Reply With QuoteI had one the same age, fast comfortable car, great space, but rusty, unreliable & expensive.
All sorts of engine issues. Ended up needing a new gearbox.
Electronic handbrake malfunctioned.
Put me off VW for life, lost a fortune on it.
Just been to look at a 2007 Passat 2.0 TDI 170bhp dpf 6 speed manual with 130K and a full service history.
I quite like it and am thinking of buying to use for a couple of years but don’t particularly want to be buying problems, looking online it’s either the best variant they made or the worst engine ever! Does anyone here have any real world experience of these?
I’m more interested in the engine and it’s reliability and if it’s capable of high miles like the older 1.9PD motor was or if they’re a nightmare
Last edited by toastie; 7th January 2020 at 00:49.
I had one the same age, fast comfortable car, great space, but rusty, unreliable & expensive.
All sorts of engine issues. Ended up needing a new gearbox.
Electronic handbrake malfunctioned.
Put me off VW for life, lost a fortune on it.
The 170 is a bit of a dog, had the same in my old company car but with DSG gearbox, the water pump shat itself and wrote the engine off which wasn’t ideal, driving was not an issue it was lovely but rusty as you like under the arches after 140k miles
There is better volkswagens out there imo
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My experience is with a 140 bhp manual diesel, 2012 CC, ( basically a Passat in nice clothes) I bought it 4 years ago at 50k it had full VW service history which I kept up to 100k then went independent and services it religiously until a month ago when I replaced it with a Passat 190bhp diesel estate. The CC has 190k on it now and in the 140k I did in it in 4 years the only issue was a failed Zenon headlight bulb. I’ve had VAG cars ( mainly company cars and I do high mileage) for a long time now and never had any significant issues, regular servicing I’m sure is the key.
Cheers..
Jase
If you're buying a car approaching 13 years old your expectations about reliability and rust have to be managed accordingly! Check carefully for rust and general condition, that's not difficult, but reliability is a bit of a lottery on a car that age. That has to be balanced against the low purchase price, that's the way the numbers stack up with an older car, but you need to have a couple of grand handy for repairs etc if something goes wrong. The alternative is to run a newer car and accept it'll cost you big-style on depreciation or PCP costs etc.
Unless the reviews point to a specific weakness I would take them with a pinch of salt.
In my experience most money is never spent in sorting out the engine, but on suspension, gearbox, brakes (disks/pads) and general consumables.
Making sure the cars brake rotors, pads and tyres are nearly new, can save you a fortune in a couple of years motoring, as coupled with a service, all this will cost well north of a bag of sand.
The 170 bhp variant seems to be prone to dual mass flywheel issues due to the increased torque. I sold many VAG cars between 2004- 2014 and they were not of the perceived quality that many people associated with VAG products. If it’s DSG at that age I wouldn’t go near it myself
Thanks for the replies, think I’ll try and find a golf with the original 1.9 which they seemed to have made up till 2008 so should be a few about
The B6 Passat is particularly problematic for rust.
Just Google corroding b6 Passat and you will see tonnes of forum horror stories.
No idea if golfs of a similar era have the same corrosion issue, but they do have the same handbrake issue if it's fitted with an electronic one.
I have a 170HP Common Rail diesel in Skoda Superb (engine code: CBBB). I can't complain, 136k km on clock, only turbo actuator and exhaust gas sensor failed so far - quite easy and cheap things. I know that EGR valve needs to be cleaned / changed about my mileage. The DPF is a pain, but you can quite easy find when the car switching into "DPF burn mode" and just let them do it (like 10 minutes on idle if needed). Overall - pretty decent engine, even better if you compare with BMW or Mercedes reliability :)
Owned a140/170 and now 150
Never had any bother whatsoever with any of the engines on all 3
I always thought it was a good engine and bulletproof
The 170 is affected by the emissions scandal and possibly the 140 also?
Last edited by speedypro1111; 7th January 2020 at 14:16.
If it has the electronic handbrake do not buy it under any circumstances, when they get older they can lock on and it's horrendously expensive to replace the parts, I speak from experience. I got stranded a few times as i couldn't release the handbrake, it always locks on not off.
We had the same experience with a 2007 140tdi. The handbrake mech seized on both rear wheels (on separate occasions) costing about £700 per side to rectify. In the end we binned the car when the clutch gave up - clutch plus flywheel was going to be circa £1500 to sort out if we hadn’t scrapped it.Originally Posted by Vanguard
If I remember correctly the handbrake issue was sorted for 2009 onward cars but the new calliper wasn’t backwards compatible so the older cars are stuck with the plastic handbrake mech enclosure that cracks, letting in crud and causing the motor to seize.
A Passat is that age is known to have a number of issues and they have mostly been covered so taking it with a pinch of salt isn’t appropriate when I promise you and I know my vw cars of this age rust is a massive issue and cost vw a fortune on the golf and Passat, the higher power engine is plagued with dpf, egr and dmf issues way more than the 140 ever was, even the handbrake, callipers and brake wear is known.
A for the comparison to the bmw engines off this age there is no comparison the bmw is plain better if we are talking 2 litre diesels in almost every respect
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I have a 2006 1.9TDI 105bhp SE Estate B6 I've owned it for 8 years and bought it in 2012 off a dealer with 100k on the clock for just over 4k , the electronic handbrake was replaced under the warranty after 3 days, 75,000 miles i've had no problems with it. i'm also fairly sure the gearbox had already been replaced before i bought it, And there was also a problem with the ignition key electronics which was sorted out by the actual garage i bought it from before they would sell it to me, had the previous owner kept this car it would have cost her a lot of money to put right £6-700 for the handbrake alone, don't know what the gearbox would have cost. I never had a problem with it other than other than general wear and tear brake discs, cam belt, clutch and flywheel being the most costly, but nowhere near £1200 others have stated.
I changed the oil and filters every 10,000 miles averaged 50 mpg, never had a problem with the actual engine until last week. Totally out of the blue it developed a loud knocking noise, I'm not sure wether it's the turbo or injectors but it will set me back around £700 - £1300 to find out, and is now sat outside the house with 175k on the clock while i decide wether to rebuild it, or scrap it. i'm leaning toward the latter, simply because i'm wondering wether i'm now throwing good money after bad and the fact it's 14yrs old.
I also purposely stayed away from the 2.0L Passat engines after doing a bit of research when looking to buy one, i'd also stayed away from fully loaded models simply because there is more that can go wrong, if buying second hand check everything. Apart from the engine everything on this car was being replaced around 100k, find what your after from a decent dealer, and get some sort of warranty the longer the better.
Last edited by the big fella; 9th January 2020 at 08:45.
I would avoid vag cars like the plague I had a 3 year old golf and although it had done 78000 miles it was having some seriously expensive stuff starting to go wrong my mate has a Audi A3 less than 2 years old 20000 miles, new gear box at 2 weeks old 6k now a problem with the steering 2k good job it's under warranty
Unless you are talking 30 years ago I think vag are now shoddaly made cars trading on a long past reputation
We have had 8 VWs in the past 16 years and nothing has ever gone wrong with any of them. All regularly serviced at manufacturer’s recommended intervals.
Both our current VWs, a Golf and an Up, are coming up for 3 tears old and we are planning to keep them both for a while longer.
I had the same variant and the same age in 2012/13. In the 12 months i owned the 5 year old car it it cost me over £3000 in repairs parts and labour. The problems were the electronic handbrake/rear calipers and particulate filter. The particulate filter blockages are well documented but any water went anywhere near the rear calipers and they fritzed out. Living in South Wales at the time, some would rightly assume it was a moist atmosphere a lot of the time. Every time it went wrong i thought i'll get it repaired and get rid of it afterwards but i had it around about 12 months all told. I dread to think what it would have cost me if i had not used an good, independent VW Specialist. Totally put me off VAG cars (i'd had an older Passat and a Golf previously) and i avoid anything with an electronic handbrake as well.
VAG cars are generally very good but this particular Passat was a dog, I’ve had my mk5 golf gti since it was almost new and it’s been superb, never missed a beat, practical, fast and well specced. It had the rusty wings replaced but that’s it, it’s been a great motor having done 80k miles in it and just consumables have needed to be replaced so don’t write them all off, happy to slag off the Passat like I say, but I also have a new Passat estate GTE which is a hell of a car too, precious to that an Octavia Vrs estate and a Passat estate with the pd 1.9 engine which was bullet proof .. had some others soo namely some mk2 gtis which have also been ace to own so don’t write off the brand, oh I’ve had an s4 estate too that was brill, god I miss that v8
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