actually covered under the extended warranty I bought when I bought her. Usually I say extended warranties are for suckers, but I paid just under $1,600.00 for mine to cover 3 yrs / 36k miles, and I've already had MUCH more than that covered under the warranty - maybe as much as 2x in claimed repairs covered. Sometimes I'm tempted to go through all my service records and tally it up. Just the leaking head cover gasket and radiator were almost $1,300.00 (covered), and I think the window switches were like $450 or something like that (covered). I jokingly say that I'll be the reason the warranty company re-writes their underwriting policies

Today while driving to work with the windows down and the sunroof open for the first time all season (temps probably hit the low 60s this afternoon) felt INCREDIBLE. She was responsive, peppy, handled like a dream, and was a blast to drive - just like a Beetle should be. At one point going through all these problems with her I seriously just wanted to ditch this car and be done with her. Now she drives as well as she did when I first bought her (or even better)!

Attached is a recent picture (maybe a few weeks old). Still looks pretty good for 11 years old!

[CoriBug]

Great story!! Daisy and I wish you many more years of buggin!

[peanutsmom]

See this is what I love about knowing people who love their nB's too!! Yay!!

[kcfoxie]

Stories like these make me smile!

[dnyed]

So glad that you got it all worked out. And, she does look great for 11 years old.

[Tico4Life]

Good story, just wish you'd post more pics
Oh and I love your tag, very cool!