You're a braver man than I. Good choice though. I've heard few (serious) complaints about those.
Well the complaints that are "serious" are indeed serious. Catastrophic in fact.
The fuel thing kinda has me worried since apparently VW has been reluctant at times to warranty some fuel system repairs, such as the HPFP (High Pressure Fuel Pump), the DPF (Diesel Particulate Filter) and the urea pump to name a few. They are finding it easier to just blame the owner for "mis-fueling", which can be one of several ways. Then we have the turbo issue. Few and far between but if you're one of the unlucky ones, you're looking at several thousand dollars just to get started, depending on how deep the damage goes.
I've been spending a lot of time researching on the TDI forums. Just as with anyplace else you pretty much only get the ones with trouble posting an a forum. Overall I think there are far more happy owners than there are regretters. I hope I'm one of the former.
Melensbobdad gave me some reassurance with his informative post the other day. Thanks again MBD!
I'm just gonna hope for the best and see what happens.
I will get a few pics up when the time comes.
I've never bought a car with less than 150k.
You're a braver man than I.
I've only bought 2 used vehicles and they both fell apart around the engine. The engines were great! '83 Subaru wagon and an '82 Ford F150 with the straight six.
I'd love to buy a new car, just scared of getting a dud/lemon and being stuck with payments and repairs etc.
There is always that chance. However, I've had a really good run with the Fords. Never had a tranny, engine or fueling issue with any of them. The most I had to do was replace a steel cooling line, shocks/struts and intake manifold gaskets on my '99 Windstar which ended up with 221,000 miles. Hell I never even replaced the fuel filter on that thing!
I suppose that is actually a bad thing, as that would seem to mean I'm due for a lemon. That sucks.
I've taken several cars to the 300k mark and one to 450k.
That's what I'm hoping for out of the Passat.
I also only buy base models with no options, no air, manual trans, crank windows, manual locks etc. They're getting harder and harder to find and I keep ending up with early 90's cars but rust is destroying all the "good cars" .
I was gonna say... good luck with that!
The way I see it is, life is too short to be riding around in something like that. Call me a prude but I'd rather push a button than do the windmill to roll up a window. AC is nice too.