Jettas In The Cold
Ah yes, with the onset of the cold weather, I am once again reminded of the high quality German engineering that went into the design of my Jetta!
Its only the first snow fall and it isnt really all that bad as far as accumulation and temperature go, but the doors on my wagon have frozen shut.
I have never experienced this with any car I have ever owner, yet the Jetta does it all the time.
Anybody else ever experienced this, or am I just lucky?
I have been told that coating the weather stripping with silicone spray will help an plan to do this on Saturday. The thing is, why should I have to. Ive never had to take this precaution before and cant understand why this car freezes shut on a regular basis.
Cant wait for the warm weather to return so I can hate it less!
Subscribe by RSS
297 Said,
November 26, 2004 @ 3:30 am
Jettas In The Cold – BMW made this to combat rubber sealant freeze:Gummi Pflege
Go to a BMW dealership in your town and grab a tube for less than $7.
Shomare Said,
November 26, 2004 @ 3:39 am
Jettas In The Cold – Thanks.
I’ll give that a try.
297 Said,
November 26, 2004 @ 7:46 am
Jettas In The Cold – It can also come in a tube: Tube picture.
In case you head over there, then they hand you something that looks different from the picture I posted above.
Shomare Said,
November 29, 2004 @ 10:42 am
Jettas In The Cold – Well I called my local BMW dealer today.
I had to laugh
When I asked them if they had any of the Gummi Pflege Stift in stock they knew what I meant, but said they would have to order it. The parts person went on to explain that they had some in the service department that his techs used on customers cars, but they had none for sale. They are ordering it for me and should have it within the week.
It was as if they were shocked that a BMW owner (which Im not) would want to order a part / product for their car and do the work themselves. Since its just a lowly VW, Ill do it myself especially since I want to ensure that it is done right. I plan to but at least two coats of the stuff on.
This is where VW annoys me. When I tell them that the doors freeze shut they respond by saying they all do that. They apparently have no intention of addressing the problem. Because of their dismissive attitude and failure to suggest or implement any preventative measures, I tolerated the problem, which resulted in damage to all the weather stripping on the car. Small holes were torn in it as a result of the stripping repeatedly freezing to the car. They had to replace all the stripping this past spring.
Since I want to see as little of the shop as possible, Im going to try everything I can to keep it from freezing.
What distress me is that while the finally made the suggestion of using silicone on the stripping after replacing it this spring, they made no effort to apply the silicone themselves even after repeated complaints that the car was freezing shut on an almost daily basis.
The paranoid part of me has been reluctant to apply silicone because I fear it may cause the stripping to deteriorate and then I would be responsible for replacing it. Here is hoping that the Gummi Pflege Stift will work!
297 Said,
November 29, 2004 @ 11:02 am
Jettas In The Cold – Oddly enough, Audi dealerships tend to be similar to BMW dealerships in that regard.
Apparently, the cost of the car dictates the level of service.
Either that or Audi, though a satellite company, is much more concerned with its customer base.
Probably both.
YupOldBull Said,
December 2, 2004 @ 3:37 am
Jettas In The Cold – Makes sense to me. Buying lubricant after purchasing a Jetta.
Shomare Said,
December 2, 2004 @ 12:23 pm
Jettas In The Cold – BMW No longer carries this product and as such I was not able to get it through my local dealer. Apparently BMW has stopped making it.
I was able to get something similar through Drive Works http://www.drivewerks.com
Should get it in a couple of days so Ill post up about its effectiveness once the weather goes sour again.
Shomare Said,
December 4, 2004 @ 9:00 am
Jettas In The Cold – Got the product today and noticed that beneith the lable that reads “”Rubber Protection”" you can read a second lable that says “”gummiPflege Stiff”"
Seems like BMW does still make it, it’ s just that they Americanized it by sticking on a new name / label.
Going to put it on tomrrow provided that It’s not too cold out. Snowing right now.
Shomare Said,
December 5, 2004 @ 12:44 pm
Jettas In The Cold – Well, Ive just applied the product to the car and it went on very easy.
I did notice something of concern though. While I had thought that it was the weather stripping that was freezing to the door it is not. I dont know if Jetta sedans have this or if it is unique to the wagons, but there is an additional piece of weather stripping on the car that runs along the roofline.
This piece runs along both the drivers side and passengers side of the car from A pillar to the back most edge of the passengers door.
It is not plain weather stripping, but a fuzzy almost felt like material. This is the area that was freezing up on my car. I coated it along both sides with a very generous amount of silicone spray and treated the other weather stripping with the other product.
What I remember of this fuzzy material, is that it seemed to foster the growth of frost as it absorbs water and then freezes to the door.
Hopefully, soaking it in silicone will repel water and ice. We shall see.
297 Said,
December 6, 2004 @ 10:31 am
Jettas In The Cold – Keep us posted!
Shomare Said,
December 14, 2004 @ 6:33 am
Jettas In The Cold – Reporting in.
Its 19 degrees today. Even after treating the weather stripping with silicone, the doors still froze shut!
Not as bad in the past, but there is still considerable ice buildup along the fuzzy portion of the weather stripping that runs along the top of the doors.
The ice builds up here and then freezes to the metal portion of the door.
Poor design, no other way to categorize this blunder. How can I be the only person experiencing this!
I hate the car, I hate this car. I hate this car! I hate this car..
Beck Said,
December 14, 2004 @ 6:57 am
Jettas In The Cold – It’s another case of bad design by Volkeggen Engineers. Even though some might consider this a minor detail on the car, It still does not make sense when My old college car, a lowly Chevy Citation and my three subsequent Hondas, a Civic and two Accords went through YEARS of below zero freezing winter weather in Wisconsin and never had this “normal” Volkssuggen door freeze ups. All I can think of that Volkstroggen Engineers might come up as a reason is. “Eeet never gets zat culd in ze fazzerland”! “Go move yo keishter to somver varmer, dat shood fix zeet!, Gimme back ze gummi pflege! I vill put eet in my boont cake” ;^))
Shomare Said,
December 15, 2004 @ 3:38 am
Jettas In The Cold – Ill take some photos the next time it happens and post them up if I can figure out how to do that. If not, Ill take you up on your offer.
Shomare Said,
December 15, 2004 @ 6:50 am
Jettas In The Cold – They will never acknowledge that they have made a design error.
I wish I could post photos on this page to show you just how bad it is.
They have already replaced the weather stripping once because chunks of it came off when it repeatedly froze to the door and pulled apart attempting to open the doors.
Why is it that more people dont encounter this. Am I the only one without a garage that owns a Jetta in an area where it snow!
rick Said,
December 15, 2004 @ 8:58 am
Jettas In The Cold – You can post photos, just not easily.
If you don’t know how to link to photos that are posted elsewhere then send them to me at the address at the bottom. Reference the id number of the post (or send the whole URL of the post). I’ll put up your pix!
Yes I could enable photo uploads but you can just imagine the potential danger of that!
Beck Said,
December 15, 2004 @ 11:35 am
Jettas In The Cold – Shomare,
I encounter the same thing on my 97 Passat everytime it dips below freezing here in balmy San Francisco. There have been a few times I couldn’t open my car up in the morning because of a little frost. This made me miss hours of work, because I actually had to wait till the morning sun finally hits the car to melt the doors open. Now this is in weather just in the upper 30’s, God knows what it will take to open the frozen thing if I still lived in the midwest. I would say the Volksyugo Engineers just don’t do enough cold weather testing on their cars. If they think that they can sell their cars all over the world, they should be smart enough to test them for all conditioins like any “”normal”" car company would. But we all know that Volksyugo isn’t a “”normal”" company, they just want to be so irritating!
Oh, funny thing about my Passat too, is when I finally get it thawed and open, the doors fail to latch close, (Stupid low quality grease that Volksyugo uses on their door latch mechanism that gets too stiff in cold weather), so I have to run back into the house to break out the WD40 to free them up. Of course the latches gets all stiff and bad again when the Volksyugo service department services the car and puts on more of that Wolfsburg lard on the latches.
The problem seems to be the fuzzy stuff they put on their door seals. They must tend to retain moisture that freezes up. Maybe you can use an electric shaver to shave it off in the areas that freeze up………seriously!
Shomare Said,
December 16, 2004 @ 6:56 am
Jettas In The Cold – Photo of the car I’m having problems with….
[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v227/23shomare/Wagon_-_21.jpg[/IMG]
297 Said,
December 16, 2004 @ 11:30 am
Jettas In The Cold –