It's crazy how many Vanagon people have also been Passat people.  I bought
my wife an '01 Passat 4Motion Wagon, 30V V6, silver with black leather
interior, absolutely beautiful and amazing to drive.  I loved that car.

Then the warranty ran out, a warranty that I got my money's worth out of at
the dealer.  After that, I was hard-pressed to work on the thing myself (I
do own a Vanagon, for heaven's sake, which takes up a good bit of my
mechanic time and skills) and every single trip to the mechanic for the
Passat was $1000+.

My wife now drives a Highlander.  Not nearly as cool, but it has more space,
it's incredibly durable with two crazy little kids, and gives us absolutely
ZERO trouble.

Now that prices have come down on used B5 Passats, I find myself looking at
them occasionally, but then I remind myself of the water pump
self-destructing and basically destroying every pulley on the front of the
engine, costing me $2000 and leading to the trade-in.

--
Joe T.
'85 Wolfsburg Westy Subie 2.2

On Fri, Apr 1, 2011 at 12:46 PM, Joe Luther <jluther@alfons-haar.us> wrote:

>
>
> I had a pampered 00 Passat with the 30v Audi V6, it was the end of my
> relationship with VWoA and the end of my flirtation with 'newer' VW's.
>
> Surf around on passatworld.com for a taste of the maintenance and other
> expenses associated with ownership before doing more than dreaming.
>
> VW is supposed to be the people's car, the Passat is the rich people's car.
> They are incredibly expensive to own.
>
> Also, watch the 1.8T, they have a serious issue with sludging in that car
> that is not present in the transverse Golf/Jetta platform.
>
> That said, the B5 Passat is one of the best looking watercooled VW's ever
> made, I sure wish they were less painful to own.
>
> HTH
>
> Joe
>
>
--
Joe T.
'85 Wolfsburg Westy Subie 2.2