Well, I went and picked up the sensor from my VW dealer. I thought it was pretty cool that they had it in stock. He had told me that the Passat uses the same part, as well as the pollen filter I got. Cool.

I got home thinking this was going to be a big job. I didnt even know I would be able to get to it becasue it was always a pain in the *** when I would hit up the harness with some contact cleaner. I barely could even get to the damn thing. Suprisingly, it was very, very simple. All I had to remove was the hose from the MAF to the Plenum and had plenty enough room to get my hand and the flathead down there. 1, 2, 3 it went like the breeze.

Later on last night I was heading out to meet a friend for dinner when im driving down the road and all I smelled was coolant. I thought maybe it was some that spilled out on to the exhaust manifold when I pulled the sensor out of the return line. So I pull over to check it out under the light to find that I have a decent amount of coolant on the ground where I stopped. I was like WTF!! So now im in this parking lot under a light pulling the sensor out while the car is hot, kinda crazy. If you leave the cap on the resivoir, none will come out. I just couldnt figure out why the hell the thing was leaking. I pulled it out and re-set it back in there thinking maybe it wasnt sitting right. Drive to meet my friend, stop and check - still leaking but very minimal. I drive the car out to dinner, around to a house im renovating and then to shoprite for some distilled water. I get out to check and it wasnt leaking anything. Makes me wonder but I think I may know what the problem is. It was pretty cool out last night. When I had put the sensor in, it came with a new rubber o-ring gasket. The way this sensor stays in there is from the pressure of the coolant system when it warms. On the return line it sits in its hole and is just held in by a metal retainer clip that holds it down in there. While the clip is on, the sensor can still be moved around. So I think that the rubber had to get warm enough and become mallable enough to form a seal. It didnt stop leaking untill the temp gauge read dead center(here it normally is). Now I havent taken the car out today yet but if its leaking still then im going to have a problem.


If any of you guys have replaced this sensor without this problem, I gladly like to know how. I really just cant figure it out. Maybe now Ill be able to get a look at it in daylight.

 

I guess the ring wasnt set properly and it was causing the sensor to sit tilted. All fixed!