2005 TDI Passat for $16,500 - is it worth it?

GLS TDIBlue with grey interior111,000 milesVIN WVWAE63B85E057627 Carfax is lacking it only shows that it was purchased and registered in VA. No service history on it what so ever.Test drove it yetstery, the AC doesn't work (compressor never turned on) the dealer is taking it to their VW shop next door to figure out the problem.Sales people have no service records on the vehicle so I don't know if it had a 100k service or not they said it was turned in right at that mark.Everything else is very very clean, it looks well cared for inside and out. Good front brakes but back brakes probably need changing. Brand new nitrogen filled tires. (at least I think so they have blue caps)They are supposed to call me back this afternoon to give me the status on the AC they did say I could have it for a day to take it around to a couple of shops. There is a guy in Winchester, VA that is listed as a TDI guy and anohter guy in Walkersville, MD which is closer to my house. I'm going to try those two folks if possible.Anyone had much exprience with a high milage '05 Passat?ThanksJoeP.S. Not totally new to TDI's had a '04 Jetta traded it for an F250 while building my house, now I'm looking to downgrade.

No A/C? On such a new car? Does it hint at a trail of neglect vehicle-wide? That would be my concern.

Fixing A/C problems can turn into big $$$, and your perceived value just went up in smoke

It is probably just the A/C inhibit relay. About 30 seconds to change, about $50 part. Kinda common.

replies already?

Thanks keep the input coming.

Timing belt.

Listen for knocks in the front suspension. Upper and lower ball joints are real common.

Struts and shock will be soft.

Make sure the climate controls work.

might be worthwhile pulling the valve cover to look at the cam.

I second pulling the valve cover just to inspect the cam and lifters. Have a listed mechanic check it out for you.

Good ones, I'll be sure to bring those up with the TDI guy.

I should also note that I test drove an 05 Passat tdi last weekend with only 13,000 miles on it. It might as well have been a brand new car off the lot.

The '05 passat I'm looking at buying drove much the same way even with 111K. I could let go of the wheel and it tracked perfectly.

I punched it hard on the freeway and it didn't want to stop going. Was nervous going too fast because I'm not sure of the timing belt.

If you do buy it change the belt as soon as you get it.

Simply put, you have to find the history on the car; especially with the PD engine and the requirement for using the correct oil. If you can find the original owner from VW and then get service records - sounds weird that VW has absolutely nothing, although there are many cars here that the dealer has never seen since we don't like dealers generally. If you can't find the history, then I would move on.

car is worth $11,900 wholesale and $13500 retail, Big H sold 6 of them last week, nation wide, and these are the numbers the sales produced. The price they are asking is for a car with a lot less miles.

Me ... one with that number of miles ... and that 'new' age, I'd look for another one with lots and lots of lesser miles..... IMO. The unknown variable here are too questionable. You might try autotrader.com. That's how I found mine.

$13,500 retail? Where did that number come from? Sounds like the bargain of a lifetime. KBB.com says $19,100 SRP for excellent condition and $17,100 for Private Party retail excellent. I know the online valuations tend to make the private owner's position look better, but they shouldn't be that far off.

Is the car at a VW dealer? If not take the VIN to the nearest VW dealer and have them run the VIN through their computer. Otherwise, get the PO's name and call them.

jasonTDI said:

Timing belt.

Listen for knocks in the front suspension. Upper and lower ball joints are real common.

Struts and shock will be soft.

Make sure the climate controls work.

might be worthwhile pulling the valve cover to look at the cam.

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AMEN

As one being burned there, I can only preach the importance of checking the timing belts and knowing the history. I"m shopping as well and found a 2001 Beetle TDI in my area with 119,000 miles. Timing belt was changed 20,000 past the time VW says change it. My gut says let that one go.

VW dealership qoutes around $4,500 to fix a engine that has cam damage. I've seen the damage firsthand and it sucks.

In the instance where my TDI jetta died....I could hear a loud metal pinging noise where the cams where hitting these circular things sticking up beneath the cams.

RollTDI said:

Timing belt was changed 20,000 past the time VW says change it. My gut says let that one go.

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Someone correct me if I am wrong, letting a timing belt go past it's recommended life is not damaging, just dangerous. As long as it doesn't let go, it is not damaging anything. Now, that might be indicative of a general lack of maintenance, but in itself, not a "walk away" offense.

I didn't mean to imply it was damaging. I'm sorry if what I said led anyone to believe that not changing at VW's recommended time automatically causes damages.

I guess what I was hoping would be taken from my comments is that he needs to get it checked. if you check other threads that show pictures of lifters and cams that have gone bad, it appears from comments by more knowledgeable members than I, that lifters and cams going bad is not a all in 1 they all go bad at the same time type situation. It appears from the pics that it is a cumulative effect with gradual wearing until you fiinally reach a point where the engine dies.

One thing that does concern me about the whole timing belt, lifters, cams, water pump situation is......someone could check the belt and say, oh wow, this thing is brand new, but if there are other parts that are old or about to fail, they could cause a timing slip which will cause issues with the lifters and cams......... is that possible?

there is an issue with lifters wearing out but when all are worn out/cracked and the cam lobes are smashed , the valves have collided with the pistons. if you have a defective lifter or two, the damage will be narrowed to those lifters and cam lobes.

First, thanks for all of your input. I took most of ya'lls advice and did the following:

I took the Passat to Mark 1 VW Repair in Walkersville, MD. He gave it a very clean thumbs up, but he didnt' put it on a lift or even start it. So mixed feelings about him.

I have some friends with a shop so we took it in got it up on a lift checked for leaks etc. It is a very clean car. Nothing out of the ordinary.

We did find the service records and did discover it had not had its timing belt replaced. But it was serviced by the VW dealer at the correct intervals all except for the timing belt which the dealer had noted in the service records would cost $1,100.

I took all this info with me back to the bargining table. They ended up giving me more for my trade and kocking down the price of the car to cover the repairs. In the end I got the car for about $14,000.

The AC is working fine now they had it checked out and repaired. I have an appointment to take it into my local dealer who is only charging $800 for the timing belt water pump and all the other stuff thats needed.

Mark 1 first quoted me $1,200 but called back later and said he couldn't do it. Reason was he wasn't comfortable with the newer cars.

I know it has alot of miles on it, but it was all highway (all pre set channels were DC and the person lived in VA). The tires, brakes, and everything else on the car were perfect. Interior is perfect with no blemishes . I only drive 30 miles a day to work and back. So I won't be racking up a great deal of miles or putting a load on the car.

For the most part it is going to become a hobby car. I make my own Biodiesel (have been for serveral years) and probably will convert it to run on Veggie oil at some point.

Thanks again! I apprecaite all of your help. I'll keep you abreast of the car and the problems it is going to give me. Cause we all know VW's and their fine german engineering.

That is a good price. And that is nowhere near a lot of miles.

Okay, so we're begging you to not take it to a VW dealer to have the timing belt done. If you want to know why, do a search here using "Dealer AND timing AND belt AND screw" and you will find out why. Generally, dealers DO NOT know how to do this correctly. and when it is not done correctly, the engine subsequently breaks in a big way.

You are in a hotbed of expertise in MD and need to find a TDI Guru to do the work. Please. We're begging you to avoid the "dealer AND ruined AND my AND car" search. We've seen too many of those threads...

MD_TDI_FAN said:

We did find the service records and did discover it had not had its timing belt replaced. But it was serviced by the VW dealer at the correct intervals all except for the timing belt which the dealer had noted in the service records would cost $1,100.

I took all this info with me back to the bargining table. They ended up giving me more for my trade and kocking down the price of the car to cover the repairs. In the end I got the car for about $14,000.

The AC is working fine now they had it checked out and repaired. I have an appointment to take it into my local dealer who is only charging $800 for the timing belt water pump and all the other stuff thats needed.

Mark 1 first quoted me $1,200 but called back later and said he couldn't do it. Reason was he wasn't comfortable with the newer cars.

I know it has alot of miles on it, but it was all highway (all pre set channels were DC and the person lived in VA). The tires, brakes, and everything else on the car were perfect. Interior is perfect with no blemishes . I only drive 30 miles a day to work and back. So I won't be racking up a great deal of miles or putting a load on the car.

For the most part it is going to become a hobby car. I make my own Biodiesel (have been for serveral years) and probably will convert it to run on Veggie oil at some point.

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Are you sure you want to have a dealer do the timing belt change? I would go with "Car 54" out of Woodbridge VA and a deluxe timing belt kit from dieselgeek http://www.dieselgeek.com/Detail.bok?no=369

If you insist on having the dealer do it, make sure they replace the parts marked as onetime use only on the dieselgeek webpage.

As for running your Passat on veggie oil check out this person's attempt at [SIZE=-1]getoffoil.blogspot.com He made quite a few mistakes and it is costing him a lot of $$$. And the pump-injectors in the PD motor really do not care for WVO to begin with.

As for the DC radio stations in a VA car - that's because most of the radio stations are in DC and not VA
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I've been lurking but the others covered all of the important points - except one: Congratulations on your new TDI!

You have obviously done your due diligence and bought the car with a lot of good data and got a good price.

One point I'd echo: definitely take the car to one of the local TDI guru's in your area for the TB change. They are listed in the Trusted Mechanics post for a reason: we trust them a LOT more than we trust any dealers!

Enjoy....

You'd be lucky to find a single GURU that has done a PD Passat TB yet. That would be me included. Lot's of A4's but no B5.5 cars yet. Not TDI's anyway, just 1.8T's. Lots of them.

jasonTDI said:

You'd be lucky to find a single GURU that has done a PD Passat TB yet. That would be me included. Lot's of A4's but no B5.5 cars yet. Not TDI's anyway, just 1.8T's. Lots of them.

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Well if you have done PDs in A4 cars and B5 gasser engines then you have the basic knowledge of what a B5 TDI will involve. Your knowledge of the other cars will easily transfer over to the Passat TDI.

Das is goot.

Yeah, the front of the passats is real easy to remove once you have done a few. 15-20 minutes. Lot's of TDI owners own 1.8T wagons (B5) since they can't find TDI Jetta wagons.

Thanks folks, I did try to use Mark 1 from Walkersville. He called back and declinded my business because it was too new for him and he didn't want to "take off the front of the car."

The only other independent close by is down in Winchester, VA. I will call around and if they can do it down in VA.

A friend at work suggested I get the diesel geek kit and give that to the dealership to install rather than using their parts.

J.

Make the dealer show the title to you, so you can see the previous owner, and call them.

ka1cqr

owr084 said:

As for running your Passat on veggie oil check out this person's attempt at [SIZE=-1]getoffoil.blogspot.com He made quite a few mistakes and it is costing him a lot of $$$. And the pump-injectors in the PD motor really do not care for WVO to begin with.
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That guy is an idiot...

well at least he was honest and told of his issues. it's a greast deterant IMO.

jasonTDI said:

well at least he was honest and told of his issues. it's a greast deterant IMO.

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Its going to be my daily driver for while, so veggie oil is out of the question. Especially since I only drive 15 miles to work.

Its up to each person to gather the information and make the best educated decision. There are lots of variables when using waste veggie oil. Lots of variables when using biodiesel. And I know for a fact I've gotten bad diesel at stations before which caused my fuel pump and EGR to go bad on my F250 (no biodiesel in it yet becasue it was dead winter!).

So to each their own I suppose. I appreciate the link Jason, its always good to have another opinion and to learn from someone elses mistakes.

J.