There’s not been a lot of discussion in this forum of late. It seems to be mainly random questions on troubleshooting problems on cars that are now ten plus year old. The R36 model is in that age bracket where it’s cheap enough for fourth and fifth owners to take a punt on and hope for the best but not quite rare enough (yet!) to be a future collectable classic. Having said that, I was able to increase the insurance value of my R36 this year, albeit not by much.
It has been five years since I updated this thread, when I reported on the Dynaudio retrofit that I did during the middle of Covid-19 (May 2020). At the time the odometer reading was just under 150,000. It now reads 193,000, which is not a big increase – I guess that since Covid I’m doing less commuting, plus I do have another (newer) car that I use to spread the load (not a VW.)
Since that time, I’ve fitted a new set of Michelin PS4s (at 155K) which remarkably are still on the car but will need to be replaced soon. I’ve never got such high mileage out of ‘performance’ rubber before. I had a leak in the air conditioning system, which luckily wasn’t in the evaporator. It came from a deformed O-ring in one of the large pads (not sure what this is) in the engine bay. I have to say that the air conditioning has never been super strong in the Passat – it certainly isn’t as good as a Mk7 Golf.
The 2022 annual service included the DSG and Halex service (162K) but I was stealing myself for the big one – the dreaded timing chains. They had always been noisy on start up and I even had an advisory on my 120K service bill, which was back in 2018!
I did the timing chains at the beginning of 2023 (177K.) Alfredo from Muller & Muller kept on saying they needed to be replaced. I did check the cam phasing parameters on OBDEleven and they were right on 5 degrees, so I bit the bullet. I got most of the parts from FCP Euro in the States - their timing chain kit, main oil seal and rocker cover gasket - that came to $780, I didn't get the brake pump gasket or inlet manifold gaskets - so I paid through the nose for those parts here - $290. Alfredo's labour was $2,000 - so it was about $3,100 all up, which I thought was very fair.
However Alfredo told me the rocker cover was warped and would leak oil into the head. Sure enough, I soon had a misfire, which meant I needed to order a new rocker cover, this time from Pelican Parts - not OEM but still German - for about $300 (over $600 here) landed. I also needed a new coil and spark plug as they were wrecked by the oil. At local prices this was expensive - the total bill was about $800, which included labour. I saved the old PCV as it is only a matter of time before the PCV in the new rocker cover fails...
In 2023 I also had to attend to a number of non-mechanical issues, which my local panel beater and mechanic Ron, who I’ve used for over 30 years attended to. This included replacing the headlining, which was cut by a local trimmer but fitted by Ron, who has done plenty of these over the years. As my car has a sunroof, this was quite involved and we made the call not to replace the material on the sunroof blind as the amount of work needed to remove it was just too much. In any case the original was in good condition and a very close match to the rest of the headlining. I also had the drivers seat fixed with new foam and new leather (on the right bolsters) by the local trimmer. Both front and rear bumpers were removed, repaired (for cracks) and repainted. The rear roof spoiler had lost most of its clear coat and was repainted in situ as it was too difficult to remove. There were other scratches, an old repair on the rear left and insurance work on the left rear door (someone backed out into me in a carpark). I also had all of the Omanyt wheels refurbished and Ron got carried away and repainted the brake calipers blue as well! The cost of this was, well a lot more that I had originally envisaged, but as I have no plans to sell the car, I thought it was worth doing.
After the previous service I purchased a spare set of coils from the States and a set of spark plugs locally. These went on during the 2024 service at 188K.
Since then I’ve had a go at fixing the dreaded centre console rattle. When this first occurred about 5-6 years ago I went out and bought a second-hand console and replaced it. This did the trick but I guess it was only a matter of time before my new console started to rattle – by that time I had thrown out most of my old console, which was a big mistake! The only solution was to take the console out, take it apart and stick in some contact foam between the layers of plastic. This was a very involved job and getting it all back together complete with lots of foam in between wasn’t easy but it has pretty much cured the problem. The interior of my R36 feels quite solid now.
Biscay Blue MY10.5 Passat R36 Wagon
Options: Sunroof, RNS510 Sat Nav, Dynaudio, Power Tailgate, ACC, RVC, BT 9w7, Tint and Factory Towbar.
Atlantic Blue MY19.5 Golf GTI
Options: Luxury Package and Sound & Style Package.
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