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In our modern litigious world, manufacturers have learned that they must advise the users of their product of everything that might hurt them by using the product no matter how stupid it is, so when the users do hurt themselves, blame the manufacturer, and demand compensation, the manufacturer can say they warned them. Thus everything these days from cars to coffee cups have warning stickers of some sort on them. So it is with airbags, and every car owner in the US is blessed with stickers on the sunvisor telling them to be careful. If you are like me, I got the message a while ago, and don't need to be reminded every time I pull down the sunvisor. So I decided to take the stickers off, and wanted to share my method of how I did it. The method I am describing will work with any sticker that is applied to a plastic or vinyl surface with the heat laminated decal process. This is what is used for the Porsche airbag warning label stickers. What you will need: 91% Isopropyl Alcohol – Common rubbing alcohol available from your local drug store. 3M General Purpose Adhesive Remover Some paper towels Vinyl Protectant such as Meguiars NXT Cockpit Shine Sunvisors Time to remove the 2 stickers from a sunvisor: less than 30 minutes. Process: 1. While this process can be done with the sunvisors in the car, it is best to remove them and do the removal on a flat surface. To remove a sunvisor, no tools are required. Simply twist and pull the sunvisor off of its pivot arm. It will slide right off. 2. It is best to remove the vanity mirror and light assembly from the visor. This is because the alcohol can run down inside the sunvisor, and if it is left there, it can discolor the plastic. I also put a piece of paper towel inside the assembly to catch excess alcohol. 3. Take a piece of paper towel and fold it to the size the sticker that you are removing. Wet the paper towel with the alcohol and place it on top of the sticker and let it sit for at least 10-15 minutes. Keep the paper towel wet, but not too wet that the alcohol runs off of the paper towel. WARNING: Don’t use any solvent stronger than Isopropyl Alcohol. Stronger solvents will discolor the vinyl and plastic that the sunvisor is made of! 4. After 10-15minutes the sticker decal will have softened, and is ready for removal. Using your fingernail, gently loosen the sticker on one end, and start pulling it off. Patience is the key here. Take your time, and gently pull off the sticker in one piece. If it starts to tear, and is still sticking to the sunvisor, back off, put the wet paper towel back on, and let it soak some more. You are doing it correctly when you can pull off the sticker in one piece. 5. After you have the sticker off, there will be a gummy residue left on the visor. Use the 3M General Purpose Adhesive Remover to get rid of that residue. When you can rub your hand or a rag over the sunvisor and it does not stick to it, you are done with that side. Because the decal is applied with heat, there is some distortion of the embossed grain on the vinyl side of the sunvisor. This will leave a faint outline of where the sticker was. Polishing the vinyl can minimize this outline. 6. Next do the other side, same process. 7. After you have removed the decals, and have cleaned the surface of residue, polish the visor with the Vinyl Protectant. 8. Put the vanity mirror back in the visor, and slide the sunvisor back onto its pivot rod. Step back and admire your work

Working with the EPROM on Porsche Boxster - illustrated - old and new style clusters(1)-1.pdf Working with the EPROM on Porsche Boxster - illustrated - old and new style clusters(1)-1.pdf

I got sick of not having cupholders in my Boxster. So I set out to find some. The options seemed to be OEM cupholders, either the clip on type, or the single DIN type. And we all know the problems with those - not secure enough fit, not accommodating large cups, etc. Also, the DIN type takes up an entire vertical DIN slot, making fitting double DIN GPS impossible. Other solutions seem to be to use a cutout for cups in the centre console box - which means the lid needs to stay open; and "ultimate cupholder" - which doesn't look OEM at all. So I was searching for generic cupholders on Ebay, and found this: http://cgi.ebay.com....=item439b780b6e And from a seller, the dimensions are: 7 7/16" long by 1" just the cover lid, assembly is 7" x 4 3/4" The width is as close to OEM fit for the Boxster as it gets, for a non-Porsche part! So I bought it. Realising that late model VWs like Passat and Jetta has the same console width as our Boxster, I then bought this: http://cgi.ebay.com....=item3ca672b7af It's entirely possible that other units like this http://cgi.ebay.com....=item3356ef534c would also fit. And before you start, get a rotary tool (like a Dremel). It's an absolute god send! Made things so easy. Here is the unit: Compared to another double DIN unit I originally planned for the mod: The difference is the newer one has a hi res screen. I actually rather liked the volume knob on the low res one. I put the cupholder and GPS unit together, with double sided tape, like this: You can also mount the cupholder on top, like this: I chose to go with the bottom fit, because I don't really like cups placed that high, and the bottom fit actually takes up a few mm less in height, which gives a better fit in the horseshoe frame. Speaking of frame, it's cut up, like this: There was a lip on the inner aspect of the lower border, this was cut to make room to increase the height. This, together with some slight sanding of the bottom of the cupholder was all that's required to make the height of the combo fit just right. Incredibly lucky! Note, you must get rid of the lower lip much as you can. Or the cupholder would be clamped too tight between the frame and the GPS, and it doesn't open when clamped tight. In the above picture, you can see I turned the OEM metal bracket around. This was necessary as the cupholder doesn't extend as deep as the OEM stereo, so the bracket support needs to come forward. You need to drill a hole in the original bracket to allow this. The reason will be very apparent when you actually do this. Here is a close up of the reversed bracket: The GPS antenna is simply placed near the alarm cover. Remove the alarm cover first, thread the GPS wire through, then just fish for it through the horseshoe frame. No need to remove anything else to place the GPS antenna. The thick wire attached to the GPS wire is the loom for my Head-Up-Display (another mod, for another day) :) The rest of the wiring here, with the unit ready to be pushed in: Here is the test fit: You can see that I will need a "n" shaped bezel to fill out the gap. This was obtained by modifying the Passat bezel that came with the GPS. The width is an exact fit, just like the cupholder (maybe 1mm longer, but I just left it). So I just sanded down the top border of the frame. And cut off the bottom border. I don't have a picture with the bottom border removed, only with the thinned top border: Press it in, it's a snug fit, not even sticky taped. And voooowwlaahhh!!!! OEM look!! From afar: With cupholder open: With a large "cup": In summary, get a genuine Jetta cupholder and an aftermarket Passat double DIN GPS! (not affliated with the seller/s, I promise) :)

If your battery is dead and you need to get into the front trunk, it may be necessary to locate the manual pull wire to open the front trunk and get to the battery. This might be more difficult to locate the first time. You may not be in a good location to wrestle the right front tire splash guard to find it. It might be night time or you may not be dressed in the correct clothes to be down by the tires trying to locate it. I would recommend that you take the time to locate it in good weather and in the comfort of your garage or better yet re-route the wire to the front bumper behind the plastic plug the hides the location for the tow fish eye bolt. To get started I removed the carpet liner in the front trunk. The front trunk liner is made up of 2 sections and I only had to remove the front section. There was one thumbscrew clip on the passenger side and one thumbscrew clip opposite on the driver's side. Also on the driver's side there was one snapin clip and 2 additional snapin clips located in the front of the trunk. All five clips are very easy to find and remove. I then removed the plastic trim directly on top of the front trunk latch and microswitch. There are 4 screw plugs and you simply turn the plastic plugs 1/4 to 1/2 of a turn: I then removed the passenger side head lamp by using the tool in the Boxster tool kit. The kit is usually located near the spare tire in the front trunk. Turn the wrentch about 1/2 turn counter clockwise to unlock the headlamp. Slide the head lamp out. You may have to jiggle it a little but it should slide out with very little effort. Once the light is out you will be able to locate the pull wire. It is clamped into a lasso at the end. In the photo below you can see it at the end of the red arrow. The red oval in the top of the photo is the plastic wheel splash guard. The passenger front tire is directly behind that. Some recommend to access the pull wire from the tire side but that is a little more difficult and you still have the problem of trying to re-rout the wire up to the front bumber. Doing it from the head lamp side makes it easy. Here is another photo with my finger pointing at the pull wire. Remove the front bumper plastic cover that hides the tow plug. I used a plastic upholstery tool and the plastic cap popped right out. The plug has a fishline wire connected to it to prevent you from losing it. Use the light from a flashlight to guide you (from the front bumber side) and re-route the pull wire from the headlight to the tow plug. Having the top plastic guard off makes this very easy. Tuck the pull wire back in and re-insert the pastic bumber plug. Reassembly is just the reverse. Slide the headlamp back into the guides and push it home, use the wrentch and turn clock wise. you will hear a loud pop when the headlamp is secured. You know have easy access to the emergency pull wire.

1.) Un-screw the one phillips head screw at top center of side air intake... 2.) The molded air duct and the intake grill are still attached by three delicate plastic tabs at the three points... The best way to remove this is gently insert your fingers through the grills into the intake at the points circled in red and gently try to free the tabs... All three points come forward towards you, but if one is stuck or gets caught it will break... 3.) Inside the drivers side air duct you will find a snorkle... The snorkle is added to most US cars for noise restrictions. Now this piece is attached by no screws or tabs, but it most likely will give you some troubles removing... The best way is to remove this, just grab a hold of the long snorkle (not the small dish on the end)... Now wiggle it from left to right and vice versa while pulling out towards you. This works, but might take a little effort. 4.) This is what the intake is going to look like after the snorkel is removed... Just carefully insert the three tabs back into their points... Make sure that all three are tightly in by pushing the airduct cover (not the grill)... Insert your 1 screw into top center of cover and you are done.