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JhnBssll

JhnBssll

Guru
Location
Suffolk
I've been very pleased with my 2015 VW Passat until recently. Great fun to drive with ~300bhp and bucketloads of torque, super practical with its cavernous estate boot and pretty reliable - until now :rolleyes:

I had a full main dealer service and MoT at the end of January, it flew through with no faults or advisories. 6 days later my wife borrowed it to drive to work as there was 10" of snow on the ground and we decided the 4WD would be a benefit in those conditions - she works at a Hospice so had to be on site. Unfortunately she didn't make it - the car overheated and she got stranded halfway in a Tesco's car park. The car went back to VW where they diagnosed a failed water pump, the replacement set me back £480 even after a goodwill discount. Pretty frustrating, but these things happen. 8 days out of warranty I might add, hence the small discount.

The following week I had an error light pop up on the dash, EPC - or Electronic Power Control - and the car went in to limp mode. Bugger. I scanned the car and found the error was related to one of the Turbo wastegates getting stuck open and popped in to my local specialist. We were hopeful that it would be an easy fix but alas no, the wastegate was partially seized and non-serviceable. Apparently completely unrelated to the overheating incident and just pure bad luck. It's now in having one of the turbo's completely replaced at an eyewatering cost of £2,150, bringing the total maintenance cost so far this year including the service and water pump to just shy of three grand. I thought these things were supposed to be reliable :rolleyes: I'm now trying to sell my Di2 Brompton project to help pay for it, sad times :sad:

What makes it even more frustrating is I was due a company car on 1st Jan but the new fleet management company have screwed up the handover - if it had gone properly I would probably have sold it on by now, and someone else would be selling their possessions to fix it :laugh: Urgh... :rolleyes:
 
HMS_Dave

HMS_Dave

Grand Old Lady
vw-1.jpg
 
Bazzer

Bazzer

Setting the controls for the heart of the sun.
Location
On the edge of reality
This may come back to bite me, but for me VW are my first choice when looking to change.
Currently on my 7th Golf. Mrs B has a Tiguan and some years back had a turbo diesel Polo. Child 2 has an Up! All looked after by a local garage once we could bin the main dealer.
Never had a Passat though. Never quite appealed.
 
Pale Rider

Pale Rider

Legendary Member
JhnBssll said:
I'm now trying to sell my Di2 Brompton project to help pay for it,
Click to expand...

At the risk of being seen to profit from your misfortune, how much do you want for it?
 
T4tomo

T4tomo

Legendary Member
That is bum luck. I used to run a 300bhp Estate too - a Volvo V70R. Similar concept, good fun understated looks and a cavernous boot. I fondly recall power-sliding it at 45* to the road up a hill in the snow, where all the 2wd's were having to be pushed up, a neatly timing slackening off the power to straighten it up through a traffic island:laugh:
 
MntnMan62

MntnMan62

Über Member
Location
Northern NJ
I think many cars are hit or miss. My brother had a Jetta back in the 90's (I think). He had nothing but trouble from it. The last straw was when he was driving along on the highway minding his own business when the passenger side front window just dropped down into the door. Would not go back up. That said, I bought a 2012 Audi (same parent company) and while there have been a few factory recalls, all of which were obviously covered by Audi, I have not had to pay for much of anything besides normal maintenance like brakes, oil changes and filters. I have 110,000 miles on it. Years ago we had a Subaru Outback. I absolutely loved that car. It had the LLBean trim and about 250 hp. Super fun to drive. About 3 or 4 years into ownership it started having issues that were not covered by warranty. The last straw with that one was the motor on the power moonroof died. Every car I have ever owned has had a sunroof or moonroof. I keep my cars about 10 years. And I've never had a sunroof or moonroof die on me, until that one. We traded the car in and got a used Acura MDX. What a great truck. Loved that car. The best car I ever had from a maintence standpoint was a Volvo S60. It was during Ford's ownership of Volvo. It was the bottom of the line version. I ordered it with a manual transmission, front wheel drive, leather seats, moonroof, quality stereo. You know, all the important stuff other than a powerful engine. that car didn't cost me a dime in repairs during 10 years of ownership and 105,000. I think there might have been one recall for the mechanical attachment point of the front seats. That was it. And even though it was only front wheel drive, it was great in the snow. I never got stuck and even had to rescue someone else who's SUV got stuck. Go figure. Anyway, back to the subject at hand. It's my understanding that VW's have always had reliability issues and I haven't heard they've been able to solve that issue over the years. And your experience with it seems to confirm that. I actually like VW's. I like how they look, how they drive and how functional they are, when they are working. I guess that is the crux of the biscuit.
 
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