Sean's Blog

1. Could you please stop using triple square screws/fasteners all over the place? They’re a pain in the ass to work with, and difficult to find bits for. Tell your German friends too, please.

2. If you are going to continue to use triple square screws/fasteners, could you please not use friggin’ gorillas to tighten them up? When a caliper carrier is held in place by two 14mm triple square screws that are supposed to be torqued to 90 N-m, I should be able to easily break them free with a 18” breaker bar. And even if the breaker bar weren’t enough, PB Blaster and a rubber mallet should have been. But no, you just had to tighten the shit out of these things. Stop that shit!

3. If you are going to tighten the shit out of these screws, could you at least not put them in spots where it’s nearly impossible to get a bit and breaker bar on them? You know, the little things, like not putting the shocks, the springs, and the brake lines in just about every position you could get a breaker bar, or even a socket wrench in there?

4. Lastly, if you’re going to put nifty electronic sensors on the car to tell you when the pads are nearly worn completely, would you consider putting them on the axle that wears the fastest? It used to be the front, but these days, it seems to be the rear. Move the sensor there then.

It took me 15 minutes to jack up the car, pull the wheel, remove the caliper, and put new pads in. I spent hours (before loading up with new pads) trying to get the two 14mm triple square bolts off, so that I could pull the rotors. Ridiculous.

I love my GTI, but it really can be a pain in the ass to work on (which is probably true of most modern cars, to be perfectly fair, but still).