Project MKVI Golf TDI: Dieselgeek “Panzer” Heavy Duty Aluminum Skid Plate
In our last update we were impressed so much with our Dieselgeek shifter we took a look at some of the other products Dieselgeek makes for our MKVI Golf and found a nice skid pan or as Dieselgeek calls it—Panzer plate. We’re not sure if the name is paying homage to the old German tank or the literal meaning of the word meaning “armor” but we get it… It’s a tough ass piece of aluminum bent to fit underneath the engine and protect all the vital stuff that’s vulnerable to impact now that we’re riding considerably lower than stock. The stock belly pan that comes on the Golf is plastic, thin and doesn’t look it would do much help at all in the event of an impact of any kind. Flipped over the thing looks like a complex audio mixing board with an array of thin plastic membranes filled with air—presumably to absorb and insulate the car’s occupants from terrible engine sounds! The Panzer is meant to work with this stock piece in place but we opted to remove it since we’re not bothered by engine sounds.
The Panzer is made from .190” thick (almost 5mm) aluminum plate. The kit includes all hardware and 10 guage stainless steel mounting brackets. No cutting, drilling or any other modification to the car is required.
Installation is straightforward and just like the shifter Dieselgeek provides a 16 page instruction manual available to download.
The Dieselgeek Panzer plate is designed to work with the factory belly pan but we do need to remove it initially to access the mounting points and add new brackets to the Golf's frame rails.
The crankcase, transmission and lower crossmember we'll be protecting with our new skid plate.
The skid plate is mounted to the chassis with two large 4″ studs that replace factory bolts in the engine subframe. 
