Hi, Please can someone out there tell me what I can check before paying out big money!!! Warning light comes on when you start car then disappears then is constantly on!!! Please help, have only had the car for 3 months and it has only done 35000km!!!

The peoples car. Ah yes, what a noble beginining. Cars you could actually fix and keep running. I’ve owned several over the years. My current 2000 V6 Passat has been a great car overall. However, VW has forgotton what got it where it is, or should I say where it was. My story is small, perhaps insignificant on the surface but I believe just one more indicator of VW’s poor policy decisions and misreading of the market. Anything mechanical can and does break, even VWs. But when a $5-$10 nylon window regulator guide breaks and could be easily replaced by an average mechanic such as myself, the part cannot be had! Why is that? Because VW decided that the smallest unit of assembly they are willing to stock and sell is not the most failure prone part, but the whole assembly for 10-15 times the cost! This is not the first time I’ve had to buy half the cow to get a hamburger but it is the last VW I will ever own.

Edited by jwatson on 08/20/07 at 8:34 PM

I HAVE A JETTA 2000,GLS THE IMMUBILIZER ACTIVES FOR NOT REASON,
THE DEALER FINDS NO CODES, AND NOBODY SEEMS TO KNOW WHAT ACTIVES IT,
PLEASE TELL ME WHAT I NEED TO LOOK FOR, THX RONALDO

My 2005 Jetta has a broken pressure plate in the clutch. The incindent must have happened while it sitting after being driven, because I parked it and it was acting fine, then I got back in later and it wasn’t working. The car has only 15K miles on it and is less than 2 years old. I don’t drive the car hard and only drive about 10 miles a day, and I have been driving manual for 12 years. VW is refusing to honour the warranty and is telling me the clutch problem is my fault. I have never heard of a clutch going in 15K miles, even if I was a terrible manual driver which I am not. I have researched this problem on the web, and it looks quite common for these cheaply made VW clutches to break down and for VW to find a way to not honor the warranty. I need help standing up against them.

If Stefan Jacoby is taking over US operations September 1 does that mean that Hallmark is out?

Hi,

I have to replace 1 possibly 2 catalytic converters in my 2000 Passat V6.
My right cat simply felt down, hanging by a cable.
Mechanics quoted prices between $1000-$1500 per converter, however some web search turns some cats as cheap as $80 (universal cats, also offered by Autozone) or around $350-$400 for passat:

http://www.autopartswarehouse.com/products/products.php?year=2000&make_text=volkswagen&model_text=passat&category=exhaust&subcategory=catalytic_converter

or

http://www.import-catalytic-converter-warehouse.com/epcstartreverse.epc?cookieID=25E1DD17P25E1DD9BC&drillid=7&engineid=V62.82771GASFI@@V6+%2D+2%2E8L+%2D+CC%3A2771+%2D+GAS+%2D+Fuel+Injected+%2D+Non%2DTurbo&clientid=import-catalytic-converter-warehouse

I have 170K miles on my car and hope to keep it for another 80k/3years.

Questions:
1) Under some happy circumstances, could the ‘hanging’ cat simply be reused?
2) Why such a huge difference in cat prices? $80-$1500
Are the $350 cats a decent choice?
For instance this:

http://www.import-catalytic-converter-warehouse.com/item.wws?sku=40464&mfr=EASTERN&cookieID=25E1DD17P25E1DDB8S&drillid=10&clientid=import-catalytic-converter-warehouse&clientid=import-catalytic-converter-warehouse

Thank you

My girlfriend drives a 2001 Jetta. She bought it 2 years ago after a drunk driver totaled her other car. At the time, we thought (I helped her shop for it…now I’m starting to feel bad) it was a good deal, and aside from a few cosmetic things, the car seemed to be in great condition. Today she told me that her check engine light was on.

That was the icing on the cake so I took it to autozone to get checked out. In addition to the check engine light, she has been having problems with her rear break and turn signal lights. They keep going out!!! First question: is there a place (the owner’s manual has disappeared) I can look online to get legit answers as to what bulbs to put in to replace the burnt ones? There are 5 sockets on each side of the car, and every time I go in to autozone, they always tell me 7506LL…I swear those aren’t the right bulbs but I don’t know. Anyways, the break lights are working again, but the turn signals still either don’t work at all, flicker randomly, or crap out after a few blinks. Any ideas to what could be behind that?

Back to the check engine light. The OBDII said the error was P0171 – fuel mixture too lean/rich in port one. Last year I had the same problem on my own car (exact same code too on my 99 Saturn SL2) and I replaced the o2 sensor and the problem went away. But! from what I’ve read on various websites, it is more likely that the MAF sensor is dirty or faulty, and I should start by cleaning that. The car shows no symptoms of any kind; it seems to run just fine. Sound like a good plan to start with the MAF?

Oh, and another thing!!! The temperature gauge works about 15% of the time. Most of the time it rests at “”cool”" and doesn’t seem to register any kind of temperature reading. Could someone link me to a forum or website with information, or give me some advice on that? I seem to remember reading something about it being really easy to replace, but I have no idea where it is….any tips on that as well? Thanks in advance, this website has already been extremely informative.