Got tired of going through the passenger side door to unlatch the drivers door just to get into the car so I decided to do fix the door myself instead of yet again shelling out more money at the stealership.
I’ve seen pictures and read descriptions of the crappy door handle mechanism, but I had to see it for myself and indeed, the design leaves much to be desired.
Not only is the roll pin approach to the main mechanism pivot a definite weak point, but the ball joint that throws the unlatching mechanism, is just plain cheap. The joint is entirely made out of Wolfburg’s finest pot metal and must have started to wear out quickly right after it’s first use. Why didn’t the Engineers think of lining the joint with some high density polymer to minimize wear? pot metal to pot metal just does not make sense in what should be a modern car. I Jimmied up a quick fix by using some UHMW plastic to shim the joint on both sides of the ball. I also slathered the joint in synthetic grease. Did the same thing to all the doors, and they all now work very well, as long as those shims stay in.
And then I spent the rest of the day replacing a whole bunch carbonized and leaking vacuum hoses all over the engine compartment and desperately trying to polishing off the stubborn yellow crazed and matte finish on the crap plastic headlight lenses. (VOA didn’t think that US drivers deserve the nice glass lenses that they give out in Europeand in China, I guess) The car is just constantly rotting away on me much faster than any of the cars I previously owned. I never had to buy an inch of vacuum hose or fix any door handles on my Hondas for the whole 150+ thousand miles I had owned them, let alone polish headlight lenses.

Post edited 04/18/05 6:52 PM by Beck

Post edited 04/19/05 1:59 PM by Beck

Hello, im back again!!! (GOLF GT TDI 115bhp)

Got my timing belt, tensioner and water pump changed yesterday. I have been driving around and when i change gears and the turbo kicks in it makes a whizzing noise. It never made it before it went to the garage and now it does. I cant belive it, anyone know what this is?

Thanks
p.s this car is really starting to annoy me now…

After all these terrible years with my B4 Passat, I am finally very close to being free of the beast! Yes!, I will be going back to a Japanese brand, and never never never never going to even consider going back to VW. My family tried VWs through the years and only found real satisfaction from the late seventies Beetle we had! Everything else were big dissapointment (411, Dasher, B4, B5) All very bad experiences. My Dad and older brother warned me and my youngest brother when I got my B4, and him, his B5, and we have been very sorry that we did not listen. Even our kids ask why the VW keeps breaking down! These kids are definitely NOT future VW owners!
Just yesterday, I caught a glimpse of the new Jetta sitting on my neighborhood VW car front lot that I pass every day, going to work. It actually made me drive away from there faster cause I actually felt my blood pressure way go up!
Just waiting for our tax refund to come in, and we go straight to the Toyota/Scion dealership! The B4 will be left as a trade-in I will take anything I can for it from the dealer. I’m too ashamed to sell it myself because the thing is a mess.
I considered going for other Euro brands, (Volvo), but with the long commute to work I now have, I cannot afford anymore breakdowns and overly expensive replacement parts. Some Euro cars are definitely more reliable than VW, but nothing beats the Japanese brands IMO.
The last straw came in the form of yet again, another crappy OEM Goodyear Eagle GA 215/50/R15, blowing it’s sidewall and almost leaving me stranded 50 miles from work today. These odball sized tires that VW found fit to use on their car have very fragile sidewalls, and all the tires I have replaced on my car had sidewall failures, way before they are worn out and is almost extinct, It takes two weeks to order from Goodyear area distributors or even VW dealerships that I called. The Goodyear 15/50/R15 tire is proprietary to the B4 that the tire technicians all knew right away that I had a Passat. I finally found one tire dealer that could track down the also hard to find Dunlop equivalent, so this means I’ll have mismatching tires for the last few weeks with the VW. It was also definitely no fun driving back home at 50 MPH max for 50 miles on the freeway on the Conti mini spare!

Post edited 04/12/05 8:35 AM by Chombi

Hello everyone,

I am just about to get my timing belt changed and the garage wants to change the water pump. The car has done 80K How often should the water pump be changed? Im not having any problems with it at the moment. The car is a golf TDI, the man reckons the timing belt goes round the water pump?? Can anyone shine some light on the situation?

thanks, nicola

I am pretty frustrated with the dealerships in my area. I have had some difficulties getting small things fixed on my 04 Jetta.
Now I have a stress crack in my windshield. Not caused by anything IE rock, me banging my head against it in frustration….
I went to one dealership only to be told that they saw a tiny chip in the crack so it would not be covered under warrenty. Not satisfied with that I took it to another dealership. The service guy said that if it were up to him he would have it fixed, but he would have to have a rep come in and determine it. Long story short, he had my info, 04 Jetta with 29,000 miles on it and a polaroid pic of the crack.
Now I find out today that the rep came in and said that in the instance of a stress crack (meaning that they are admitting that it was not external damage) the warrenty only covers up to 1 yr or 12,000 miles. Then the dealer proceded to play good cop bad cop and he explained that he pressed the rep to do something about the windshield and according to him, now the rep said that they would cover the cost of the windshield but I would have to pay for labor.
Bulls**t If that is all really the case, when I brought it in to either dealer wouldn’t thier fist question be… so how many miles and how long have you had the car. I am so pissed off
Any suggestions. comments.
Thanks

I wanted to know if anyone has this same problem? I think it’s common. The left side on the inside where the light is, thats broken. I wanted to know how many parts that is or if it comes in one part.

The alarm does not chirp when I arm It anymore, the lights flash and the red light blinks. Also when the driverside door is opened the alarm does not go off, all other doors and it will go off. The dome light also does not always come on when the driverside door is opened, all other doors it comes on. So these problems must be related. I cannot find where the door sensor or button is located. Any input would be helpful.

How hard is it to install a door lock control module on a driverside door? Around how much does that part cost? Thank you for your time.

Hi, I bought a golf back in jan. Its a TDI, 5 year old and it was in mint condition, as it was getting serviced every 6000miles by the previous owner. So its got a full service history. Anyway in the last couple of weeks, the speed sensor has gone, the brake lights only work when they want to and now i need to get my timing belt changed before it completley snaps. I was given a quote of $400 to get it replaced and fitted. Is this about right?

Think i might get rid of it..

Nicola