New member - Passat

[mmatear]

Got a 2006 Passat Wagon 4motion 3.2 and having nothing but dramas with it! Argh!

[3C4M Guy]

Hi, I'm also a new member and just joined yesterday. I also have a 2006/7 3.2L V6 4Motion - but sedan. What sort of problems? Let me guess: electrical? Have you had to replace any computer modules?

[mmatear]

Hey, the first problem I got was an engine light that popped on which put the car into limp/safety mode. Took it to a dealer and they said it looked like the previous owner had tried to do a bit of a short-cut job on a oil pump bolt that had come loose deep down inside the engine. Massive amounts of labour charges later and ended up spending $6,000 to fix it. I don't know enough about cars to know what exactly went wrong, but that was done and I was happy enough to get it back and thought it would be smooth sailing from there!

Then few weeks ago I was driving in the country and all of a sudden got a grinding/clunking/knocking noise from the car. It was so bad I stopped and got it towed. That cost a bit cos I was in the country. This time they've said the Haldex Control Unit failed (so yes, a computer module!!!), but they weren't exactly sure if this failure had done any damage to the diff or haldex coupling. So they fitted the new control unit ($3,000 including labour), but it turns out there is some damage to the diff and/or haldex coupling. So the only way to be sure of fixing everything is to replace the whole rear diff assembly - $10,000 for a new one! Ha ha. Not really worth it considering I paid around $17,000 for the car.Trying to source a diff from a wreckers now or find someone who can repair the diff. Got a few pointers on this forum which is good so I'm going to look into those.

What issues you had?

[3C4M Guy]

Sorry to hear about your problems. Such expensive ones! Can you tell Haldex coupling is not working properly? To avoid paying a $10,000 repair bill, I'd be tempted to drive it till it stopped - which might be never.

I bought my Passat at 18 months old and 17,000 km at the start of 2009. So quite new and still under warranty. At 24,000 km the dealer replaced the leaking radiator for free under warranty. Then 2 1/2 years later at 47,000 the radiator was leaking again and I had to replace it again at my expense because spare parts are covered for only 2 years warranty. At least this one had a revised part number, so fingers crossed!

At 30,000 km I had to replace the electric park brake switch on the dash that was intermittent. I never knew if I could turn off the park brake when I started the car to leave somewhere. At 42,000 km the dealer had to replace the air bag control module at a cost of $1,200 because the warning light showed it had failed. They gave me the old one and I reckon if it was a board for a computer and they made millions of them it would have cost $60, not $840.

Then starting at 62,000 back in August this year, several warning lights including EPC and ESP would illuminate and the car would go into limp home mode with much reduced power. I bought myself an OBD-II scan tool and found it was a throttle communication issue. I was tempted to take a guess and replace the fly-by-wire accelerator pedal, but I'm glad I didn't because that was not the problem. The dealer diagnosed throttle body faults and modified the wiring loom per a VW technical bulletin for $700. However the problems came back in October the same as before - this time the dealer redid the same wiring repair at no charge. The problems came back again during Nov/Dec with the same MILs and limp home mode. This time the dealer said I needed a new throttle body at a cost of $840 + labour. Oh, and the part had to be air-freighted from Singapore. I checked the part online and found I could order the same part from one of several VW parts specialists in America for $US270 / $A330! Armed with that info, the dealer sharpened their pencil and did the part at trade price with a hefty discount on labour. This last repair was done 2 days ago. So I'm hoping that's it until the next expensive part fails.

I found a VW Forum in the UK that described the 3C (B6) 2005-2011 Passat as "a really good car to drive but ohh so unreliable in its early years". Sadly that seems to be true, but I still like the car.

[3C4M Guy]

One week after getting my car back from the throttle body repair, it's off the road again with another expensive $4,000 repair. This time the 3.2L VR6 needs new timing chains (stretched), sprockets, tensioner etc. A lot of labour involved because VW in their wisdom placed the timing chains on the transmission side of the engine. Now ... if we combined our two cars, we'd have one that worked!