I am offered a 2005 Golf TDI and $2K for my 2005 Passat TDI Wagon - thoughts?

I must admit that I am frightened off by the issues that my 2005 Passat wagon TDI is facing. A local used car dealer bought a 2005 Golf GLS TDI at auction with 99K miles. Very nice condition inside and out. Carfax shows one owner with a service at 60K miles and at 80K miles. Nothing else. So it needs a timing belt.

The dealer is offering me the Golf plus $2K for my car.

Should I consider it? The Golf is a 5 speed and is fine for me.

Thanks for helping.

Pete

In your case perhaps you've already owned a golf and perhaps because you don't want to break the bank, maybe it would be an ok proposition. It is your money, not mine. We here just wanted to give you objective as we can advice on what happens with the B5.5 platform. Just have a known technician look over the new unit and make sure everything is ship shape. Make sure the brake fluid gets changed out unless you know via service records that that has been done. You could probably have that done at the same time of your timing belt, waterpump etc. time.

Good luck.

I think you are getting beat. Don't sell your car because your scared of something that hasn't happened yet. That soccer mom talking on her cell phone right behind you is more likely to take you out right now than your balance shaft.

The car you know is much better than the one you don't. If you can't prove that the right oil was out in the Golf you could be looking at a new camshaft soon. It's very important to find a local guru to check it out thhoroughly.

BTW, If someone else was offering you $6K + the Golf, how can $2K be a good deal ? Or to rephrase this, why is this golf worth $4k more than the other one?

I will say this Pete, once you have your B5.5 sorted it is a great car. There is nothing out there that is as big that will get you as good of economy. I didn't want to spend the money either. I didn't want to become a poster child for really spending money on a B5.5 post failure repair, so I did it BEFORE THE DANG CHAIN AND OR TENSIONER BROKE. Yes VW is a nothing but a pile of dog dung in not being man enough to suck up the crappy balance shaft design.

Again it is YOUR money, YOUR choice and not mine. If it were mine, it would be fixed.

If you can, upgrade the Passat and you will have a fine car. You don't know anything about the Golf and, if the dealer got it at an auction, there is a reason for that. A TB + on that car is 1/3 the price of a BS job on the Passat. At 99K it may need suspension work too. I had a nice Golf (2002) and got tired of such a small car.

If you really are a "grampa" and have miles on your bones like I have , you will miss the Passat once you get into the smaller Golf.

I am not sure I would ditch the Passat and move down the food chain to a Golf for what is essentially just an $1800 issue.

That Golf has a BEW engine, so I would be leary whether or not the previous owner used 505.01 oil, even more leary if it was "dealer serviced"

oilhammer said:

I am not sure I would ditch the Passat and move down the food chain to a Golf for what is essentially just an $1800 issue.

Click to expand...

I am with Oilhammer on this one.

Smokerr said:

I am with Oilhammer on this one.

Click to expand...

x3.

You will miss all the extras of the Passat that the other car does not have, but you won't realize it till you have done the deed and it will be too late.