Welcome to Rennen Autohaus

Rennen Autohaus is Southern Johnson County’s answer to all things European car related. A full service shop equipped with the latest computer diagnostic equipment, all wheel drive dynamometer, and experienced staff and technicians that have been in the Kansas City auto service industry for many years.

Rennen Autohaus is dedicated to providing simple answers and solutions to what can sometimes be confusing or overwhelming auto servicing needs. Additionally, our staff specializes in modification options to increase horsepower, braking concerns, suspension, tires for traction control, cosmetic desires including body kits, wheels, and everything in between.

Rennen Autohaus has aligned itself with the best vendors in the industry including Fabspeed, Evolution Motorsports, Sharkwerks, Vivid Racing and more.

Conveniently located off of I-35 and 56 highway, our brand new customer friendly facility is ready to meet your needs. Call with questions or to set your appointment today.  Also feel free to scroll down and take a look at past/current projects and feel free to email with any questions you may have.

 

Rennen Autohaus

550 East 56 Highway

Olathe, KS 66061

(913) 424 – 0979

Cayenne Turbo gets new Horns

Friday’s project here at Rennen Autohaus was to replace the horns on a Cayenne Turbo, which is made slightly more difficult because of the intercoolers found only on the turbo models.  The horns are a common failing point on the Cayenne and on the N/A cars it’s a fairly simple job to replace them.  You can go in through the wheel wells and get access to the pair of horns, one on each side of the car; however on the Turbo trucks the entire front bumper must be removed to gain access.

In order to do this there are a number of screws to remove in each wheel-well, as well as above and below the bumper.  After that you’ll need to remove the head lights using the Porsche supplied tool (or a deep socket) and there are a pair of securing tabs that will need to be depressed as the bumper is slid out-of-place.  It’s best to use a friend at this point to be safe as the front bumper is quite heavy and it’s a handful to depress the tabs, support the bumper and coax it out-of-place all while not scratching anything.

After the bumper is removed it’s a simple 2 minute job, unscrew the old horns and unplug then reverse the process to put everything back together.

This truck is running Fabspeed’s complete exhaust and Cat By-pass system so I’m not sure why the horns are even needed… If he want’s attention it’s a simple matter of the pedal on the right!

911, 996 Twin Turbo Spoiler Failure

Today’s project has been a pair of 996 twin turbos – both of which have the dreaded “spoiler failure” warning light every time they hit the highway.  If you’ve spent any amount of time around the 996 generation turbo cars then you’ve most likely run across this.  It happens for a number of reasons as the spoiler system itself is quite delicate and finicky.  Over time dirt/debris works itself down the cylinders and causes too much friction, or the hydraulics start to seep and/or leak and allow air into the system, or the worm-gear itself which pushes the fluid strips or becomes loose and no longer pumps the hydraulics OR the microswitches on the passenger side cylinder go faulty and cause the system to have an error…. Lol, as you can see there are a number of things which can go bad.  None of these problems are usually too costly if you aren’t afraid of taking on the job, but they are all quite time-consuming in their own way. 

To get a good look at what’s going on with your wing it’s best to pull everything off the car and evaluate the system on the bench.  In this instance I had two of the four common problems going on, one car had leaked nearly ALL of its hydrulic fluid out and would need to be re-filled and the other car had bad microswitches.  While I had both systems apart I went ahead and tightened up all fittings, replaced crush seals where needed and topped off both systems.  I also made sure the fastening screw on each system’s worm-gear was as tight as possible as these have a tendency to work themselves loose over time.  There’s a circlip which holds each canister’s sleeve you’ll need to be weary of when taking the system apart as it can come off with a lot of force and you’ll also need a special tool for turning the mechanism which holds the wing in place on the car (it can be done without this wrench but you run the risk of scratching the deck without it), the tool is quite inexpensive and worth buying – Contact Nello at Maxspeed-motorsports as I believe he carries them under 20 dollars.

In the case of these two turbos we were able to save over $2,000 by repairing, instead of replacing the hydraulic systems.  Once you have a general understanding of what makes the wing work its a fairly simple, closed hydraulic circuit and can/should be serviced regularly.  If you’re getting that dreaded beep and warning light every time your spoiler attempts to go up stop by Rennen today and we’ll be happy to get it repaired.

 

 

 

Hey, it’s a Turbo too! VW Beetle 1.8t

Yesterday I had a nice, clean New Beetle come through the doors at Rennen that was a little down on power and had a check engine light.  After some quick diagnostic work I found a couple different codes stored.  The first issue was with the airbag unit itself.  It turns out the connection between the bag and the column had a bad ground (earth) and needed a little attention, luckily it was a cheap fix and not the airbag unit itself.  The second issue seemed as if it would be much more costly at first, the bug was shifting hard and losing power – most noticeably under boost.  It turns out that the original stock Relay that VW used for the fuel pump in nearly all 1.8t platforms is a common failure point.  If you’re curious and purchased your vehicle second-hand you can easily tell if the troublesome unit has already been swapped out, in most cases VW used a grey relay which has been superceded by a black unit.  If you’ve got a large black relay in the fuel-pump position then chances are someone has been in there before and replaced it, if not then for peace of mind it might be worth making the switch.  The Relay itself is usually under the steering column above a black, plastic kick guard.  It sits at the bottom of the relay/fuse panel so it’s simple to get to without having to take too much trim off.

In this case, the new Relay cleaned everything up… The Turbo-Bug was back to making full boost and shifting clean.  I put the trim back together and gave it a quick wash before it was headed home.

American Muscle stops by Rennen

Today we had  a Shelby Cobra GT500 stop by for a few cosmetic needs, as well as a Cold Air Intake and some suspension adjustments so even though we didn’t do anything too crazy I thought I’d share a quick post about it since it’s out of the normal German realm we usually deal with.  The Shelby was riding very, very low and had a squeaky sway-bar bushing.  Also, at the time the Eibach Street suspension was installed the rear trunk trim pieces weren’t properly back together and had fallen down, causing the carpet itself to peel away from the trunk lining and yet another rattle in the mustang.  After some tidying up and a happy fit/finish on the intake the car was back on the road scaring children…  The custom exhaust on this pony is not for the faint of heart.

Porsche News – U.S. Sales up 15.1% (and new 928 pictures)

A little Porsche News today, it seems that October sales are up over 15%  from October of last year, seeming to follow current economic trends that suggest the worst is behind us.  While I’m certainly not suggesting we should all run out and spend like it’s 1987, I am happy to report that this marks a change both it Porsche’s own confidence in the U.S. Market’s growth as well as the U.S. population-in-general’s willingness to spend disposable income (yes, sadly I am of the opinion that none of us NEEDs a Porsche to survive… lol).

This is all encouraging news as it’s been no secret that Porsche sales have been down in the U.S. over the last 3 years.  Hopefully in combination with the release of the all new Panamera, as well as the upcoming 928 pictured below and slated for a 2012 release – Porsche has found yet another way to endure and continue providing uncompromised motoring.

Porsche 944 Control Arm…

Today’s post will be a quick one, but I wanted to share about a 944 that strolled through Rennen recently.  The customer had an unfortunate meeting with a high-curb and managed to completely shatter his lower control arm.  It appeared that in the process of breaking it sagged down, dug directly into the pavement and was then forced back up into the frame.  We immediately put the car up on the lift to access the damage and the diagnosis wasn’t good… the frame itself was bent and the captive nut inside the mounting pocket where the lower control arm mounts to the frame had been broken off.  Unfortunately the only way to properly fix this is at a body shop where the frame can be pulled and straightened, and a new captive nut can be welded inside the cavity.  Moral of the story is to keep all four wheels away from the curb, or wall at the track as suspension damage can get quite expensive when it’s of this level.

2003 Audi RS6 Turbo Replacement

This week’s project has been a big one.  After 3 fairly straight forward Timing Belt jobs I received a phone call from what I though was to be the 4th in a matter of two weeks – the conversation started off simple enough, the customer asking general maintenance questions.  Then I heard the phrase no Twin Turbo Audi owner ever wants to have to say, “I think I have a bad turbo…”  This job is bad enough on the 2.7 liter TT motors but is made even more difficult by the lack of a single free square inch left by the time Audi shoved a V8 where it was never intended to live, and then proceeded to strap on a pair of turbos, wastegates, larger headers/down pipes, oil and cooling lines…. You get the idea.

After confirming the passenger side Turbo had packed up and quit playing we then found out the driver’s side turbo had also gone out.  Nearly two quarts of oil poured out of the intercooler boost hose when we took it off.  At this point there’s no sense in trying to check crush-seals, banjo fittings, etc… in the car so out came the motor to get a good look at what was going on.

The procedure was straight-forward enough but very time-consuming, being very careful to not snag any of a number of hoses/wires/one-off support pieces that aren’t normally in the bay on a naturally aspirated V8/V6 or Twin Turbo V6 that usually lives up there.  Audi’s engineering was actually quite impressive once the motor was out of the car and I was able to take a good look at a lot of the pieces they had to produce to make this particular engine fit.

The new K24 Turbos/Wastegates/hardware showed up within a week direct from Audi (thanks Jack) and were ready to go back on the car.  Of course we also replaced a number of oil lines, studs, gaskets and other supporting hardware, all required by Audi in order to maintain it’s warranty.  Then it was a matter of squeezing the big mill back into place, replacing all of it’s vital fluids and putting it through it’s paces to make sure everything was like new.  Another Rennen success story… all at $58 dollars an hour.

2002 Boxster S Trunk Release

A customer recently stopped by with what sounded like a simple enough problem with his well-kept 02′ Boxster S.  He thought he has closed the rear decklid on his camera strap and wedged it into the release mechanism… Shouldn’t be a big deal, right? Wrong.  After manually raising the rear spoiler and giving the lid a firm but careful tug I realized we had more going on than a camera strap holding it down.

Off came the rear bumper to get to the emergency release cable Porsche was kind enough to put in and sure enough, the deck lid popped right up, this lead me to the conclusion that it wasn’t the release mechanism itself, but rather something in switch/motor which pulls on the primary trunk release.  This is where Porsche wasn’t so kind… After confirming the motor was at least still functioning when the button in the cab was pressed we could rule out an electronic issue, therefore something had to be physically ‘broken’.  To get to the motor that pulls the primary decklid release cable you have to remove the rear bumper, rear spoiler, rear spoiler hydraulics, rear trunk trim pieces and finally a metal brace which supports the rear spoiler hydraulic components… Needless to say, it was buried in there.

Once I finally got to the motor it was a quick diagnosis, sure enough the plastic end cap had broken where the cable should have met the motor and needed to be replaced.  It must have been black Friday or something because the piece wasn’t stocked anywhere in the States and had to be shipped over from Germany.  A few days later the piece arrived and the car went back together, being sure to properly align the rear spoiler so the shut-lines were precise and everything was back to normal.

Under Construction…

Going Up, Rennen Autohaus gets a new home -

The site is nearly complete, including the AWD Dyno which is being sunk into the floor for ease of access.  Call today to setup a time to see what your car is putting down -