Ouch! (non-Accord rant on VW)

[w261w261]

I've had a 2004 1.8T Passat for the past 1 1/2 years. Serviced by the book, synthetic oil, never a problem except for the two torn boots that I inherited from the previous owner. No water or oil use, 75k miles.

Last weekend the overheat light came on while idling down a street in NYC. I immediately pulled over in a parking spot, and went and got a gallon of distilled water. Didn't like what I saw when I looked at the coolant, and ended up having it flatbedded back to CT (thank god for AAA, I bet that tow would have been $400). The news came the next day...moisture in two cylinders, plus because VW seems to be unable to make a timing belt idler pulley that can make it to the 105k mile belt-change point, most mechanics say change it earlier. In my case, the water pump was suspect anyway, so it didn't make much sense to just pull the head without doing the timing belt/water pump too.

The head was not warped, but the head gasket was blown, and the water pump was fucked. This at 75k! Having had 2 Audi's, I can't say I'm a VW virgin, but still! The whole job was $3,000.

So what happened here? Water pump failed, which somehow led to the head gasket going? Head gasket just up and poofed, which pumped up the coolant which lunched the water pump? Or will we never know? What do you guys think? I know what I think, that this is my last German car.

[1ajs]

vw has realy cut back on quality controll the last while........

[paul]

Non-german made VWs are just total crap, they really might be the worst cars sold in the US.

Two friends and two family members have had jettas & a passat, just continually in & out of the service shop, not small things either, big $ repairs...

[Demon1024]

p.o.s
my mom has a cabrio same situation in/out of the shop they ended up buying a bmw to drive and are trying to get rid of the vw. never seen a car with so few miles/years with so many problems

[2oodoor]

and you flamed me for liking a GM J body??

wow. lol
I have worked on a few of those vw and they are a bear to fix once they run hot enough to blow the gasket. I do not like them but the owners are usually ok.
It is possible the water pump cavitated the inner housing from a worn bearing, then from there is was foaming, insuffecient flow, etc.. It may have been going on a while and the cooling fan compensated so you never noticed the guage being hotter.
Im just guessing because I am not sure about the 18t, anyway Vw likes you to replace all the bolts with the gasket. Expensive parts list for the whole job not even to mention labor.

[nfs480]

I hate VW's with a passion. Whenever one pulls in at work for an oil change I know instantly that it's gonna be a pain. I did two VW's today, both were a PITA and the second one (a beetle) doused me in oil.

[carotman]

Is the Passat made in Mexico?

[w261w261]

<< and you flamed me for liking a GM J body?? >>

Err...ahh...welll...ummmm. "But she was so beautiful....how was I to know she had an STD?"

Actually, I was well aware of VW's less-than-stellar quality. The last Audi I had was a '94. So many things went wrong with it in the first 50,000 miles, that it actually ran pretty well til I got rid of it at about 70,000. I think they had fixed everything by then. I had an '85 (the unintended acceleration car) that was worth 1/2 one morning of it's value the previous night. It also had a bunch of things go south, but not like the '94.

Other than a P.O.S. '67 Datsun (the old square one), I had never owned a Honda or Toyota, or any Japanese auto. My SE-i was the first. And it was a revelation. Here was a car that actually didn't need to go to the shop every month or so. But I couldn't convince my wife, who liked the Passat. So let it be written...in blood, mine.

[greentee76]

Be glad you didn't end up with a Intrepid with with 2.7L engine. Beautiful car, POS engine. I know, mine has been sitting for a year, and I don't really care if it gets fixed.

[w261w261]

Is the Passat made in Mexico?

I'm pretty sure it's made in Germany. I think only the smaller guys have Mexican pedigrees. But when I retrieve it I'll look.

Skating rinks frozen yet?

Hal

[carotman]

I'm pretty sure it's made in Germany. I think only the smaller guys have Mexican pedigrees. But when I retrieve it I'll look.

Skating rinks frozen yet?

Hal

Hahaha, nothing froze yet. It's been a bit warmer that it usually is for that period of the year.

I think it's made in Germany too.
Most later VW cars have their share of problems, even when made in Germany

I think the worst cars they made were the MKIII Jetta/Golf.

[Strahan]

If you wanna know what country it was made in, just look at the VIN to see what it starts with:
1/4: US
2: Canada
3: Mexico
J: Japan
K: Korea
S: England
W: Germany
Z: Italy

I can't comment on VWs since the only one I've owned was a 79 Rabbit that I had when I was a kid but it never ran so I dunno about reliability hehe. I gave a guy a Nintendo and some games, he gave me a Rabbit and $100 lol. He was supposed to help me over the summer get it running, but it never happened. Speaking of German engineering, I know my BMW once it hit around 120k ended up getting pretty needy of my attention and wallet when it came to maintenance hehe.

[GraniteLXI]

My experience with VWs has been pretty decent, my first car was an 84 EFi Scirocco 8v and all i needed to do was put a clutch in and have it rewired, ran great. Ive been thinking about getting a 1999 VR6 Jetta/Golf or a VR6 Corrado but ive heard so many problems about them all that im wondering if i should just spend the $4-5K and buy a newer accord/civic.... I dunno

[Oldblueaccord]

Funny thing is I work on German equipment and I think its all junk. If I had made a post here like that I think I would have gotten jumped on. Its good you gave some real world feedback on there cars. For every 1 thing they do good it seems there 20 things that just dont work.


wp

[lostforawhile]

worst was the dam fox, friends of mine had one, entire front left corner of the car,including suspension.drive shaft,wheel,brakes everything seperated from the car going down the interstate. everything went one way,car went the other, they ended up sliding on the front body.

[Dr_Snooz]

My Bimmer has been a real bucket of crap. You can talk all day long about "German engineering," but it's the Japanese who build cars that run forever.

[cygnus x-1]

Over the last 6 months I've been hammering on this old VW diesel engine that I put in a Suzuki Samurai (because I'm insane). Overall it's an ok engine but there are some issues. Like the key for the timing pulley on the crank. The "keyway" in the crank is this little tiny notch cut in the end. The timing pulley has a similarly small little tab that fits in the notch. It works ok until you add power steering and AC to the engine. The combination of the two puts so much strees on the keyway that it shears from the crank. And then since the cam is no longer timed with the crank, the pistons and valves have a space-time conflict, and the valves lose. Now you need a new crank, new valves (or entire head), and possibly pistons. Brilliant.

Apparently the used engine I picked up had this happen some time in its past. The PO tried to fill it with JB weld or something but the timing pulley didn't fit on straight after that. I didn't want to rebuild the whole engine so I welded up the broken part on the crank and ground it back into shape. Then I pinned the timing pulley to the crank so that it wouldn't ever happen again. I'm not using AC or PS but I don't want to take any chances.

It runs now amazingly enough. It must have about 87 trillion miles on it because it burns an obscene amount of oil. Best estimate is about 1 quart every 200 miles. It also makes a loud popping noise from the intake, like it has a bad valve or something. But even with all that it still gets 35+MPG. And when I finally get it running on waste vegetable oil it should be nearly free to operate.

C|



Pictures!!

[MessyHonda]

my friends sister has a 02 jetta 2.0 and the headgasket went out at 80k....1800 bucks later its running fine.