Thanks for the info! I'll give it a try tonight. The radiator was definitely drained while I was replacing hoses last night, I figured running it a little while driving it around the neighborhood would be enough to get it cycled through. I'll look in the Bentley too and see what it says.

It takes the diesels longer to heat. You don't have to drive it . You can let it idle and keep your eye on the gauge. You can check the cooling fan at the same time. The gauge will more than likely be at least 3/4 or a little more the way over  before the fan comes on. I hope all this BS works for you.

Well I checked the coolant today and added just a tiny bit, it seemed slightly lower. Then I drove it up and down the interstate and it was fine. Temp was fine, no coolant warning light. I don't know. The Bentley doesn't say you have to prime the upper hose, just drain and re-fill.

The factory manual said nothing about priming the upper hose either but we had too .   The later cars with the reservoir were suppose to cure the " silent recall" but not always. If the thermostat was mounted at the top of the block instead of down at the bottom none of this problem would have occurred. Think about it.You pour coolant in to fill the rad. up but no coolant gets in the block due to the thermostat being closed. You fire up the engine and it will burn dang near up before the thermostat even thinks about opening up. Bad design. The later car must have a by-pass to get to the block.  Anyway I'm glad you are back on the road

Good to see her getting driven, Russ.

FYI, one of the best tools I have ever purchased was a cooling system filler that actually creates a vacuum to purge the air from the system.  I would have loved to have one years ago on some of those "near impossible to bleed" cars....

Yep, I love tech stuff that really works, say like on "water-boxers".  Remember having to jack the front end up on a water- boxer van, take the grill off to get to the bleeder bolt on the rad. to  bleed the cooling system. The rad. was mounted higher than the reservoir bottle. Another clever design by VW.

Thanks guys, I drove it to work today and the coolant light came on immediately. I don't understand cause it seemed to be doing fine when I tested it last night. Maybe my system really does need to be burped? I'm just confounded. I really want to make this car running right.

Well crap !!  What did the temp . read ?  Was the res.level down ?   Was the rad. hot to touch.( this could show if coolant was circulating ) Did the fan come on?  Maybe its time to let "Grasshopper"( Rick) look at it.  It can't be that hard to find.    Thermostat sticking ,pump, hoses routed wrong???    

The temp didn't go above normal. It was chilly this morning and I have a short drive to work, so I didn't worry about it overheating. I haven't even had time to look under the hood yet, but there were no puddles underneath the car so it should still have all its coolant. When I get home I'll check and test drive it some and see what it does.

If Rick doesn't mind to look it over for me, I could bring it down there sometime.

I have seen  res. sensors go bad and the res. would be full and temps normal.  After you drive home and the temps are up, feel your rad all over and see if its warm/hot. It should be. Let her idle and watch the temp gage and wait on the fan to cycle. The gage will read high when it gets to that point but not in the red but almost

Thanks Rick, I appreciate it. When's the best time to come by?

Alright, I'll holler tomorrow. I'm going to drive it to work and see how it does. I could probably bring it up there on my lunch break, but driving it that far it probably won't be too cool.