Gas tank replacement

[kippvisual]

I just hit an object in the road. Looks like it tore the drivers side gas tank. I believe there is one on each side. Any idea how involved it is to replace.

[PanEuropean]

Sorry to hear of your grief.

Below is an illustration of the fuel tank, taken from the repair manual.

There is only one tank, but it sort of divides at the bottom to fit on either side of the driveshaft. It doesn't look to me like it should be too difficult to replace - seems like it just needs to be dropped out the bottom of the vehicle. It might be necessary to remove the driveshaft leading to the rear wheels, but that should not be too difficult. The Bentley repair manual (the VW of North America 'official' repair manual) does not provide instructions for removal and replacement of the tank.

Most of the work will be removing components from the old tank, and re-installing them in the new tank. My guess is that it will be between 6 and 8 hour labour, total.

Michael

Illustration of Fuel Tank and associated components

[PanEuropean]

Marc:

Just a postscript - I am taking my Phaeton to my dealer tomorrow morning (Monday morning) to get a small task done, while I am there, I will ask them to look in the service documentation provided to the dealerships, and see if there is more detailed information there. The Bentley manuals are intended for sale to the 'public', and don't contain all the info that VW provides to the dealerships.

Michael

[kippvisual]

Michael, Thanks so much for you good info. Will keep you updated.

[PanEuropean]

Kipp:

I just got an email from the authour of the North American Phaeton Service Manual on CD:

Good Afternoon, Michael

Fuel tank R&R information is available for both the V8 and the W12 engines in Group 20 of the appropriate engine section on our subscription service. If it is not on the CD (I don't have one), I would guess that VW has only recently added this data to the body of information on the Phaeton.

In looking at the Factory repair times in my files, it looks like it could be over 10 hours to do the job.

Arthur LeBrun
Bentley Publishers

Looks like I estimated low on the time required to do the job.

[kippvisual]

Thanks for your input. The hours are quoted from 9.5 to 17, If its in warranty it's 9.5 non warranty the dealer is going to charge me the 17 hours x $85.00 plus the cost of a new tank 1150.00. I do have a concern about the design of the fuel tank. It seems to me that there is no protection.

[NiveK]

if i where you id change dealers real quick, they should only charge you as long as it takes, which by the micro fish is apparantly 9.5 hours, anything behond that is nothing but pure gaulging and just plain sick

[kippvisual]

I agree! The last VW dealer( Valley Motors of Huntvalley, MD) wanted to charge 33 hours. My insurance company said no way, so we decided to go with a different dealer. The problem is no dealer has every done this I think they are anxious about the time it will take.

[AusSalzburg]

Warranty time is a Factory cost reimbursement controlled time to the dealer.
Retail time is always roughly 40-50% higher than "warranty".
I've worked in both worlds. Technicians can hardly match warranty time. The job always takes longer than warranty time.

[NiveK]

ive worked in both worlds too being the dispatcher/warranty clerk for GM and being a technician before that, and the only reason it would take longer is if it was untrained employees, or a gross error on time from the Manufacturer data sheets, and marking something up 50% just to cover someones arse if they are goofing off all day or working slowly is poor customer service

[PanEuropean]

Kevin:

I disagree very strongly with your last comment - I think it is flippant and ill-considered. The repair times allowed for 'warranty' repair are less than what is actually required to do the work (typically about 80% of the time actually required). This is common practice across all manufacturers, American, Japanese, and German. The rationale, which is understandable, is that the dealer also shares some of the warranty responsibility, as they are the retail partner of the manufacturer.

The Phaeton is a new vehicle on the market, and it is not yet widely distributed. There are probably less than 2,000 in North America at this time, on average, that works out to only about 1 or 2 per dealership.

If you are asking a service technician to complete an unfamiliar procedure on a new vehicle - a darn expensive and complex vehicle at that - it is entirely reasonable to expect that the technician is going to take more time than average to complete the work. If 9.5 hours is the warranty allotment, and that represents 80% of the actual work time, then actual work time is about 12 hours. The dealership is adding 50% on to that to allow for the fact that the technician is doing this work for the first time on an unfamiliar product. That's pretty reasonable to me - in fact, I'd be damn grateful that the dealership cares enough about doing a good job the first time round to allow the technician the time that it really will require to do the job thoroughly and carefully.

In Europe, VW provides a two week training and certification course for Phaeton service technicians. That is a remarkably long course in the automotive industry. I doubt if hands-on practice removing and installing fuel tanks is part of the course.

Michael

[NiveK]

no actually the dealership is adding that on so they make a bigger profit, my highest paid technician was a transmission guy at 15 dollars per hour, the rest of that 129 bux an hour went into upper managements pockets, thats simply coorp. bs, same reason AA hasn't turned a profit ever, they have ceo's making 8 million a year for screwing the company over and make all the pilots stewards and bag handlers take benefits and pay cuts or just plain fired

[kippvisual]

Got my Phaeton back on the road today, Heritage Volkswagen did a great job! The tech said it was a good learning experience, because the Phaeton is modular the suspension just drop out with only 4 bolts. After replacing the tank, four wheel alinement and adding fuel it started right up with all codes intact.

[MoreA4]

Quote, originally posted by kippvisual »

Got my Phaeton back on the road today, Heritage Volkswagen did a great job! The tech said it was a good learning experience, because the Phaeton is modular the suspension just drop out with only 4 bolts. After replacing the tank, four wheel alinement and adding fuel it started right up with all codes intact.

So the good or bad news...how many hours? Good to hear you back on the road already!

[kippvisual]

Also I forgot to add it was 14 hours with two tech's @ a cost of $2600.00

[PanEuropean]

Thanks to Spockcat for finding us two excellent photos showing a fuel tank, in cutaway format. This might be a Touareg fuel tank, because the shape does not exactly conform to the diagram of the Phaeton. The general idea and interior components are similar, though.

Fuel Tank Cutaway

[PanEuropean]

THIS is a Phaeton fuel tank. I knew I had a picture of one around somewhere...

Now you can see why it takes so long to remove and replace the fuel tank. Getting the actual plastic tank out is not very time consuming, but removing and replacing all of the components that are in it (and making sure everything is sealed perfectly, and recalibrating all the gauges, and function-testing all the pumps) is what takes the time.

Phaeton Fuel Tank - Cutaway
Photo is taken from about where the car radio would be, looking backwards towards the trunk. The little black thing at the upper left of the photo, near the fuel filler neck, is the expansion chamber.

[feared]

Michael, could you re-host the photos? I need to see them as my level sensor seems to be faulty. Thanks

[Zaphh]

Hi Michael,

Could you please rehost the photos and by chance remember where a description could be found on how to remove rear seats ?

A French forum member needs to access his petrol tank.

Thanks,

P.

[PanEuropean]

Photos re-hosted (better late than never... )

Michael