Was the B5.5 Passat TDI ever offered with a manual transmission in the U.S.?

Back home in Slovenia, my family has a 2003 Passat 1.9 TDI Wagon with a manual transmission. I love that car and have been looking all over the internet for one for sale in the U.S. but have had no luck so far. I wonder if it was sold here as a manual at all.

The B5.5 Passat TDI was only available in 2004 and 2005 here in the US. It was not available as a manual, only auto. Some here have converted those to stick so you might want to search the want ads here. Or, contact vwztips, a member here who does conversions. BTW, double posting is a no no on this site...

Have your family back home ship you a tdi b5.5 transmission, you'll find cheap b5.5 passats here to drop the transmission in.

Also...you need to delete the balance shaft in our 2.0 tdi engines.

The only B5 TDIs we got here were late 2004s and 2005s with the PD136 2.0L BHW engine and 5sp automatic, FWD. We never got any VE engine, 1.9L engines, or manuals (we did get plenty of gasoline manuals available, although they did not sell many).

Converting the BHW cars we did get to manuals is somewhat common now, mainly due to the expense of replacing a failed automatic that quite often gets neglected by the owners here, hastening their failure. But this is tricky to do properly as the "correct" transmission must come from Europe as the gas versions are not geared for the torque monster BHW, and a lot of them also get poorly equipped clutch/flywheel combos that are awful to drive in my opinion.

Im happy with my dvz transmission and valeo single mass 228 mm clutch kit with the south bend once over.

Id have done my swap for about 20%less had i gone with the valeo from the word go.

I wouldnt like the v6 gasser 5 speed gearing if i commuted hwys near Atlanta, Charlotte or even Columbia daily where 70mph means 90mph.

At 70 to 75 mph it cruises comfortably and registers 40 mpg or above. Its @ 3000 rpms at 75 but doesn't seem to mind.

Yeah, the standard TDI trans is 2500 at 80. Pretty substantial difference. Even the ALHs do not spin as fast as yours. Engine won't mind, no, but the fuel economy would be better if it was spinning slower.

VAG gears their gas engines pretty low until just recently.

There's a guy selling a pretty decent looking B5.5 wagon with the trans swap already completed and a fairly minor transmission issue in the For Sale section of the forum. Finding one that's already converted would be the closest you will come to the type of car you know from overseas.

Based on reading a bit here and on my experience with my B5.5 TDI sedan that was converted to 5 speed (by previous owner), my take is that the durability track record of the 012 FWD 5 speed transmissions when swapped in behind the BHW engines is pretty poor if you are not careful about what you do for the build. I think the main reason may be that, as OH pointed out, many folks unfortunately put aggressive clutch setups in the cars when they do the conversion in order to support the torque output of the BHW, which is often even higher after swaps because when the owners get the necessary ECU tune to make the engine cooperate with a manual trans they usually take the opportunity to get a free power boost as well. Aggressive, chattering track-day clutches and single mass flywheels combined with an engine whose torque and vibration output are both already relatively high, and all of it installed in a pretty heavy car, makes the transmission's life hard.

I think the vibration and high peak torque impulse in particular, when put through an SMF and aggressive clutch, are the key factors in the synchro breakage that most folks seem to experience as the failure mode of the transmissions. One guy on here who did one of these swaps destroyed 3rd gear synchro in multiple different DVZ transmissions, my GGB has a broken synchro on 3rd, the guy selling the wagon I mentioned above has destroyed 5th in two different FHN transmissions, and there are quite a few others....

With a stock style DMF, reasonable daily-driver clutch, and an engine closer to stock output (which is still plenty, nearly 250 lb-ft moves the car very well) it would probably mean no transmission problems and nicer to drive.

Most of the Euro market TDI transmissions that get imported for these are also used of course and in unknown condition which may be part of it. But the 012 trans has a fairly bulletproof reputation in its other applications and seems to have a much higher failure rate in these conversions than it does in the cars where it was installed from the factory, so I still tend to believe it's less about the condition the used transmissions are in, and more about the flywheel/clutch/power choices folks go with on these.

I've done a few 5 hr one way road trips all hwy to the beach and back with the dvz, the lie meter said 43 mpg, real calculations got 41ish.

The only time i got bad mpgs on the beach trips was when i tossed 5 kayaks/fishing gear on a 17ft single axle trailer and towed to the beach. 1 kayak is a 17.5 ft touring kayak, another is a 15 ft sit on top fishing kayak, a 15 ft touring, the last 2 were little 9 ft kids kayaks.

It was more wind drag than weight but mpgs went down to 30 to 32 mpg per the lie meter and hand calculations.

Id have to do a ton of hwy commuting to have the tdi specific tranny give the mpg savings to break even.

I got the entire v6 passat 5 speed wagon for 350, sold a few parts on here and passat world then sold the shell for 200. I did spend 600 for a 98 v6 sedan but it had new cv axles and 130k on it. I sold several hundred bucks of parts from her before scrapping for 125.


The clutch/flyweel then 400ish for ecu tune were my biggest expense. Then the the ross tech cable

I converted my with the 6 speed and factory 240mm DMF setup. It was quite nice to drive and I averaged about 5.5L/100K doing mostly highway. I bought an SRE clutch setup but never installed it after driving someone else's.

You canucks and your imperial/metric measurements.

Reach out to 50harleyrider. He is selling my old daily driver with FHN, smooth! Whitebread clutch, new cam, etc. Was my favorite and most reliable car to date. If I didn't have too many cars already I would buy it back.

d24tdi said:

Based on reading a bit here and on my experience with my B5.5 TDI sedan that was converted to 5 speed (by previous owner), my take is that the durability track record of the 012 FWD 5 speed transmissions when swapped in behind the BHW engines is pretty poor if you are not careful about what you do for the build. I think the main reason may be that, as OH pointed out, many folks unfortunately put aggressive clutch setups in the cars when they do the conversion in order to support the torque output of the BHW, which is often even higher after swaps because when the owners get the necessary ECU tune to make the engine cooperate with a manual trans they usually take the opportunity to get a free power boost as well. Aggressive, chattering track-day clutches and single mass flywheels combined with an engine whose torque and vibration output are both already relatively high, and all of it installed in a pretty heavy car, makes the transmission's life hard.

I think the vibration and high peak torque impulse in particular, when put through an SMF and aggressive clutch, are the key factors in the synchro breakage that most folks seem to experience as the failure mode of the transmissions. One guy on here who did one of these swaps destroyed 3rd gear synchro in multiple different DVZ transmissions, my GGB has a broken synchro on 3rd, the guy selling the wagon I mentioned above has destroyed 5th in two different FHN transmissions, and there are quite a few others....


e.

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That guy who was ate up the dvz transmissions was running an untuned ecu which meant rev hanging between every gear.

He was also running a light weight aftermarket flyweel probably 16lbs or less.

To top it off he was runing an unsprung clutch disk.

He had everything going wrong for him.

The durability of the 5 speeds in the passat is not bad at all. The 6 speeds are the picky ones requiring a DMF and the most reputable exporter on here wont ship them out without upgades/rebuild.

There are far more issues with the synchros on the B and D series honda transmissions than the passat b5 and b5.5 5 speeds, the Honda civic and integra platforms were some of the most modded and reliable vehicles ever built.

The lack of reliability on the passats comes from neglected automatic transmissions failing before 150k, cam wear, balance shaft explosions, worn out ball joints and control arm bushings and electrical issues from water intrusions from sunroof or under the hood.

blazen71 said:

http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=502713

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Yeah, that was the one I was talking about. Looks like a pretty solid starting point.

PickleRick said:

That guy who was ate up the dvz transmissions was running an untuned ecu which meant rev hanging between every gear.

He was also running a light weight aftermarket flyweel probably 16lbs or less.

To top it off he was runing an unsprung clutch disk.

He had everything going wrong for him.

The durability of the 5 speeds in the passat is not bad at all. The 6 speeds are the picky ones requiring a DMF and the most reputable exporter on here wont ship them out without upgades/rebuild.

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I agree. It does not seem to me that the 5spd trans itself is especially fragile. The issue is that people get faced with trying to find a compromise of 3 conflicting factors:
a) wanting a clutch with enough torque capacity for a tuned engine
b) wanting to stay with a 5spd trans and 228mm flywheel (or whitbread's SMF) in order to avoid needing the special Euro starter and 6spd shifter parts, and to avoid the bellhousing spacer and having to find their chosen solution (or crossing their fingers) for sufficient pilot bearing engagement
c) not wanting to break the bank buying a four figure flywheel and clutch combo like the SRE setup or similar, since in many cases the trans swap already costs more than the value of the car

This makes a beefed up competition type clutch and 228mm SMF seem like a tempting answer, but then it turns out the car is miserable to drive and the clutch beats the transmission to death. Too many of the options out there have too much grab and chatter and often also seem to have poor life span, like the one you experienced. Seems to me that, like you say, the transmissions would live quite happily IF they get installed behind a reasonable clutch and flywheel setup. But it seems like they get hurt in these cars at a higher rate than usual if the setup is wrong.

Uberhare, you said you got an SRE package but decided not to use it after trying one out, what did you notice that made the decision for you? Heavy pedal?

Uberhare said:

I converted my with the 6 speed and factory 240mm DMF setup. It was quite nice to drive and I averaged about 5.5L/100K doing mostly highway. I bought an SRE clutch setup but never installed it after driving someone else's.

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Still wanna buy that SRE if your selling...

The SRE IS a heavy pedal but it is smooth right out of the box.

SRE I found heavy. I'm holding on to it for now. I've got all the parts to build the next version of my BHW in AWD 6 speed.

Uberhare said:

SRE I found heavy. I'm holding on to it for now. I've got all the parts to build the next version of my BHW in AWD 6 speed.

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Oooo.... trans and diff from EU or from a W8?

Euro trans. I managed to find the right TDI box that matches the W8 auto rear diff (which I have 4 of) Might be a bit tall though, she'll be a super highway cruiser which I won't mind with the 6 speed. We just need to raise our speed limits to 130.