3.5 Year Old VW Passat - £1,500 of repairs

Delivery_Driver

People sometimes associate EGR valves gunking up and pending turbo failure because if the oil seals on the turbo go it will let oil into the inlet.
This can lead to catastrophic failure if you don't stop the engine as it will just keep revving even with no throttle-google it and see.You can stall it by putting the car in top gear when stationary and engaging the clutch but risk damaging the transmission or by a more time consuming way(but safer) of removing the airbox and blocking off the airflow into the engine.

As for just turning off the engine after driving, the turbo can spin in excess of 100,000 rpm and suddenly turning off the engine and shutting off it's oil/water supply will shorten its life.Simplest way is to just drive th elast mile or so steadily and off boost.Or fit a turbo timer which allows the engine to keep running without the keys in for a set time, but your insurance company might not like it.

bigjl

Your year of VW Passat is indeed not known for it's reliability.

Mondeos of the same year seem to be fairly unbreakable with few issues.

I did use a Passat back in 2008 for a few months, it was a 2007 with a dsg box, it went bang.

Lewis Day sued VW due to the number they had that went bang, I think VW settled out of court with an agreement of no blame.

My current V50 has the same engine as the later Mondeo's I think, is certainly the same as the Focus as it is basically the same car.

My previous Mk3 Mondeo is well on the way to 200k with my mate that I sold it to, believe it or not there is still no wear to the seats and still drives well.

If only Ford had the PR machine that VW have.

benham3160

vax2002 wrote: »

VW garages are not very good at repairing VW, they let the mechanics go and have fast fit new part bays where solutions involve fitting new bits until they get the right one.

Had a newish VW passat for my wife, she wanted a "reliable car", NEVER again, a heap of constantly breaking down temperamental junk that filled with water every time it rained.
The AA guy, told her straight, He spends lots of "Time" with VW, get rid.
She replaced it with a Mondeo Ghia X, faultless 5 years so far, she refuses to update it.

This is what annoys me, IT'S BLOODY EASY to check these items if you've got some basic electronics knowledge, but unfortunately the world has become "plug it in - swap it out...." who cares....

It's takes no more than two minutes to probe up a MAP sensor and find out if it works or not, unfortunately "people" aren't trained in this anymore, and it regularly angers me that I talk to "mechanics" that don't own a multimeter but own £4000 worth of diagnostics kit that "gives them the answer."

Strider is 100% accurate on his views of VW reliability (maybe on me and him agree....) but the whole German car industry (including VAG, BMW and Merc) really do make some absolute dross, but it's the psychology being owning a German car.

Regards,
Andy

GolfBravo

Most car industry reports rank VW build quality at just below average, however they excel in perceived quality.

It all starts with the VW showroom look, and ends with the car look and feel of quality: small panel gaps, good quality paint (mostly shades of grey for the sake of cost and ease of painting), nice to touch and smell plastics, the sound the door makes when you gently shut it, etc. VW really made huge perceptual quality gains around the Mark IV Golf era, and never really looked back.

There are a lot of case studies within the car industry analysing what VW are doing (and Lexus prior to VW) - and you can see really good results with Citroen's DS line, Kia/Hyundai and Opel/Vauxhall.