banshee365
Veteran Member
Hey fellas. I've spent some time wrenching on a couple BRM's for family and friends. Our family is a fan of VW's. We've owned two. The last of which was a '13 Passat TDI that we sold back to VW. I've alway's liked working on the BRM and admired the MkV platform. I have been looking for one for myself for a while. I looked at many and walked away as the deal wasn't right. People want top market price for cars that are trashed and in need of dire mechanical repair whether they want to admit it or not.
I finally came across a CL ad on Christmas Day for a BRM that was sitting at a dealer that just diagnosed it with a bad turbo. It has 261k miles on it. They were pretty much done putting money into the car and the $2,900 quote sent them over the top. They were firm on the price but were asking a bit under $1k for it. They were the 2nd owners and kept meticulous maintenance on the car. They had 1/2" of paper work since they bought it in 2010 from every repair done at the dealer.
I went to look at it a couple day's ago. I was able take a detailed looked over the car and also scan it with VCDS. I even had a chance to talk to the tech that diagnosed it. He came across like he really knew what he was doing. The car ran like total crap. It wouldn't run above idle, it smoked like hell and it wouldn't build any boost. The tech said the actuator held vacuum and the boost piping was tested for leaks. The tech deemed the turbo to have failed due to the inability of the car to produce boost. Whatever. I was skeptical as I was able to hear the car run. I've worked on another that ran EXACTLY like this one was. He was right about the no boost part. The car also had no codes. The fuel in the car was sort of nasty so they had emptied the tank, replaced the fuel filter and poured 5 gallons of fresh fuel in the tank.
Even though I was skeptical of the turbo having any problems what-so-ever and I was pretty sure I knew what the problem was without even putting a wrench to the car I agreed to pay the asking price with the comfort level that even if the turbo was no good that I would still be ahead of market value.
I got the car home last night (had to hit the car hauler with some speed as it didn't have enough power to pull itself up at idle). I threw a new OEM battery in it as the Duralast garbage was leaking acid after 2 years. Today I wanted to prove my suspicions. I removed the EGR valve and, sure enough, it was cracked open a little bit. I shut it with my thumb and reinstalled it with the valve left unplugged. The car runs perfect. It builds boost just fine and sounds great. A new Pierburg EGR valve and this issue be gone. The dealer really screwed this one up. The owners were obviously not up for spending the $2,900 to replace the turbo but they would have been REALLY pissed if they spent that and it didn't do a thing to the concern.
Dealerships...
With that out of the way I'm very comfortable in splurging on a bunch of maintenance that the car is in need of. It needs a new headliner which is going to be the priciest part. It drives me crazy. I've done a few headliners with the proper material on other brands but don't know if I can find the correct foam backed material to match the sunroof sunshade so I may just have to drop the $450 on the OEM part. Other than the headliner I'm going to do the timing belt, water pump, DSG service and Franko6 'fixed' EGR cooler as this cars 2nd EGR cooler is leaking under boost. I can hear it. There is lots of oil covering the turbo and dripping on the heat hoses like they like to do so at some point I will probably remove the intake and turbo to clean them all up and reinstall. I may just wait to change the EGR cooler at that time.
I really wanted a 5 speed package 2 car but for this price I couldn't pass it up. It's a package 1 with sunroof DSG car. I may have to post some photos of it once I wash it. I'm pretty proud of how this deal is going so far.
I finally came across a CL ad on Christmas Day for a BRM that was sitting at a dealer that just diagnosed it with a bad turbo. It has 261k miles on it. They were pretty much done putting money into the car and the $2,900 quote sent them over the top. They were firm on the price but were asking a bit under $1k for it. They were the 2nd owners and kept meticulous maintenance on the car. They had 1/2" of paper work since they bought it in 2010 from every repair done at the dealer.
I went to look at it a couple day's ago. I was able take a detailed looked over the car and also scan it with VCDS. I even had a chance to talk to the tech that diagnosed it. He came across like he really knew what he was doing. The car ran like total crap. It wouldn't run above idle, it smoked like hell and it wouldn't build any boost. The tech said the actuator held vacuum and the boost piping was tested for leaks. The tech deemed the turbo to have failed due to the inability of the car to produce boost. Whatever. I was skeptical as I was able to hear the car run. I've worked on another that ran EXACTLY like this one was. He was right about the no boost part. The car also had no codes. The fuel in the car was sort of nasty so they had emptied the tank, replaced the fuel filter and poured 5 gallons of fresh fuel in the tank.
Even though I was skeptical of the turbo having any problems what-so-ever and I was pretty sure I knew what the problem was without even putting a wrench to the car I agreed to pay the asking price with the comfort level that even if the turbo was no good that I would still be ahead of market value.
I got the car home last night (had to hit the car hauler with some speed as it didn't have enough power to pull itself up at idle). I threw a new OEM battery in it as the Duralast garbage was leaking acid after 2 years. Today I wanted to prove my suspicions. I removed the EGR valve and, sure enough, it was cracked open a little bit. I shut it with my thumb and reinstalled it with the valve left unplugged. The car runs perfect. It builds boost just fine and sounds great. A new Pierburg EGR valve and this issue be gone. The dealer really screwed this one up. The owners were obviously not up for spending the $2,900 to replace the turbo but they would have been REALLY pissed if they spent that and it didn't do a thing to the concern.
Dealerships...
With that out of the way I'm very comfortable in splurging on a bunch of maintenance that the car is in need of. It needs a new headliner which is going to be the priciest part. It drives me crazy. I've done a few headliners with the proper material on other brands but don't know if I can find the correct foam backed material to match the sunroof sunshade so I may just have to drop the $450 on the OEM part. Other than the headliner I'm going to do the timing belt, water pump, DSG service and Franko6 'fixed' EGR cooler as this cars 2nd EGR cooler is leaking under boost. I can hear it. There is lots of oil covering the turbo and dripping on the heat hoses like they like to do so at some point I will probably remove the intake and turbo to clean them all up and reinstall. I may just wait to change the EGR cooler at that time.
I really wanted a 5 speed package 2 car but for this price I couldn't pass it up. It's a package 1 with sunroof DSG car. I may have to post some photos of it once I wash it. I'm pretty proud of how this deal is going so far.