There is no point in beating yourself up over things like this. A shop
might easily have missed the cut as well. It obviously was not something
that was all that likely given the splash pan and your history with the
car. Good job in getting it done. Hope the drain plug cooperates in the
future. Maybe you should consider a drain plug and washer from VW rather
than Autozone?
Randy
On 11/03/2024 10:07 PM, Allan Streib via Mercedes wrote:
Wife's car (VW Jetta) has been alerting (annoyingly) about the oil level sensor. It was
intermittent and has slowly gotten to the point that it was alerting every few minutes
while driving. Code was "intermittent implausible value" so I assumed the
sensor had failed, as that is my experience with VWs. Sensors fail.
Ordered one from FCP Euro, watched a YouTube video, easy enough job: drain the
oil, disconnect the sensor, remove three nuts holding the sensor in place, pull
it out, put the new one in, reconnect, refill the oil. Looked like it should
take 30 minutes max.
I had considered that the problem might be a bad connection but the connector
was in place, not loose or damaged. So I went ahead with the sensor
replacement. As I was reconnecting it, out of the corner of my eye I noticed
what looked like a cut in the split-tube cover on the wiring. Sure enough,
there was a cut. How in the heck it happened I don't know. The car has a splash
guard so nothing could have snagged it. I change the oil with the extractor so
I've never had the splash guard off until today. I guess at some point someone
had it off and managed to snag it or slice it and cut into one of the wires.
So I didn't need the sensor, but at this point I've already installed it and
it's all oily so I can't send it back.
I soldered the wire back together and covered the splice with heat shrink
tubing.
Then I notice that oil is dripping from the drain plug. It was dry when I
removed it, and I had torqued it back to spec so what the heck. I tightened it
up more and more until I started to get a little uncomfortable. It has one of
those sealing washers that was pressed on so you can't easily remove it. So I
decided to run to Autozone and get a new drain plug and washer. Drain oil
again, install new plug, refill, and it's still leaking. I finally just kept
tightening it about 1mm at a time until it finally stopped.
Kicking myself for not looking at the wiring more carefully. Would not have had
to drain the oil or change the sensor and would have saved a lot of time if I
had only noticed that cut first.
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