Thoughts About Paint

Car paint is pretty tough stuff and readily stands up to the range of temperatures and humidities thrown at it by our British weather. The reason that paintwork needs maintenance is because it gets chipped, scratched, and defecated upon by birds (which, if you judge by the effects of their excrement, live on a diet of battery acid and paint strippper). Thus we need to repair damaged paintwork before rust takes a hold on the metal beneath.

Maintaining paintwork would be easy if we were happy to just rub off (note that any wax and dirt should be removed BEFORE you start with the abrasives) the damaged paint, and any rust, and blob on a couple of coats of paint. So why the hell are we so hung up on the idea that a car has to have a super-smooth, high-gloss, paint job that's a really pain in the ass to achieve and even harder to repair? Metallics are even more difficult to patch up, and even more popular!

Of course this is really good for the manufacturers because it means that most people simply won't bother, the car will rot, and the owner will be back to buy a shiny new one a heck of a lot sooner than if maintenance of old one had been easier. Given that maintainability is my number one priority with the ol' bug I'm determined not to go down that route. On the other hand, the rat look isn't to my taste either so I needed an alternative solution. Thus I began to consider things like camouflage and other patterns that would allow me to divide the surface a the car into smaller areas.

To be honest, the Beetle isn't that difficult to divide into small areas. All four wings can be unbolted. Hood, decklid and doors can all be removed or treated seperately. However, as I don't have a garage or suitable shed in which to paint panels and will have to work outside, dealing with areas of this size would still be very difficult. It's also the case that no matter how hard you try to match them, newly painted panels tend to look different to the others.

Having considered lot's of different patterns I've decided upon a cubist inspired (check out Picasso's analytical cubist works) pattern of rectangles and shapes in shades of pinky blue. Here's a mock up that I did on the computer:



I intend to apply the paint with a brush because it will be easier to get the effect that I want and using a variety of shades means that I won't be tied to any particular colour that may prove difficult and/or expensive to obtain at a later date.

Note that the patterns will not hide the shape of the car as much as they do in the mock-up because they'll be following the curves of the surface. I'll also be doing the painting a bit at a time, so the pattern will gradually spread accross the car, rather than trying to do it all at one.

Having come up with a plan for the outside/top of the car, I also needed a plan for the rest and in fact it's the other areas that are more prone to rust. While water runs off the exterior of the car it can get into cavities and get's held onto the underside of the car in a mud poultice. When rust does begin to form, the porous nature of the rust means that it holds moisture thus furthering to rot. Clearly this is something I want to prevent.

Weld-Thru Primer

The first thing I've done is to buy a can of Weld-Thru Zinc Rich Primer Aerosol from Frost and I'll be applying this to all cleaned up metal that I intend to weld.

Hammerite

The next thing is that I've bought tins of smooth black and smooth silver Hammerite paint for use on underbody areas including wheel arches and steering/suspension components. I'll may also be use some other colours under and inside the car before I install carpet and such.

Now I've heard a lot of criticism of Hammerite but it strikes me that most of the problems are caused because people don't use it correctly. Many years ago I used it on with a wrought iron gate and was disappointed to find that the gate started to rust again a couple of months later. It was only afterwards that I realised just how many mistakes I'd made:

Firstly, I cleaned the loose rust off the workpiece. But more than that, I'd cleaned it back to bright shiny metal. I had failed to realised that Hammerite paint is designed to bond to rust. If you're painting bright shiny metal, you should be be using Hammerite Anti-Rust Primer and not the 'normal' Hammerite paint.

Then I shook the tin. This was also a mistake because it introduces air which takes a long time to come out of something as thick as Hammerite. Hammerite, unlike Mr Bond's martinis, should be stirred and NOT shaken.

Then I set about painting by dipping my brush into the tin. Wrong again as this will contaminate the paint in the can as you move the brush from workpiece to can. What you should do is to pour the paint you intend to use into another container and if there is any left over it should be discarded and NOT returned to the tin.

Then I left it to dry overnight and applied a second coat the following day. It seems I really was determined to screw this up because, for it to do it's job, you MUST apply a second coat of Hammerite within four hours of the first such that it does all the chemical bond stuff that it needs to do in order to work. Leave it for more than four hours you're just wasting your time because the second coat won't 'react' with the first coat.

As I say, I've seen a lot of criticism of Hammerite, and the critics generally advocate alternative products that are harder to find and are generally somewhat more expensive. Having done a bit of research, I'm inclined to believe that the main reason that people have any more success with these 'more exotic' products is that they read the instructions and follow them whereas they assume they can use Hammerite like ordinary paint. Hammerite is NOT like ordinary paint and if you treat as such, you will fail to achieve the desired result.

Note that I've chosen to go for the smooth finished stuff (as opposed to the hammered effect) because I want to be able to inspect it for damage on a regular basis and it'll be easier to spot stone chips and the like on a smooth finish.

Dinitrol

While Hammerite should protect the areas where I can apply it with a brush, spraying it into cavities seems a bit hit and miss. On the other hand, products like Waxoyl and Dinitrol are designed for the purpose. These products can also be use to apply a waxy coating the underside of the car.

Bitumen based products are another option for 'undersealing' however the are frowned upon in car restoration circles. In this case I am inclined to agree as it seems that the problem with the bitument based products is that they tend to harden with age and that when they get damaged, water gets behind them, and the metal rots away out of sight behind the coating. Of course the only way to check for this would be by scraping the stuff off, and of course removing something to see whether it's still doing it's job properly is undesireable.

It strikes me that the same is true for the wax based products, many of which are brown or black. How are you supposed to tell if that uneven black/brown surface is still doing it's job or hiding rot? Thus my plan is not to use underbody seal but to paint these areas with Hammerite which I can then inspect and maintain. It has been suggested that I could use 'clear' Waxoyl however I am told that this is really a light brown/yellow colour as opposed to clear and it also presents the additional problem of having to clean it off in order to replain any damage that does go through to the paint. Better methinks to forget it and concentrate on maintaining the paint.

Of course the cavities are a different kettle of fish because I can't see inside heater channels and other seriously enclosed spaces to inspect/maintain them. Thus I figure that the colour of the protective wax is insignificant in these areas. The blurb in the Frost catalogue about Dinitrol Corromax 3125 says "A specially forumulated wax which penetrates rust and dirt preventing further corrosion." That sounds like just the ticket to me, even if it is brown.

Hot Spots

The final consideration is that there are a few places where special paints are needed. Exhausts and engine blocks need paint that will stand the heat and while I have no immediate plans to paint the engine block I do need to do something about the rust on my exhaust pipework. I've also obtained (from Frost) some special paint for painting brake calipers and drums.

Having formulated a plan, all I need to do now, is to get painting.

Urethane Parts for Beetles

Progress with the Beetle is slow but everybody warned me that I'd discover more problems than I could see initially and that it'd take longer than I'd anticipated to do the work; so while the nature of the extra problems and work is a surprise, the discover of it isn't. I'll say more about that in another post (it's about time I posted a progress report) because in this post I wanted to say something about urethane parts.

I'd seen them on sale in a number of places and was tempted by their pretty red colour. Of course I wasn't about go changing everything just because of the colour but when one of the rear bump stops broke off in my hand, such that new brackets and 'rubbers' were added to my shopping list, I thought I might give them a try.

Before diving in however I did a search on the VZi forum and was surprised to see that hardly anybody had a good word for urethane. I started a new thread to try to get to the bottom of it (click here) and based on this, plus a little reading elsewhere, I came to the following conclusions:

Most of the urethane parts for Beetles are for use in places where they will be flexed and/or squashed (as opposed to having mechanical movement against them). These inclide bump stops, suspension bushings and gearbox mounts. My research indicates that urethane parts are harder than their rubber equivalents so while they will hold a gearbox more firmly, they will also transmit more vibration into the car. This seems even more counter productive in the case of bump stops and suspension components where they will transmit more vibration, and shocks in the case of bump stops, to the metal components they are supposed to be cushioning. I've been lead to understand that this has benefits in off-road vehicles like dune buggies (where you're expecting a rough ride anyway) because they will last longer. It would appear however that the additional life of the component is little compensation for the loss of ride comfort and protention of other parts in a road car.

There is one major deviation from the flex/squash use of urethane parts in a Beetle and that is in the form of urethane bushings for the front beam where they are used as replacements for the original metal roller bearings and rubber seals. It seems however that they have only one advantage over the original parts: they're cheaper. They will (apparently) wear out much faster and the only argument that I've seen that held any water was that if you're using them in an off road car where you might anticipate knackering and having to replace bearings on a regular basis because of the way you are using the car as opposed to through normal wear and tear...

Thus I will be replacing my bump stops, and any other relevant bits, with rubber as I've concluded that while urethane parts might be of use on an off road vehicle or one whose primary purpose is to look pretty, they have no place on a road car intended for daily use.

Tightening Security on SSH & Webmin

I haven't finished moving everything over to my new servers yet however I am getting a few opportunities to look into new things and today I made a couple of changes to tighten up security.

In the greater scheme of things I'm not what you'd consider to be a prime target. I'm not mega-corp and I doubt there's anybody out there who hates my guts or wants to get into my systems in the hope of finding secrets. On the other hand, the fact that I am small-fry implies that I probably won't have paid too much attention to security issues and may be an easy target for being turned into a spam relay or similar i.e. the attraction of my server to a cracker is not what they might find on it, but what they might be able to use it for if they can get in.

A few days ago for example I awoke to a Logwatch report that telling me that another server at the farm where mine lives had made 400+ attempts to log into my server using SSH. I emailed tech support and got a reply about 15 minutes later saying that they'd checked it, shut it down, and emailed the owner. Now it's hardly likely that the owner of that server had instigated the attack, however they would be left with the big pain in the ass problem of finding out how their server was hacked and dealing with it. Obviously I want to do everything I reasonably can to make sure the same thing doesn't happen to me.

I am fortunate (by design) that I'm the only person who needs to log into my server. Thus I don't need to worry about other users having inadequate passwords or installing problematic scripts/programs. I have a firewall, and have shut down any services that I don't use (like telnet and ftp), so you might think I'd be happy to sit back an relax. However, as I am the only person who needs to use SSH or Webmin, (pretty powerful tools), I figuered that there were probably a few ways that I could make it harder for anybody to abuse them.

The most important line of defence is of course to have good passwords and if you don't know what I mean by 'good passwords', you need to do some research. If you are 99% sure that you do know: that's not good enough and you still need to do some research. If you are 100% sure then you are being way too arrogant and you still ought to do some research. The things is that this stuff changes and what we thought was a good password 10 years ago is mediocre by today's standards because the knowledge and tools available to the crackers is more powerful. Unless you did it just last week, do a search and read half a dozen current documents about passwords. If you find anything in any of them that you didn't know, read half a dozen more. My own current thinking on the subject can be found here.

Starting with SSH then:

It's fairly normal for my Logwatch reports to show a few hundred (occasionally a few thousand) failed attempts to log in via SSH. These are generally split between a dozen or so IP address (that change on a daily basis so there's little point trying to block the addresses), and several dozen common names. Amongst all the toms, dicks and harrys who don't even exist on my server (but are fairly common user names generally) there are also a good number of attempts to log in as apache, root, mysql, and other names that are pretty much always present on any LAMP server.

A fairly simple but substantial increase in security therefore is to create a user with a really weird name (that looks like a password), give them an equally cryptic password, and make them the only user with access to SSH. While brute force attempts to log in via SSH will regularly try lists of common names, they are highly unlikely to try 'random' collections of characters. You've now made it just as hard for someone to guess a user name as it is for them to guess a password. Of course this also means that when you log in via SSH you have to use the weird user name and su to root before you can do anything. A small price to pay and it also means of course that anybody who did guess your weird username and the weird password now needs to guess your root password too. That's "something blooming difficult" three times in a row and probably equates to something pretty near to impossible.

Of course that doesn't stop the failed attempts from bloating my Logwatch reports (something I'm looking into and will report on later) but it does mean that I can safely ignore them.

Having now made SHH a heck of a lot more secure, my other concern was Webmin. Again, I'm the only person who needs to use it but when I do I go in as root so there's 'only' a password between me any somebody else getting in there.

I did some searching and found this document (amongst others) that had some interesting information about securing Webmin. My setup was already doing things like using it with SSL however I did opt to go into Webmin: Webmin Configuration: Authentication and change the number of failed logins required before a host is blocked and the time for which it is blocked. These were set at 5 and 60 seconds but I reckon anybody who gets their password wrong five times in a row shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a server in the first place. As we're blocking IP addresses (as opposed to users) however we don't want an attacker who's accessing the server via somewhere like Tiscali or AOL causing an IP address that's been temporarily allocated from a pool being blocked for long periods of time either. As I'm the only one who should be using Webmin on my server I changed the values to 2 and 600.

Fedora - The Wrong Hat

I've come to realise that I've made a mistake in moving to Fedora after somebody posted on http://www.fedoraforum.org/ about the imminent release of Core 7 and I asked how people go on for upgrading/reinstalling on servers when they can't afford much down time. The bottom line is that I shouldn't be using Fedora on such a machine.

It was explained to me (heaven knows how I'd missed it) that the whole idea of Fedora is that it is where all the front line cutting edge development is taking place and that while it's great for those who want to be involved with that, it's not the right choice for somebody who want's an as stable as it's possible to be platform on which to host business websites.

I was even more surprised to find that the guys on the forum suggested that I'd be much better off using CentOS i.e. the very OS that I've just moved away from (because I've always found it difficult to get information about it). Once again however, I've been making a big mistake in that my previous server was set up with CentOS and Blue Quartz and I failed to differentiate between the two. It seems that I must have done my searching on Blue Quartz because the only resource of any significance that I was aware of was bluequartz.org which is pretty useless. Had I gone looking for CentOS instead I would have found centos.org and two minutes reading the FAQ would have told me that CentOS is almost exactly the same as Red Hat Enterprise Linux so any book on RHEL would have told me what I wanted to know IF it were not for the Blue Quartz interface. Doh! It seems therefore that what I should have done, rather than moving to Fedora, was to move to another server with CentOS but without Blue Quartz and bought myself a book on RHEL.

Now that I'm here, and tied into a 12 month lease, I guess I'll just have to live with it however this shouldn't be too much of a problem. Since moving to Fedora I've learned quite a bit about the command line and that should stand me in good stead for moving back to CentOS (or indeed any other flavour of Linux) at the end of the lease.

I have to say however that once again I find myself being a little bit miffed at the company from whom I hire the server because, given the nature of Fedora as I now understand it, I'm inclined to question whether or not it is appropriate for them to be offering it as an option.

Planning To Go Topless

It may seem premature to be thinking of taking the roof off my Beetle however I need to replace the heater channels and there would be a lot of mileage in installing carbiolet sill strengtheners at the same time. Of course there's absolutely no point in going to all that expense unless I'm pretty certain that I'll want to take the roof off at a later date. Obviously the idea has some appeal or I wouldn't even be considering it but while I like the idea of cruising around in the sunshine with the top off, our UK weather isn't all sunshine and my car has to spend most of it's time on the drive at the side of our house as we don't have a garage.

To be honest, the 'normal' cabriolet option doesn't appeal to me. I don't like the way the folded down hood perches on the back of the car making it look like a big pram and I don't think they have nothing at all going for them with the hood up. Clearly I've just blown my chances of ever being offered honorary membership of the Cabriolet Owners Club but I don't care. Each to his own and all that, I just don't like cabriolet bugs.

However there are other options. VW produced Beetles (referred to as 'ragtops') with a large cloth panel on the top and although it appears that some of the bits are no longer available, Paris Beetles do kits for some pretty huge 'sunroofs', the biggest of which is as huge 38" x 31" inches and ends up looking to all intents and purposes like a VW ragtop. Paris also do three smaller sizes and of course there are 'normal' type sunroofs available with 'glass' panels. Sunroof and ragtop options benefit over the full cabriolet conversion in that they are a heck of a lot simpler and cheaper to install, largely because you don't need all the strengthening. Thus, if I were planning to go down that route, I wouldn't need to be thinking about installing sill strengtheners.

There is however another option: the targa, which involves having a removable section of roof between the A and B posts i.e. the bit above the driver and front passenger seats. The tops of the door frames are also made removable too.

Apparently there are only about half a dozen of targa beetles in the UK, most of which are the work of a company called Thump Thump and although they are no longer doing conversions, their website at thumpthump.co.uk is dedicated to a number of rather splendid examples of this rare and somewhat love it or hate it style. Clearly I love it but something that wasn't immediately apparent until somebody told me and I did a bit of measuring to check, is that because of the bugs body shape, the removable panel will fit down behind the driver and passenger seats when it's not in use. Thus, if done right, and properly maintained such that the seals aren't allowed to become leaky with age, you have all the benefits of a top down head turner when the sun shines and all the benefits of a hard top when it rains. Of course there's a little more strengthening and other work required than just installing sill stengtheners but that's for later. The important thing for now is that the sill strengtheners ARE on my shopping list.

Engine Oil For Beetles

For me, oil changes used to be something that happened at the garage when I took a car in for service. Why, how, and what oil was used was none of my concern. Given that the whole point of the Beetle is that I want to maintain it myself, I had some learning to do. Before you read on please note that what follows are my own conclusions based one what I found out. I wrote it down to help me make a decision and so that I can refer back to it at a later date when I've forgotten why I made it. I'm making no promises that I've come to the right decision so don't come hammering on my door if you decide to apply my thinking to your own car and it turns out I got it all wrong okay?

As far as a 'modern' car is concerned you can look in the owner manual, a Haynes manual, or ask a retailer and get the same answer; although the retailers will of course want to sell you whatever brand they happen to stock (but we'll return to the the subject of brands later). With an old car like a Beetle it seems that everybody has a different opinion. For starters, the owner manual will be at least 30 years old and quite a bit has changed since then. The main problem however is that most folks are just not used to dealing with vehicles that are more than 10 or 20 years old. For example, I asked the guy I bought mine from what oil he was using and he didn't know because the garage put it in at the last service. He assured me however that it was being done properly as the car had a 'new' engine 7000 miles ago and he showed me the guarantee/service booklet which showed that it had an oil change at 500, another at 5000, and was due another at 10000. Now you don't have to read much about Beetles to know that everybody, but EVERYBODY, says that they should have the oil changed every 3000 miles. Clearly neither the previous owner nor the garage he was using knew much about Beetles.

Incidentally, while we're on the subject of "how ofen?", as I've come to understand it, the reason for this increased frequency (apparently 3000 miles was failrly standard for most cars before the development of modern lubricants and filters) is that: a) the oil plays a bigger part in cooling a bugs air-cooled engine than it does in a water-cooled engine and 'wears out' faster and b) the bug has an oil strainer as opposed to the type of filter that you get in more modern cars and it's better for this to be removed and cleaned out more regularly.

Thus I began to ask around (a lot) and although at first it seemed that everybody had a different answer I eventually saw that they fell into three groups regarding the specification of the oil.

The first group, and these are generally people who are into Beetles, suggest SAE 30 mono-grade. This seems to be largely because VW originally specified SAE 30 for "general driving" but my research indicates that VW said this at a time when multi-grade oils (recommended for pretty much every modern engine) were in their infancy and (apparently) not very good. However, when you consider that some of the guys who swear by mono-grade have been running their dubs for donkeys years then you have to wonder if they might have a point. It also occurred to me however, that for many people, their bug is a summertime play thing that'll rarely suffer the indignity of being rained on never mind being used to haul groceries back from Tesco in the depths of winter.

The reason that climate and season are important is because an engine oil needs to be 'runny' enough to be pumped through the system when the engine is cold and 'sticky' enough to adhere to the parts when it's hot. The two extremes occur when you're starting up on a cold winter's morning and when you're on a long journey on a hot summer's day; so how cold it gets in winter and how hot it gets in summer in the climate where the engine is being run are factors in choosing engine oil.

This is why VW specified SAE 30 for "general driving" because they also suggested other 'weights' for hot and cold climates. In fact in the days when mono-grade oils were standard it was fairly common practice to use one grade in the summer and another in the winter. The engine oil FAQ over at Morris Lubricants says that "it used to be the practice to put a thin monograde, such as a SAE 30, in the engine during the winter and a heavier monograde, such as a SAE 50". So I guess SAE 30 should be just fine for use in the UK.

The second group of people you will encounter suggest the use of a multi-grade oil. Multi-grade oils are specified with two numbers e.g. SAE 10w/40 (the w means "winter") and what it means is that the oil behaves like a 10 weight oil at the cold temperature and like a 40 weight oil would at the hot temperature. Aparently they define 'cold' as 0° Fahrenheit (-18°C), while 'hot' is 212° Fahrenheit (100°C). "They", just in case you are wondering are the Society of Automotive Engineers which is what the "SAE" bit means.

Now this is where it starts to look really complicated because what you need to do is to figure out which of the myriad variations are right for your engine and climate. Life would be a lot simpler if a single product covered the whole range however it seems that multi-grade oils are made possible by the addition of polymers and to get a range that would suit all possibilities you'd end up with more polymers than oil (and it's the oil that does the actual lubricating).

Just about the best way to get yourself really confused is to ask or look on the Internet because you'll be asking people from lots of different climates so what is right for them will not necessarly be right for you (something that may or may not occur to them when they answer). It's also important to realise that even if you ask around UK forums, not everybody will be wise to the need to consider climate and may well have based their own decision upon information gleaned from inappropriate sources. (See my previous post about tyre pressures for an illustration of people on forums thinking they know their stuff when in fact they don't.)

The good news for those of us in the UK however is that we don't have to deal with the really hot or really cold weather. The lower figure stated for a multi-grade will be 0, 5, 10, 15 or 20 but when you consider that this figure describes the viscocity at -18°C it's probably not something that we need worry about too much here in the UK. The higher figure on the multi-grade spec is generally 30, 40 or 50 and again, here in the UK it's not something that we need to worry about as much as somebody in the Mediterranean.

Having said that, we still have to use something and rather than just closing my eyes and reaching towards the shelf I made the following observations:

Rick Higgins of Bug Me Video (as you already know I'm something of a fan and have a high regard for his opinion) generally reaches for a can of 20w/50 but he's in Florida and as he said when I got the opportunity to ask him: "20w50 works good here since it is never very cold and real hot in the afternoon". He suggested that "In the heat of summer in UK you could likely use 20w50 there." He didn't comment on the UK winter and I didn't feel inclined to press him as he'd already said that "I am not really an authority on oil so what I can share is just my experience and what I have learned from others", but the implcation is clear that something thinner may be more appropriate in the winter.

My Haynes manual also suggests 20w/50 but makes no mention of climate and although it's printed on the UK the nice picture of a left hand drive Beetle on the front cover makes me wonder. VWHeritage, Volkspares, Halfords and a number of other suppliers in whom I have some faith suggest 15w/40 and from what I've seen the 15w/40 will be better at lower temperatures than the 20w/50 making this sound like the answer to my needs. However the 15w/40 is generally to be found sitting on the shelf right next to the 10w/40 which presumably would be even better?

In his "Rap On Oil" in "How To Keep Your Volkswagen Alive", John Muir says that "the multi-grade oil's ability to lubricate is not as good as the mono-grade oil's ability at the high temperatures at which an air-cooled engine runs." Rick Higgins also told me that "I like to stay as thick (sticky) as reasonable so the cylinders retain some lube after the motor is shut down." In both cases they're talking about the behaviour of the oil when hot i.e. the difference between the 40 and the 50 bit of the spec as opposed to the 10, 15, or 20 bit.

John Muir is actually an advocate of SAE 30 and also states a strong bias towards the Castrol brand when he says that it "lays a load on my back to carry my own oil wherever I go because this oil is found only in racing and hotrod stores" This raises the question of availability and I figure, given that our mild UK climate appears to give me some flexibility on the weight of the oil, it probably makes sense to consider some of the other factors before I opt for something that's a swine to get hold of for the sake of what may well be a negligible difference in oil's weight.


If the weight of the oil is the most confusing issue, then the brand name is surely the most controversial with those who believe that the well know brands are a rip off facing off against those who believe that you get what you pay for (and arguing amongst themselves about which of those name brands is the best).

The argument in favour of the well know brands is that you're paying extra for the superior quality of the addititives that they put in to make the oil do its job better. Of course you're also going to be paying more for the name but consider this: it's a name they want to protect so they're unlikely to use it to sell product that would get them a bad reputation are they? We'll discuss a few of those additives in a minute but as far as the brand name versus cheap stuff debate is concerned, the bottom line for me is that the price difference generally works out to be less than five quid on the cost of an oil change. Given the amount that I anticipate spending on petrol and other car related expenses I figure that if I can't afford an extra twenty quid a year to err on the side of caution I ought to sell the car and get a bus pass.

As for which brand then: John Muir has (as we've already seen) a very strong bias towards Castrol. Rick Higgins also told me that he "started using Castrol when I had a friend that worked on these million dollar racing boats here. He said that the Castrol would handle whatever beating they gave it and he swore by it."

Other things that we need to condsider are the differences between mineral oils and those with synthetics, and the difference between oils with and without detergents.

When I asked around, the consensus of opinion was that bug engines are better running on mineral oils but very few people had any idea why and even when an explanation was offered it didn't always make a much sense. Along the way it was suggested that the whole point of synthetics was to make the oil keep working for longer but as you should change a bug's oil every 3000 miles (because of the filter if not the oil itself), then there isn't a whole lot of point paying extra for a longer lasting oil. I've also been told that the heat transfer characteristics of mineral and synthetic oils are different and the bug engine, with it's increased reliance on the oil for cooling, needs mineral oil.

Regarding detergents, John Muir says that the VW community was originally dubious about detergents but now favours them. The point of the detergents is that help keep the engine clean by carrying the 'soot' in suspension. If you use an oil with detergents then the old thinking about brown oil being due for a change whereas black oil needs changing, goes right out the window because the oil will go black due to the soot long before it's in desperate need of a change.

The argument against detergents is that the oil strainer in the bug isn't good enough to filer out all the small particles of crud that get cleaned out of the engine. Thus they will circulate causing damage. I don't like the sound of that however the other side of the coin i.e. if the detergents are not putting that crud into suspension, is that they stay stuck in the engine. Is that really a better option?

From what I've learned I think the most important thing about detergents is probably that you shouldn't suddenly switch from non-detergent to detergent oil. In his book John Muir tells of an occasion when he bought a bus from a guy who had been running on non-detergent oil so he had to stick with it until the next engine rebuild. Had he changed suddently, the detergents would have immediately set about cleaning up what was probably a relatively dirty engine thus putting a whole heap of crud into suspension all at once.

Given that my engine is only 7000 miles since the last rebuild I figure that I'm probably safe to use detergent even though the previous owner couldn't tell me what was in there.


Now, I did say way back at the start that the folks I asked fell into three groups and thus far I've only covered two. That's because the third groups are the ones who will direct you to this weeks special offer or whatever they happen to stock. If they are way too cocky and you're in the mood for listening to some bullshit, try asking them how often you should change it and use some of the information given above to see how long they're prepared to carry on talking through their arses before they finally admit that they haven't a clue; otherwise just feel sorry for them for having such a crap job and walk away.


So what did I buy? Well, availability had quite a lot to do with it but by the time I started checking out what I could get my hands on without too much trouble I'd concluded that I wanted a name brand multi-grade mineral oil but I was still wavering between 15w/40 (because of the 15w bit) and 20w/50 (because of the 50 bit).

The local garage (5 mins walk) have Castol GTX High Mileage 15w40 (£16.96/4l) and Duckhams Q Classic Engine Oil 20w50 (£10.99/4.5l). VWHeritage (somebody I can see myself ordering stuff from on a fairly regular basis) have VW Quantum 15w/40 (£16.95/5l) but as it'd have to be posted, and they calculate postage according to order value, I'd have to add a couple of quid onto the cost of that for postage. The only VW specialist within reasonable travelling distance is GSF - who sell Fuchs Titan HD 15w40 (£11.95/5l) - but they're in a town that I rarely visit and I'd have to go past Halfords and my local garage to get there. The Halford's candidate were Halfords own brand 15w/40 Enhanced Mineral Oil (£12.99/5l) or the Castrol GTX High Mileage 15w40 (£16.99/5l).

In the end I went for the Duckhams Q 20w50 for three reasons:

1. I like to support local businesses where I can (use them or lose them). I already buy my petrol from the guy around the corner even though I could get it a couple of pence a litre cheaper if I went to the one 5 miles away. I figure that if I don't I'll have no right to complain if he shuts down and I'm forced to travel 5 miles for petrol. Thus I wanted to buy from him if he had something suitable.

2. I decided in the end that I was more concened about the oil's performance when it's hot that when it's cold. Health problems mean that I'm forced to sponge off the state rather than work for a living so I'm never obliged to go out when the weather is bad. I decided therefore to go for a 20w50 as opposed to a 15w40. I will however be monitoring it when the weather gets cold and if it starts to look a bit thick, I'll let you know.

3. The Duckhams Oil is a pretty green colour like my car. Only kidding. ;-)


So there we have it, Duckhams Q 20w50 is my oil of choice but as I said at the start, these are my conclusions based on what I found out and I make no promises about them. If you want to read more then check out http://www.carbibles.com/engineoil_bible.html which was one of the more comprehensive documents that I found on the subject of car engine oil, while perhaps the best (my opinion again) summarisation of oil issues relating to VW Beetles that I found was in the Vehicle & Part Information section at VW Heritage.

Tyre Pressures & Karma

Although I haven't posted about it before, one of the first things I wanted to do when I got my Beetle was to check the tyre pressure.

Strangely, neither John Muir's book nor my Haynes manual seems to contain the necessary information. In the end I asked on the VZi forum and the results were rather surprising, not just because of the numbers (a mere 18psi on the front and 27psi on the rear) but because of the number of other VZi members who responded to the information with posts along the lines of "Really? Are you sure?"

Laurence Fletcher, the guy who posted the info, said it came "straight out of VW's own dealer service manual" and indeed I've since found some stickers over at VWHeritage (click here to see them) that are reproductions of a sticker that VW (apparently) used to stick inside the glovebox. The sticker says 19psi and 27psi but either way it's a lot lower, especially on the front, than a lot of the folks over at VZi had been using. Indeed my own bug was at about 30psi all round and after dropping them down to what they should be, the ride is quite a bit smoother.

While we're on the subject of tyres, the Haynes manual suggests swapping the wheels around every 6000 miles such that they wear evenly however John Muir is quite emphatic, he even puts it on bold text, that you should not do this. Mr Muir says "it takes about 500 miles for a tire to get used to its position on a car, and changing it around just messes with its head. It will last as long or longer right where it is." I'm with Mr Muir on this one because I'd be pretty pissed if somebody swapped the soles of my shoes everytime I got them all worn in and comfy, and I don't need any bad karma for messing with my tyre's heads. ;-)