Looks good. Too bad it rests under 0. That would bug me too.
How much did it cost you and how long to install?
Thanks! I was searching around and actually found what may be a fix on the MKV portion of this site
http://www.golfmkv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=47467
It's still unfortunate it isn't correct from purchase, but it gives me hope I can do something about it. Maybe later this week I'll give it a shot.
The gauge + pod was $135 and then $11 for shipping. The actual install took about 1.5 hours of actual work. I did have to run to the hardware store and use some plastic epoxy to keep the new slats in place. So between that run, letting everything dry, and running back and forth from my apartment for tools it did take longer. However if everything went well it shouldn't take more than 90 minutes. They have instructions, but I'll still type how I did it (unfortunately I was too excited to take pictures, maybe later?).
Popping the vent out was easy. I opened the fuse box panel on the left of the dash (open your driver door to access it). Then there was a tab on the bottom of the vent; once pushed upward it popped the bottom left of the vent out. I did not see this tab, I literally stuck my hand in the open panel and found it almost immediately with a small amount of force. A small flathead screwdriver (or better yet, a non-marring bone tool) will get the bottom right of the vent out. You can see a little silver tab peeking out and you just press up on that. Then the vent just lifts/tilts up and out.
There were 7 tabs I believe to take the bezel off. 3 on top, 2 on the sides, 2 on the bottom. The bottom were hard to do and I had no thin/long flathead so I used a really small hex key to pop them off. I would recommend doing the top first, sides second, and bottom last.
The old horizontal slats are held in by 2 tabs, one on the left and one on the right. Pop those out using your fingers to slightly widen the housing and they'll come right out. Then the vertical slats behind the front horizontal ones come out with 4 tabs? I essentially just widened the vent casing with my hands and they came right out. I didn't bother trying to use a screwdriver here either.
I used a knife to create a hole in the right side of the vent housing so I could install the rubber grommet. That allows the boost line and 3 electrical wires to go through the vent housing. I didn't have a drill on hand, but it's not the first time I've used a knife to bore a hole in plastic for grommets. It works surprisingly well.
The new slats/gauge pod going into the bezel should snap in like the original slats. Mine didn't. But a few minutes of some epoxy and about an hour of letting it sit had me ready to go.
Next I put the boost gauge in the new pod. Since I wasn't sure how to secure it according to NewSouth's instructions I found a temporary solution. Using the rubber band they give (wide, flat black rubber band essentially) I put it over the gauge and the pod slot on the vent outside the housing. If you look at my last two pictures closely you'll see a matte black around the gloss black ventpod. That's the rubber band. I e-mailed NewSouth and will see how they would recommend fitting this.
I put the rubber hose on the back nipple of the boost gauge, and the other included one on the plastic adapter for where the boost tap goes. The larger hose went onto the other side of the boost tap. Then I used some long and thin sharp tool to get inside the unused port on the intake and, like my knife, made a small hole. A screw will work too, or anything sharp. You just don't want to push plastic into the intake. I cleared out the plastic debris and installed the boost tap.
Next I took out the battery so I could install the actual boost line. The battery comes out easily. There are videos to easily show how to take this out. Essentially there are three parts to the shroud covering the battery. They all have tabs (1 for the top, 2 for both the front and back halves) and lift right out. There is also one 13mm battery tie down which is easily accessed, with an intake, by simply moving the intake to the side. Removing it also works.
Anyway with the battery out you can see almost directly behind it is a wiring harness going through the firewall. There are extra rubber nipples you can cut off to route the boost line through, but mine had a tear in the rubber grommet and I just used that. I pushed the boost line through about 2 feet and replaced the battery. Back inside the car in the footwell I easily found the boost line sticking through. From there I placed a small flashlight on top of the fusebox (the one accessed earlier to begin removing the vent). This shines light down so you can see where to try and guide the hose up. I didn't have a coat hanger, but was able to get the line up between the car and fuze box within about 2 minutes. I grabbed it with a finger and pulled it further out. From there it's easy to feed into the vent opening.
Next I fed the boost gauge wires through the rest of the vent housing using the grommet inserted earlier. I pulled these down to where I removed the headlight control switch. That comes out easily too. With it in the off position you push the toggle in and turn it to the right. The housing comes out and the electrical connector easily comes out. Splice the three wires with the little clamps provided and you're good to have a dimming boost gauge. The wires leading to the stock headlight switch has a wrap around it, all you have to do is shove it back a few inches and you can easily enough tap into the wires. Black boost wire to brown headlight wire, red boost wire to black and purple headlight wire, yellow boost wire to gray headlight wire. Then simply push the wires back into the headlight switch housing hole and replace the actual toggle switch assembly. Push it in, turn the toggle to the left.
With that done I fed the boost line through the same grommet in the vent tunnel housing and pushed it into the rubber hose on the back of the vent pod. Since all of the wiring and boost line routed right near the fuze box, I pulled on them gently as I snapped the bezel/slats into the rest of the vent tunnel housing. I continued to do this as I put the whole assembly back into place. Basically just by pushing the whole vent assembly back into the hole in the dash. A little smack in the corners and it looks like it should, flush and no gaps. I tied up the extra wires in the fuze box area and closed that back up.
That's it. My explanation is long and probably repetitive, but maybe it'll have a step or some wording that helps someone in the future.
