nh mike
Top Post Dawg
(note - picture links aren't working right now - I'll fix later. Gotta feed kids)
My parents are the original owners of this car. About 6 months after my daughter was born in late 2009, my wife and I finally acknowledged that her Beetle TDI was a PITA to put a baby in and out of. We sold that (on TDIClub) and bought this Passat wagon from my parents.
It has 112k miles - we drive it about 8k miles a year (my wife drives ~30 miles to and from each work day, almost all highway). It's been extremely reliable - we haven't had anything "fail" on us in any way. Sure, we've replaced brake pads and rotors over the years, and done routine maitenance - but it's never broken down in any way, or even failed an inspection.
It's an automatic with sunroof, cold weather package, and cloth seats. Sure, I know what you're thinking - leather looks so nice when a car is new. But it's hot in the summer and cold in the winter, and after several years you have scuffed up bolsters, and eventually rips start appearing.
Cloth seats just continue looking the same, perfectly fine. Unless of course you spill something on them - which we never have. Surprising, I know, considering we have two kids. The cloth seats in my Nissan Leaf haven't been so lucky - my daughter left a crayon in there one hot summer day, and it got melted onto the seat. And the lease runs out in a few more months. Crap.
Anyway - we've started to realize why minivans are so popular with parents. We want to be able to take our kids and some of their friends places at the same time. Or our kids and the grandparents. Unless the grandparents want to sit in the cargo area, the Passat isn't cutting it.
So, two days ago, we bought a Pacifica plug-in Hybrid minivan. So it's time to sell the Passat.
I'll go through the receipts and check when the important thing was done - the timing belt. Since we've had 3 TDIs, and I now have the memory of a sleep-deprived parent, I can't remember exactly when this one was done. When I sold my Jetta TDI 3 years ago, I was about to have the timing belt done on it a few months beforehand, and the VW dealer reminded me that we just did it a few months ago. Oops, I think that memory was replaced by memories of getting peed on by my daughter when she was doing potty training. Good times.
Here are a few pictures. As you can tell, it's the green metallic color. The paint overall is in decent shape for the age. It's nice and shiny (to be fair, I just put another coat of Liquid Glass on before the pictures - some of them show some of it that I didn't fully wipe off before taking the photos).
Note - not my kids in the photo, those are some neighbor kids. My kids are so cute that if they actually showed up in the photos, they would detract from the car, as everyone would be distracted by thinking "oh my god those kids are so frickin CUTE!".
I figured the neighbors' kids were safe to be in the pictures though. Heh heh.
Note - the neighbors' kids and mine were pushing a toy car underneath the Passat. They were not checking to see if I had run over the neighborhood cat (I didn't!).
Shiny.
But there are door dings and scratches here and there. There's no rust. The common rust spot - the front fenders, have been dealt with. They were both replaced by VW under their rust warranty (one 2 years ago and one the year before that).
Any stone chips or other scrapes that got through the paint to the metal I touched up with touch-up paint, to prevent rusting. I took some close-up pictures of this side (the one with more dings) to try to show the dings here and there.
On that one, note that the front end of the rear door chrome strip is a little wonky. This actually happened on Saturday, on our way to buy the minivan to replace the Passat. It tried to sabotage the plan. When my daughter opened that rear door to get out at the grandparents' house, the front of the strip had apparently already come away from the door a little, and it got snagged on the door in front of it and pried up a little more. I've bent it back into shape, and Super Glued it back on. But it's definitely not perfect.
Oh look, more pictures.
The car has a rear too!
And a close-up of the passenger's side.
The car runs great - we have no qualms about taking it on trips. In fact, we're going to be driving about 3 hours today to go whale watching.
Oh crap, the kids are awake. Gotta wrap this thing up.
What have I forgotten.... asking price? Ok, how about $2,800?
Is anything broken or not working properly? The windshield washer fluid sensor seems to not be working - it always claims that the windshield washer fluid is low. Since it seems like a completely unnecessary thing, I haven't bothered fixing it. We know the fluid is low when it won't spray. Duh.
I think that's the only actual problem.... engine runs fine, transmission shifts fine, AC blows cold, heated seats work great (heated cloth seats heat up much faster than heated leather ones).
Oh - one of the key fobs doesn't seem to work very well (i.e. the doors don't always unlock when you press the button). The other does though. It doesn't seem to be just be a battery issue, as we replaced it and it still doesn't work well. Everything still works with the keys though, and one of the fobs works fine.
It will be due for an oil and fuel filter change soon. I think I have both filters in the basement - I'll check later after feeding time is over for the animals...er... kids.
I generally change the oil filter once a year, in September, which works out to about every 8k miles. And do the fuel filter every other year.
Gotta run, the animals are growling!
My parents are the original owners of this car. About 6 months after my daughter was born in late 2009, my wife and I finally acknowledged that her Beetle TDI was a PITA to put a baby in and out of. We sold that (on TDIClub) and bought this Passat wagon from my parents.
It has 112k miles - we drive it about 8k miles a year (my wife drives ~30 miles to and from each work day, almost all highway). It's been extremely reliable - we haven't had anything "fail" on us in any way. Sure, we've replaced brake pads and rotors over the years, and done routine maitenance - but it's never broken down in any way, or even failed an inspection.
It's an automatic with sunroof, cold weather package, and cloth seats. Sure, I know what you're thinking - leather looks so nice when a car is new. But it's hot in the summer and cold in the winter, and after several years you have scuffed up bolsters, and eventually rips start appearing.
Cloth seats just continue looking the same, perfectly fine. Unless of course you spill something on them - which we never have. Surprising, I know, considering we have two kids. The cloth seats in my Nissan Leaf haven't been so lucky - my daughter left a crayon in there one hot summer day, and it got melted onto the seat. And the lease runs out in a few more months. Crap.
Anyway - we've started to realize why minivans are so popular with parents. We want to be able to take our kids and some of their friends places at the same time. Or our kids and the grandparents. Unless the grandparents want to sit in the cargo area, the Passat isn't cutting it.
So, two days ago, we bought a Pacifica plug-in Hybrid minivan. So it's time to sell the Passat.
I'll go through the receipts and check when the important thing was done - the timing belt. Since we've had 3 TDIs, and I now have the memory of a sleep-deprived parent, I can't remember exactly when this one was done. When I sold my Jetta TDI 3 years ago, I was about to have the timing belt done on it a few months beforehand, and the VW dealer reminded me that we just did it a few months ago. Oops, I think that memory was replaced by memories of getting peed on by my daughter when she was doing potty training. Good times.
Here are a few pictures. As you can tell, it's the green metallic color. The paint overall is in decent shape for the age. It's nice and shiny (to be fair, I just put another coat of Liquid Glass on before the pictures - some of them show some of it that I didn't fully wipe off before taking the photos).
Note - not my kids in the photo, those are some neighbor kids. My kids are so cute that if they actually showed up in the photos, they would detract from the car, as everyone would be distracted by thinking "oh my god those kids are so frickin CUTE!".
I figured the neighbors' kids were safe to be in the pictures though. Heh heh.
Note - the neighbors' kids and mine were pushing a toy car underneath the Passat. They were not checking to see if I had run over the neighborhood cat (I didn't!).
Shiny.
But there are door dings and scratches here and there. There's no rust. The common rust spot - the front fenders, have been dealt with. They were both replaced by VW under their rust warranty (one 2 years ago and one the year before that).
Any stone chips or other scrapes that got through the paint to the metal I touched up with touch-up paint, to prevent rusting. I took some close-up pictures of this side (the one with more dings) to try to show the dings here and there.
On that one, note that the front end of the rear door chrome strip is a little wonky. This actually happened on Saturday, on our way to buy the minivan to replace the Passat. It tried to sabotage the plan. When my daughter opened that rear door to get out at the grandparents' house, the front of the strip had apparently already come away from the door a little, and it got snagged on the door in front of it and pried up a little more. I've bent it back into shape, and Super Glued it back on. But it's definitely not perfect.
Oh look, more pictures.
The car has a rear too!
And a close-up of the passenger's side.
The car runs great - we have no qualms about taking it on trips. In fact, we're going to be driving about 3 hours today to go whale watching.
Oh crap, the kids are awake. Gotta wrap this thing up.
What have I forgotten.... asking price? Ok, how about $2,800?
Is anything broken or not working properly? The windshield washer fluid sensor seems to not be working - it always claims that the windshield washer fluid is low. Since it seems like a completely unnecessary thing, I haven't bothered fixing it. We know the fluid is low when it won't spray. Duh.
I think that's the only actual problem.... engine runs fine, transmission shifts fine, AC blows cold, heated seats work great (heated cloth seats heat up much faster than heated leather ones).
Oh - one of the key fobs doesn't seem to work very well (i.e. the doors don't always unlock when you press the button). The other does though. It doesn't seem to be just be a battery issue, as we replaced it and it still doesn't work well. Everything still works with the keys though, and one of the fobs works fine.
It will be due for an oil and fuel filter change soon. I think I have both filters in the basement - I'll check later after feeding time is over for the animals...er... kids.
I generally change the oil filter once a year, in September, which works out to about every 8k miles. And do the fuel filter every other year.
Gotta run, the animals are growling!
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