Beetlebaum73's green 2003 New Beetle GLS

Jenny finally came home! She took a very long time at the shop, but she's now home and ready to rumble.

So, here she is again, next to my '73 Super Beetle. I plan on rejuvenating the '73 over the next two years, so it won't look like this for long!



And so, I took Jenny to Wal-Mart for some errands...and I parked next to another New Beetle!



But then, soon thereafter, Jenny had an issue with a bushing in her front suspension. She developed a worrying thunk in just one day, so that was fixed earlier today. Here was the damage! Wow!



Tomorrow, we're replacing the calipers and brake pads all around, since all of them are in awful condition. After that comes new struts up front and new shock absorbers out back. At that point, she should be pretty much good to go for a long time!

Hey, awesome!!! What's your username on TheSamba? Beetlebaum is still sitting around, waiting for me to get busy...but I've been slowly getting this New Beetle up to snuff.

Also, she doesn't seem to be faded at all. She's darker than all the other Cyber Green New Beetle's I've seen since getting her. I have a REALLY nice little car here.

I finally got the airbag light off by replacing the driver's seatbelt latch, so, to celebrate, I took Jenny to a local park for some glamour shots. She's not perfect, but she is certainly a wonderful little car.

The things I still have left to do to her:
-Replace front struts
-Replace rear shocks
-Get a new front grille and fog light
-Get her back to the mechanic to get the last of her vacuum leaks fixed, and that'll clear her last check-engine codes
-Also, though she's really clean overall, I just haven't actually fully cleaned the interior like I want, so that's also on my list.

One of my friends recently was shocked when I told her that the seats had green inserts, and she said, "What??? That's a lot of green!" Yes. Yes, there is a LOT of green on this car, and I absolutely love every bit of it.

Here are more pictures of Jenny from two days ago...

Things have gone well with Jenny lately. She went back to the shop and got most of her engine woes fixed, and now she runs quietly and quickly.

Here are a few of the highlights of my five months with my New Beetle...

The first time I took her on a longer trip, twenty-five miles each way. She did well and fit in with the antiquated buildings around her.



I found another Cyber Green New Beetle in the Wal-Mart parking lot a few months ago and was so excited to park next to it. I certainly appreciate the character that Jenny has with her special green inserts all over the car.



I also took her on a nice long roadtrip totaling upwards of eighty miles, including a long ride on a ferry. It was also my first time riding the ferry alone, which was fun!



And here's my current phone background--a picture of my car waiting for the ferry.



2016 should have even more exciting adventures with this little car, including a trip to Washington, DC!

Well, Jenny has been treating me well. I finally replaced her worn-out shocks yesterday. It turns out that they were the original shocks--meaning that they had 158,800 miles on them! No wonder they were so soft.

Here's the picture of Jenny when I was working on those shocks yesterday.

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I can't figure out how to turn the picture's orientation--this is my first time actually hosting the picture on the Org--so just turn your head to see it.

(But actually--how do I fix that?)

Jenny has been doing pretty well, minus a recent problem with her coolant levels. She's treating me well and even went on a road trip recently. She was going to go up to Washington, DC a few weeks ago, but weather cancelled that trip. Instead, I'm just waiting for a free day or two to head up there and see how she does. Here she is with my '73 Super Beetle.

Jenny has been at the shop for more than two weeks now; she's having problems with the cooling fans and her radiator. Radiators aren't my strong suit...my knowledge is in air-cooled Volkswagens, not these fancy modern VWs.

The mechanic tells me that there are two issues with the car at the moment:

1) The radiator itself appears to have been gummed up by some sort of anti-leak stuff, so he's evaluating whether it would be a good idea for me to have the radiator replaced.

2) The cooling fans are malfunctioning and only operating on high speed, and they're not cooling the car adequately once they do start operating. Unfortunately, he hasn't been able to figure out what the root cause of that problem is yet, but he's working on it.



If anything, the time that my New Beetle has been spending in the shop has been the impetus necessary to get my '73 Super Beetle back on the road! The Super Beetle is now only two weeks away from being ready for state inspection, so I'm really excited about that. Here's the link for the build for my '73 Super Beetle, if you feel like reading a lot about a junker: TheSamba.com :: Reader's Rides - View topic - Beetlebaum: The 1973 Super pulled from a Junkyard

Addendum:

I forgot to mention that the suspension on my New Beetle was also being funky right before she developed these radiator issues; one of the ball joints was actually coming loose from the control arm and was only a few threads away from disaster! So this car has spent the past month, now that I think about it, sitting at the shop for one reason or another. I'm kind of frustrated with it but certainly don't intend to give up on her. Heck, my '73 has been a project car for eight years now, and, if anything, I'm more dedicated to making it work now than I was when I first got it!

Here's Jenny on the last day I really took a trip with her; she and I went to Williamsburg, VA.

I...had a very bad day a few weeks ago.

The parking brake let go on a hill (spare me the lecture about putting the car in gear; I've learned that one the hard way!), and the car rolled down and hit another car.



It's not as bad as it could be, but it is enough that the insurance company declared her a total loss. It was heartbreaking to receive that news today.

But, I also have a tendency to bring back cars from the dead that probably shouldn't--exhibit A: my '73 Super Beetle. So I told them that I'd take the car back and get it fixed.

So Jenny is in limbo for right now, waiting on the weekend to end.

It was a bad day. But it won't be the end of Jenny. And so it could've been worse.

Jenny's back!

As referenced in my last post, Jenny was officially totaled, but I got her back and have begun the exciting and somewhat challenging project of fixing her up.

Here she was earlier today, as I dove into fixing her. The passenger rear fender was toast, as was the fuel evaporative canister. I sourced both of those parts (along with a new tail light and side marker light) from a faded Cyber Green Bug in a local junkyard--I got at least $500 worth of parts for only $73!



Finally, I got the car all back together and washed off all the insurance-related grease pen writing off of her. She's far from perfect, but now she can be driven normally again, and I can begin to prepare her to go to the body shop.



She cleans up nicely, all things considered.