15 Must Have Tools For VW and Audi Repairs

hey everybody its Charles from humble mechanic um today we're gonna talk about some of the must-have tools for working on VW's and Audi's I have spent my career as a Volkswagen technician and in that time I have fine-tuned exactly the tools that I needed in order to fix or maintain VW's and so much of this what in the VW world tool wise applies to the Audi world as well so today we're going to talk about some of the basic must-have things you need for working on Volkswagens and Audi's this is whether you're a DIY ER or you're a shop or a professional technician that wants to take another challenge of working on German cars some of the things we're not going to talk about today basic hand tools ratchets sockets screwdrivers that kind of stuff cuz you're gonna need that for every car that you're going to work on we're also not going to go super deep into the highly specialized tools things like timing about tools lock tools and equipment like that because not everyone is going to need that that is very specialized now in no particular order we're gonna start with having triple squares VW knotty loves their triple square bolts so you're going to need a handful of different styles of triple squares here I have some very shallow triple squares that are on 3/8 drive I also have some that are a little bit longer on 3/8 drive as well 6 8 10 and 12 are some of the more common sizes but you actually may find yourself needing 14s and even up to 18s there's a set by Vi M that I think is a perfect set I'll put links down in the description so you can check all of this stuff out so I like the VI M tool set a lot I bought the snap-on ones very early in my career and they serve me incredibly well moving off of triple squares we're going to need torques and we're gonna need torques in a handful of different ways I have the main ones that you're going to be using here t20 t25 T 30 and T 45 of course this is a really common one for belly pans in addition to having them as sockets so you can put it on a ratchet I also like to have bits this works really well for maintenance you can drop it in your quarter inch Chuck impact and for these I have the long ones and I have the short ones I actually use the short ones a lot more than I did the longer ones but if you're doing things like intake manifolds these work amazing it's also not a bad idea to have an extremely short set of bits for those really tight spaces especially on the interior and like underneath the intake manifold on that note this bit driver is made by Blue Point it's extremely fine toothed and it works great for things like the IMR C's on the FSI engines it's also what I used to use all the time to do things like ABS modules and the motors for the HVAC system on b5 Passats there's also other versions of this that are not fine-toothed I do not recommend those I recommend getting the fine toothed ones they're a little more expensive and worth every penny something else we're going to need to have is a variety of ways to take off allen head bolts the most Commons are going to be five and six of course as you can see I got some stubby five and six a little bit longer mid length five and six five and six ball end standard length five and six and 3/8 drive and of course the extremely long ball end it's also not a bad idea to have shorter ones than these quarter-inch drives here again because so much of the area that we work in is incredibly tight when it comes to the Allen tools you're gonna need more than five and six for is semi common five six obviously the most common 7 8 and 10 are also used in addition to those smaller Allen's you probably want to look at a set of bigger ones we cover from 6 to 8 in this kit but having some of these bigger ones will allow you to do things like axle bolts and transmission services and things like that so this is another one you might want to buy an entire set as you can see the 12 14 17 are the most worn in this kit one that's not super common today but going forward you are going to need and even now there's a handful of repairs that do require our inverted torque sockets well the inverted one is just the inverse of the torque socket there's a handful of window regulators that use these type fasteners that you will need to have these sockets for in order to remove them while this may not be at the top of your list put it down at the bottom because you're gonna need one eventually there's a couple of tools that I do think brand does matter one of them being these Blue Point hose clamp pliers the key here is the dual cups that grabs the hose clamp much much better than the one that just has the U at the end this has been my go-to set of hose clamp pliers for many many years there's also a lot of people that like the cable driven will hose clamp pliers those and work well but I really recommend not buying the cheapest one that's what I had and I ended up giving them to somebody because they did not work very well there is a lot of places where the cable driven hose clamp pliers work really great in fact work better than these but don't cheap out on those and get a good pair because VW and Audi are very particular about the way wiring repairs are done you're going to need a good set of wire strippers personally I like these the automatic ones are just fine too if that's what you prefer but more importantly you're going to need some crimp tools there was many moons ago a special VW Audi tool for crimping wires by the time I got to the dealership it was completely gone so I got my own set they're not that expensive and it beats hunting down the special tool and as you know VW Audi are known for wiring issues and hungry my stewing on on cabling so I really recommend getting your own set of these and since we're of course going to be using either the heat shrink style connectors or heat shrink over connectors you're gonna need a heat gun as well to heat up that heat shrink or those connectors this is a kind of a cool battery power one I wish I had very early on in my career back in the day axle boot failure was incredibly common so you had to have a good pair of clamps to crimp the clamp together this would crimp it and lock it into place and for the small clamps or the very soft clamps these work really really well you just put it on the clamp and squeeze it and it will crimp the clam unfortunately when we hit about the Mark v v6 generation the clamp got quite a bit more heavy-duty and it was a real struggle to use these and get these done by hand yes they have half-inch drive openings where you can put breaker bars on them but I found that to be incredibly cumbersome and hard to hold everything together while having those breaker bars on it even with putting the axle in a vise what I found was actually a heavy-duty set that you set on and you use a drill or an impact or a ratchet and you twist it in with the bolt and that does a much better job of crimping those heavy-duty clamps I really like this set for any of the bigger boot clamps now this one may be a little bit more common than just VW and Audi but since I have them with a VW emblem on it I'm going to talk about it and that's trim removal tools the plastic and interior pieces on these cars have a very hi strength and are really hard to can't lose sometimes impossible without breaking so having a good set of trim tools is vital whether it's these old bone tools that we used to get at training or something like these where you have several different styles to fit the need of removing whatever trim you're working on the important thing here is you want to make sure you're not always using something like a screwdriver that can Mar up the plastic everything's held on incredibly tight and it Mars and scratches really easy so you need to be extra careful I've lost tons of these over the years I've had this set since about oh five and I've never lost one probably because I had to pay for it if you want stuff like this you can actually get these from your local dealership there is a tool number for them these next tools may feel a little more specialized than some of the other stuff but I think it's important to have these and that is why err deepening tools the number of TS B's that require a connector to be repinned or things like water leaks and the B five five-and-a-half Passats require you to deepen connectors and install new wires having a good set of deep end tools is incredibly important so you don't damage the wire you don't damage the connector the two that I use the most were these two and these are actually om factory tools while I recommend these as the best ones you can get they're about 50 bucks apiece if you don't want to spend the money there's a couple of options the Ford pin tool it works really good on the VW connectors or if you want a DIY solution taking the metal insert out of an old wiper blade and grinding it down works great you get a little bit of spring pressure with it you can fine-tune it to the exact size for the connector that you're trying to deepen you can make them fast most shops have wiper blades thrown away everyday and it's really easy I actually ended up using this one a lot in the last bit of my career so you can buy the factory ones for really expensive save some money and buy the Ford tool or just simply make your own and that is probably what I would do especially if I had the time and didn't need the tool right then and there now I mentioned we're not gonna talk a ton about hand tools there are several hand tools that you're gonna want to have you're gonna want a pair of ratcheting wrenches of course that's vital but the big key here and this was a lot of doing rear brake jobs is a ratcheting wrench for the 13 millimeter bolt at the end and a fifteen millimeter wrench to hold the pin for the caliper this is important and the reason I'm bringing this up is cuz you need to have them that's kind of thin it has to fit in that space on the caliper carrier if you don't have one that's thin enough like this Blue Point is thin enough buy a cheap one grind it down so that it does fit because you do have to counter hold that piece on the caliper in order to remove it in fact out of all the fifteen millimeter wrenches that I have this is the only one that fits in that space I also grabbed this 19 millimeter wrench it's really important you need to have a good one with thin walls in order to get on drain plugs for most of the cars that don't have that composite pan you may also want to have an 18 for the VR sixes that have a pretty thin head as well a couple of things you're going to need for basic oil change maintenance are going to be some big-boy sockets thirty two millimeter typically covers Mo's diesels and 36 millimeter covers things like the VR six and the SSI engines I bought both of these in half-inch drive but since I typically used either quarter inch drive or 3/8 I had reducers put on them I've heard just a lot of reducers over the years that's another thing you really want to consider because you don't always have the right drive socket to fit in that tight space you are also going to need an oil filter cup similar to this one this one covers a lot of engines and a lot of oil filters it's a must-have it's a two-five it's the TSI a handful of other engines you're going to need to have this one one key thing to look at this one's made by Assenmacher notice it has a hole right here this is to put a 3/8 drive extension in it if you can find one get one with this hole otherwise you're putting a socket and an extension and a ratchet on there it's one more tool that's risk falling down in the belly pan and risk losing they've since updated that and removed this hole so make sure that if you're buying one of these it has that it's a personal preference of mine anytime I can reduce the number of tools that I was using on a job and then the potential for one less lost piece of equipment as we round home of course you are going to need a scan tool of some type this is a very old school of vad comm cable I still think that vad comm is the best if you're primarily doing VW Audi repair this is obsolete now it's the Wi-Fi one which works fantastic you can use that with your phone which is really cool and while I think the VAT comm one is the best it doesn't really matter what you get there's no sense in sending brake jobs away or throttle body adaptations away or basic settings away because you can't do it worth every penny for a scan tool like that and finally this is one that looking back I probably should have started using from day one and that is a wheel holder this one is actually out of a toerag that came with a toerag that I ended up totaling many many years ago and what this does the screws in where a wheel bolt goes and it holds the tire on similar to how all the cars that have studs you can set the wheel on and it'll hold that's what this will allow you to do by the time I really discover the value of these it became a decrease in efficiency issue for me because I had a rhythm of putting tires on but if you're just getting started or if you're a DIY or especially get a set of these they work great and it makes putting the wheel on so much easier it's important to note there are multiple sizes of this this is a 14 on one and a half for pretty much everything marked for forward there's also a twelve on one and a half that is more for the older cars in the VW world but I think BMW still does use a twelve on one and a half be sure to check and get the right stuff you'll know right away that it doesn't fit this will either be too big or the twelve will be way too small really not a huge risk of cross threading or messing anything up alright guys so there you have it these are the basics so I will reach out to you guys and ask what else do you think you've got a have got a have must-have tools in order to work on VW and Audi drop that down in the comment section below if you liked the video give it a thumbs up mash that share button and don't forget to subscribe follow me on all the social media platforms guys thanks so much for watching looking forward to seeing what kind of tools you recommend and I will see you next time oh there's one tool I can't believe I forgot I think we can all agree that one of the biggest tools you're going to need is a giant can of beer so cheers to working on VW's and Audi's

Channel: HumbleMechanic

Views: 337,000

Rating: 4.9429469 out of 5

Keywords: vw tools, audi tools, audi mechanic tools, vw mechanic tools, humblemechanic, must have tools, euro tools, vw special tools, audi special tools, best vw tools, best audi tools, mechanic tools, auto mechanic tools, best mechanic tools, where to buy tools, must have vw tools, must have audi tools, vw repair, vw maintenance, audi repair, audi maintenance, vw scan tool, vw wiring repair, chrisfix, real tool reviews, vw technician

Id: l2vbdqTRF6A

Length: 13min 8sec (788 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 01 2017