New TDI Owner

Hi All,

My wife and I just purchased a '13 Passat TDI SE yesterday. I have a few questions on the model and on diesel cars in general. I'm not new to diesels as I am on my 3rd GM Duramax truck but have never owned a diesel car. We chose the TDI because my wife will be putting on 20-30k mi / yr with a job change and she had been driving the truck. I have a company truck to drive, which is really nice.

I typically do all the maintnence on my own vehicles: Oil changes, fuel filter changes, air filter changes, etc....(easy stuff). Is all that fairly easy to do on this car? I took a quick peek today, but haven't had a good chance to look it over that well. I'm no master mechanic by any means, but am mechanically inclined. The first 3 services will be done by the dealer as it comes with buying a new car, but after that I will probably attempt doing them myself, except the DSG fluid changes.

Also, and I'm asking here only because I never asked at the dealer and the saleman never mentioned it, are these car DEF / urea injected? I assume the AdBlue is DEF? How often are you guys needing to top off the fluid?

Anyone drive their cars in the snow? Hoping it does better than her old Pontiac G6. It was horrible in any weather, even rain at some times, and really scared her out of driving a car. I pushed for the TDI being a diesel guy and hope we made the right choice.

So far we love the car. Got 48 avg. mpg on the way home from the dealer. According to the computer anyway.

Thanks for any input. Hope to learn lots from the forum.

Congrats on your purchase. Fuel filter changes aren't that hard. You can buy them at most parts places but you will have to order it. WIX has 'em but you'll have to call WIX for the part number. The one on file on their webpage is for 2009-2010 CJRA engines (2.0L TDI's in the Jettas/Golfs). Buy your DEF at Wal Mart and add it every 10,000 miles. Use a funnel. Typical refill is between 1.5-2.5 gallons (be careful when you pour it because it can ruin stuff). Oil and filter are done every 10,000 miles. NO NEED to change your oil earlier than 10,000 miles, unless you like to waste your hard-earned money. BE CERTAIN to use VW 507.00 spec'd oil or else you'll ruin your emission system and have a major headache. Oh, and don't forget to take advantage of the free VW services (oil change, tire rotations, fuel filter change, DEF (adblue) refill... etc.)!

Good information... As another new TDI owner this just answered a few of my questions as well. Got to love the first three free services.

Correction... fuel filters ARE a pain to find... VW dealer or a retailer who carries OEM Mann filters. Price is about $35 APIECE...

Baldwin does not have a X reference yet; WIX has one but does NOT sell it yet. Perhaps more R & D? I dunno. Purolator is not showing a X reference either. Looks like we'll hafta wait and see in the next 6 months - year. I didn't have this problem when I bought my 2002 Jetta Wagon in Jan. 2002... Buncha crap!

The aftermarket will have one soon I'm sure; I can't see forking over extra $$$ when I don't have to do so.

Welcome to the club! Congratulations on the new car.

For your free services, keep a close eye on the servicing dealer. Sadly, bad experiences at VW dealerships FAR out-weigh good experiences. There are a ton of posts here about dealerships using non-507 oil, overfilling crankcases, spilling DEF w/o properly cleaning it up, etc. etc.
As with any new car, establish a relationship with a single tech, and I would insist on the one with the most TDI experience. THAT INCLUDES THE FREE SERVICES! Do NOT let just any oil-jockey change your oil. You will regret it. You may want to ask here about your servicing dealer, to see if others have experience there.
BTW, DEF refills are included in your free services.

I second FormerOwner's advice to stick with the 10k oil changes. The lengthy thread here on used oil analyses has shown that the VWoA engineers know what they're talking about recommending this mileage.

Read up on fuel lubricity. Many here are using additives from the very beginning...Power Service, Stanadyne, OptiLube...there are others. Of course, make sure any additive is diesel particulate filter compatible.

I know all this sounds fussy, but hey, all VAG cars are...well...particular. If you treat them right, they return lots of smiles, as they're just so much fun to drive!

Congrats 05snpro! I too am (was) a Duramax guy and did all my own maintenance. Changing the oil in the Passat is very different as compared to the Duramax. You will have to take the panel that protects the engine off the car to get to the drain plug. I guess that's not much different than when you would have to remove the skid plate to hit all the lube point on Duramax. Also the Passat requires that you change it's washer when you take out the drain plug. I used to use a Fumoto valve on my Duramax. The oil filter is not a spin on filter. You just change the guts (for lack of a better description) from the top side. From what I understand, it is a bit of a challenge to get to.

As for driving in snow? I hope I never find out.

You a lots of time between now and when you have to deal with all of these issues. I would use Google or some other search engine and start looking at videos on all of the maintenance questions you asked about.

Good luck!

Regarding driving in the snow, that prospect was one of the many reasons we changed tires when we bought our TDI SE. Here near Philadelphia we don't usually get tons of snow, but enough. The OEM tires, Hankook Optimos, are commonly rated as abysmal in snow. I considered getting Blizzaks on winter rims, but decided we dont get enough snow anymore (global warming?) to justify, so we got MXV4's. We sold the new Hankooks on Craigslist to defray the cost of nice new Michelins.

tdiatlast said:

Welcome to the club! Congratulations on the new car.

For your free services, keep a close eye on the servicing dealer. Sadly, bad experiences at VW dealerships FAR out-weigh good experiences. There are a ton of posts here about dealerships using non-507 oil, overfilling crankcases, spilling DEF w/o properly cleaning it up, etc. etc.
As with any new car, establish a relationship with a single tech, and I would insist on the one with the most TDI experience. THAT INCLUDES THE FREE SERVICES! Do NOT let just any oil-jockey change your oil. You will regret it. You may want to ask here about your servicing dealer, to see if others have experience there.
BTW, DEF refills are included in your free services.

I second FormerOwner's advice to stick with the 10k oil changes. The lengthy thread here on used oil analyses has shown that the VWoA engineers know what they're talking about recommending this mileage.

Read up on fuel lubricity. Many here are using additives from the very beginning...Power Service, Stanadyne, OptiLube...there are others. Of course, make sure any additive is diesel particulate filter compatible.

I know all this sounds fussy, but hey, all VAG cars are...well...particular. If you treat them right, they return lots of smiles, as they're just so much fun to drive!

Click to expand...

Well, we bought the car from a Bergstrom dealer in Oshkosh, WI. They are quite a large chain in that area. The manager actually sold us the car he had been driving for a couple weeks (1400 mi) and gave us a fair discount on it. He said he's got 2 master VW techs that have almost 40 years of combined experience and feels that they are the best people to do ANY service on the car. The dealership is only 9 months old. We will see how the 6k mi check up goes and I will ask questions to the techs then. For now I am just hoping to drive & enjoy the car, not worry about maintnence, but I definately will be staying on top of it.

I will look into additives. Any preference among TDI owners? On the Duramax forums that I go on, people seem to have split opinions on additives. It definately can't hurt in my opinion but how much it really helps is the question I always seem to have.

I have read about people not really liking the Hankook tires that come on these cars. Our car actually has Continental tires on it. Couldn't tell you which model, but I've had good experiences with Continental tires in the past. Not sure if it was a Factory option or if the dealer changed them upon delivery. Anyway, the car cannot possibly be worse than our old G6 in the snow.

The oil filter on this car looks to be similar to Ford's Powerstroke motors that are cartridge style on the top side of the motor. Is that the correct assumption?

Thanks for the words guys.

The additive opinions are all over the map like on other diesel forums. Just do what ever makes you happy. I use Stanadyne because I still have a bunch from when I had my Duramax.

The oil filters are a cartridge type similar to the Ford PS.

05snopro: sounds like you're on top of this. Keep asking questions, though, as 40 years of experience doesn't mean a thing if there isn't a LOT of TDI experience.

6k check? What's that for? VWoA provides for a 90day/1k miles "check", which should be just that. They'll run your VIN for updates, tweak anything that needs tweaking, but, IMHO, no more than that. I would also respectfully decline any push for a 5k oil change, which is a waste of resources...again, IMO. If they push for the OC, then sadly, that tells you something about the dealership's mentality!

You've probably noticed the oil filter is partially obstructed. Getting it out is very messy. There's a DIY thread here giving the details.

Enjoy your new car, and all the buzzing/whirring/clicking that occurs after shutdown (normal) Also, read up on DPF regeneration if you need to, so the odor of burning paint, coolant fans running on high, elevated RPMs doesn't startle you!!!

Some have changed their own oil and filter in these engines. Most are waiting until the 40k service. I believe that if you can change the oil on this car, you can also do the DSG service. Get the VCS cable.

AdBlue is a brand of DEF. Most people are using about 2.5 gallons every 10k miles, but it is included in your 3/yr/36k mile scheduled services.

tdiatlast said:

Enjoy your new car, and all the buzzing/whirring/clicking that occurs after shutdown (normal)

Click to expand...

In my case, this is my first diesel vehicle I've driven and these noises sounded so much like my prius that my friend asked me if diesels are hybrids