What to look for when purchasing 2006 tdi

Hi all, I am in the process of searching for an 2006 tdi Jetta. I know there a couple issues with this year and I am just wondering if anybody has some key things I should be looking at and listening for, before I go out and actually purchase one! I have test drove one and I really liked it. Thank you for any advice .

Shoot us some information on it my friend. Everything you can think of.

Well I have not picked out one in specific yet. Just wondering what I should be looking for and what to stay away from. Red flags, Green lights, etc. There are quite a few for sale within 100 miles. Varying from 85000km to 300000+ km. Obviously looking for lower km the better but still wanna know what I should look out for. When I said I test drive one. I just meant the car in general. Was at a dealer with 150000km on it for 8k. Canadian currency of course. There are better ones for sale with more options and around the same km or less for approx the same cost. I just wanted to get a feel for the car.

Obviously, you will want to understand the condition of the camshaft on a BRM motor. Has it been replaced and if so when and what hardware was used.

The dual mass flywheel is known for going bad, engine harness is too short, driver door harness is too short, causing electrical mayhem, there was a recall for the airbag cable connector under the seats (again, harness too short), as chris_b mentioned, the camshaft is more than often an issue, electrical grounds corrosion, parking brake cable might need to be adjusted, as it is too tight from the factory, causing drag. Headliner is known for sagging, if the car has a sunroof, the drains might clog, the front fenders have sound insulation (right above the fender) which in the winter absorbs salt leading to fender rust, the AIR recirc motor located behind the glove box will go bad, making a loud noise every time you'll place the car in reverse, the radio will probably go bad causing a battery drain. If the car has high mileage the door locking mechanisms will probably need to be replaced (in my case, randomly they were failing to lock the car in the winter, preventing the electrical system from going to sleep mode, causing random, annoying battery drains. From what I hear, turbo goes bad around 150k miles. The CV boots also go bad.
As you can tell, you will have to spend time and $$$ fixing and maintaining this car if you want to keep it on the road.

relumalutan said:

The dual mass flywheel is known for going bad, engine harness is too short, driver door harness is too short, causing electrical mayhem, there was a recall for the airbag cable connector under the seats (again, harness too short), as chris_b mentioned, the camshaft is more than often an issue, electrical grounds corrosion, parking brake cable might need to be adjusted, as it is too tight from the factory, causing drag. Headliner is known for sagging, if the car has a sunroof, the drains might clog, the front fenders have sound insulation (right above the fender) which in the winter absorbs salt leading to fender rust, the AIR recirc motor located behind the glove box will go bad, making a loud noise every time you'll place the car in reverse, the radio will probably go bad causing a battery drain. If the car has high mileage the door locking mechanisms will probably need to be replaced (in my case, randomly they were failing to lock the car in the winter, preventing the electrical system from going to sleep mode, causing random, annoying battery drains. From what I hear, turbo goes bad around 150k miles.
As you can tell, you will have to spend time and $$$ fixing and maintaining this car if you want to keep it on the road.

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LMBO, why do you guys like these things so much?

Feeeeg said:

LMBO, why do you guys like these things so much?

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Because this:





But seriously, though, you are now talking about a car that is over a decade old, and it is a hyper efficient car, which means it almost certainly has covered a lot of distance by now, and in Canada it will have had to suffer through some bad salt issues.

Common issues with the BRM cars:

DMFs (both manuals and automatic, but the automatic seems worse, updated parts available)
EGR coolers (leaking externally at the changeover flap shaft)
parking brake cables
camshafts (made much worse by incorrect oil use)
door harnesses (updated parts available)
door latches
engine harness (some of these are NLA, have to fix the one that is in there)
throttle flaps
alternator pulley
outer CV boots
headliners

I would say much of that stuff is in the 150k-250k mile range of normalcy, so not like it is happening over and over. And some of the stuff, like the door harness, you won't likely ever have to do again.

These cars are pretty solidly built, easy to work on, and age pretty well. Even with a half million miles on them, the well cared for ones still feel solid and drive nice. They are also easy to tweak some more power out of, if you wish.

Might mention wheel bearing failures due to seal failure and water getting into the bearing housing. Mine were failing at around 150K miles but were very easy to change out since they are mounted in a easily removable housing. Part cost was around $100 per wheel from what I remember.

MKV's are great cars and a more sophisticated platform than the earlier ALH powered ones. If you find a nice one that has been properly maintained you will have a great car.

Wheel bearings on everything are too random to point out a common failure. I think it is the one that nails a pothole that goes bad. Too many cars to list for that one. I had a bad one on an 80k mile 2003 Golf a couple weeks ago, the 2000 Jetta sitting next to it at 270k still had all its original ones installed. Same owner.

I don't think the A5 is any better or worse than any other modern car in that regard.

Thanks for all the info guys. That’s exactly what I’m looking for. I’m looking at one with a round 150k kilometres on them so under 100k miles. I know this has probabaly been beaten to death. But what is the best type of oil to be running in these engines?

Jpd686 said:

Thanks for all the info guys. That’s exactly what I’m looking for. I’m looking at one with a round 150k kilometres on them so under 100k miles. I know this has probabaly been beaten to death. But what is the best type of oil to be running in these engines?

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For the MKV, typically 5W 40 full synthetic that meets VW Spec 505.01.

Dont buy one. I did. Its sat broken down 75% or more since i did. Cam shaft went. Turbo went. Engine harness went. Driver door went. Common egr leak. POS. I cant stress it enough. Owned a mk4 jetta vr6. POS. Bought this...and well i wont buy another VW ever again.

borjawil said:

Dont buy one. I did. Its sat broken down 75% or more since i did. Cam shaft went. Turbo went. Engine harness went. Driver door went. Common egr leak. POS. I cant stress it enough. Owned a mk4 jetta vr6. POS. Bought this...and well i wont buy another VW ever again.

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I feel you. I guess it is a matter of how much s**t can go wrong with the car before the owner loses his cool. If you have skills and tools, you can try to fix the problems yourself, but even that adds up, as things are often breaking down on this model, or at least that has been my experience with my car.
I have a steady 8-4 job, and I also work on Saturdays, I love fixing my car but I'm getting tired of spending countless hours fixing it. If I would not had taken the time to fix it myself, the car would have been sold a loooong time ago, as I cannot imagine the amount of $$$$ needed to pay a shop for the repairs.
Even my girlfriend, which has tons of patience, has begun to question the reliability of MK5 TDI; instead of watching a movie or relaxing on the couch together, the issues with the car are keeping us frequently separated.
My hope is that I have fixed/replaced by now everything that could go wrong with it, but it always manages to surprise me with new issues. I'm currently at 250K miles.
A friend of mine had a 2010 TDI CUP, very nice looking car. He also fixed his car himself, but got tired of fixing it, gave up and took the buyback, bought a used Prius. He has a barn with a hydraulic car lift, I often use it to fix my car, while he makes fun of me all the time, asking me when will I give up and buy something more reliable. Stubborn me would not give up....yet.
Another friend, totally clueless when it comes about skills, owns a 2006 Passat 2.0T gas. Also many problems at around only 100k, I have fixed his car here and there, many electric nightmares, corroded wires, to the point that he could not open the car at all (they also suffer of driver's door harness chaffing). Last week his car died in the middle of an intersection, we had to push the car. I have diagnosed the problem to be the electronic module located on top of the fuel pump under the rear seat bench. He just paid a month ago the dealer $2,200 to have the transmission valve body replaced (by the way, it's acting up again, less than 1k miles). Dealer wants $750 to replace his driver's door harness (which is a manufacturer design defect), and $1000 for the suspension, as it is shot. After that he will sell the car for whatever he can obtain and lease a Chevy Trax for $160/month, in his case, still cheaper on the long term than keeping his current Passat.

Some cars are not a good fit for some people. I maintain a trainload of these cars, and the are generally pretty reliable, and the stuff that does need attention is quickly and easily addressed.

And they just run and run and run....

borjawil said:

Dont buy one. I did. Its sat broken down 75% or more since i did. Cam shaft went. Turbo went. Engine harness went. Driver door went. Common egr leak. POS. I cant stress it enough. Owned a mk4 jetta vr6. POS. Bought this...and well i wont buy another VW ever again.

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I had all of these same issues, but knew I would have them when looking at cars and budgeted accordingly. I would buy the same car again because I feel confident of pushing it another 150-200k miles. As Oilhammer says, these cars are not the right fit for some people. People like myself who are aware of these issues and plan on driving the car into the dirt are perfect for it.

I’m really torn on what to do. I really love these cars and am very mechanically inclined so I know I could do the work. Although I need something fairly reliable yet fuel efficient and not a bore to drive. Are these issues that once they pop up I would still be able to drive till the next available day to diagnose? Usually 1-3 days away? Or should I just go with. 99-03 and be done with it.

The camshaft symptoms are pretty obvious, you'll hear it in advance by a few months and you'll hear it when you look at the cars if it's about to go. I'd budget the 400 dollar harness when looking at the cars. It'll have intermittent electrical issues that could be ground connections that are dirty. The door harness is intermittent and can be repaired. The symptoms for a bad turbo should be obvious, assume 1,000 dollars to put a PD140 turbo(you might as well go for the more durable PD140 if you have to remove the factor turbo). The DMF flywheel is also going to have symptoms. Mine is doing fine, I believe it was probably replaced by the previous owner.

It's clear that I plan for the worst and hope for the best. When looking at a car, add up the cost of these repairs and ask yourself if the car's price, plus the amount above would make you still want the car. I found an '06 that looked like it came off the showroom which made it easy for me to say yes. I researched all the repair procedures and felt comfortable doing them myself.

Jpd686 said:

I’m really torn on what to do. I really love these cars and am very mechanically inclined so I know I could do the work. Although I need something fairly reliable yet fuel efficient and not a bore to drive. Are these issues that once they pop up I would still be able to drive till the next available day to diagnose? Usually 1-3 days away? Or should I just go with. 99-03 and be done with it.

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My car never had a catastrophic failure, it never let me stranded on the side of the road. All of the issues I have mentioned in my post (DMF, camshaft, mainly) gave me failure warnings way in advance, so I could plan the repairs. The only issues I can think of with immediate repercussions would be the door and engine harness, grounds, radio and door locks. These will prevent the Can-Bus from going to sleep, draining the battery overnight.
I don't know much about the MK4 platform, but I heard the ALH is pretty reliable.

The older A4 cars, especially when graced with the ALH, are going to generally be a little less problematic, but I don't think they age quite as well as the A5 does. But you could be splitting hairs there, too.

Never had to take a dash out of an A5, for anything, but I've had about 100 A4 dashes out for blowing foam, a few heater cores, etc.

The A5's suspension is FAR better, and FAR more durable.

Aside from the cheap and easy RCV, the A5's A/C system seems less troublesome, and while their fans can die too, they seem to last longer before they do, and there is no separate fan control module to worry about.

A5 window regulators are infinitely better than the A4. I have only ever done one... ever.... I've long lost count of how many A4 regulators I've done (and continue to do).

The A5's electric steering is pretty darn good in terms of durability, and it sure makes working on things easier.

They are also roomier, handle and stop better, and do have a few nice features (like winter wiper park) the older cars do not have.

The A5s seem to have better paint, too.

Never seen an A5 need any exhaust work, ever. Even on ones that are now much older than an A4 was at the time that it needed some exhaust work.

Only ever saw one ABS problem on an A5, but there have been a few ABS module issues on the A4 (there was even a recall on some).

Never seen a brake booster problem on an A5, done a few on the A4s.

There are good and bad things in everything.