Losing coolant..

[passatpout]

Great.. Just when I thought things were settling down on the reliability front, three more things have come up..

The first is minor and I can live with it - the auto up on the driver's window doesn't work any more. Suspect it's a switch problem..

The second is that the PCV is leaking oil, booked in to be replaced shortly.

The third, which is really starting to annoy me, is that it's leaking coolant. First came up about a month ago - I had refilled the windscreen washer bottle, and saw the coolant level was OK. About 3-4 days later, my wife rang me to say that the low coolant alarm had come on. Checked the level, and sure enough there was barely a trickle on the bottom of the surge tank. Bought a bottle to top it up, car was serviced the following week and cooling system pressure tested, all good, until a couple of days ago. Same thing - low coolant alarm, checked the level, again barely a trickle in the surge tank. Topped it up with 500ml, which took it just over (about 5mm) above the high level mark, and been checking it regularly since then. Appears to be dropping about 2-3mm from the surge tank each day, but nothing visible for leaking hoses. Wasn't really impressed when I bought the coolant from the dealer, only to be told "Oh yeah, I have to top up my Golf all the time" from the bloke behind the counter...

Anyhow, will get it checked again when the PCV is replaced, however the last thing I want is for an ongoing problem to happen, so if it's going to keep playing up then it might be time to wave bye-bye to the car...

[passatpout]

So it's going to be good bye Passat.

Was checked out today, $126 to do a pressure test which confirmed there's a leak. The dealer wanted another 2 hours to check if it was the EGR valve leaking coolant into the exhaust, or if it wasn't that then another 2 hours to check the head. At $126/hour, and with the EGR slated to cost about $1300 to replace, including the parts, labour and diagnostics, and any other options only adding severely to the repair bill, we've decided that it's time to pension the car off.

So after close to 4 1/2 years, and about 137,000km, several good road trips to QLD, SA, NSW, and around Victoria, 2 kids, 3 dogs, towing a boat, towing firewood, one hail storm and countless faults, it'll be farewell once we decide on a replacement sometime in the foreseeable future. One thing though - it won't be a VW, so I'll be bailing out of this forum too.

Sad to come to this, it was a comfortable, ergonomic, well thought out and equipped car which was economical and suited us to a tee, but in the end we just can't hang onto a car that is going to turn into a big money pit, or worse, breakdown with the family on board in some remote spot.

Adios, and have fun out there.