[Delphinus]

Well .... there are issues of reliability, which is one thing, and issues of abuse, which is another thing. There are two sides to my complaints here. One, I have to replace stuff that I think are completely unreasonable to replace at 150k. This is where I think the car was abused in the years prior to me owning it. Things that I should have found when I looked the car over, but I missed. So this is my own fault, and I'm mad at myself for it. Water under the bridge now though. Two, the cost of parts and the whole accelerated maintenance schedule is a little rediculous. I knew the cost of parts was high for Passats going into this. I've been driving Passats since 1996. It's just that as the designs get more and more overengineered, it gets harder and harder to perform routine maintenance and as such the cost of things that should be trivial suddenly become nontrivial. But the cost here is comparative to high-end sports car when in actual fact it is not a sports car but a sedan. This is where I'm mad at VW. I look back at all my invoices for the last 2 and half years and it really is astounding. These are costs I expect from cars that are much more expensive than this one was.

The steering rack as far as I'm concerned is an issue of reliability. However the tranny is not. This car has had abuse in a prior life. It's just coming to light now, now that I've finally broken down and decided to start really getting dirty. I pulled the clutch out last week and it's been since then that I've really noticed these other issues. If it was driven hard enough to damage the gears in the box, then it's conceivable that it is also an abuse issue with the rack. I just personally have a lot of misgivings about VW's steering racks since I've had another VW (my 1991 GTI) that ate racks like they were candy. It's possible that was a one-off thing but there was something about that car that caused it to wear through racks like nobody's business. So when someone says "VW" and "steering rack" I get soured. But it could just be random bad luck.

The real issue, the real issue that caution anyone about Passats in general, is the total cost of ownership. You're going to find this out if you keep your car beyond your warrantee period. These cars are low-end Audis, and the cost of parts reflect this.

When they're running, there isn't much to compare. They are some of the nicest cars out there IMO. I am a real lover of VW's (just starting to not love OWNING VW's).

It's like tridacnid clams. I love looking at tridacnids, but having some in my tank is the most stressful thing. "It is alright? Is it alright? ooops I looked at it wrong, and it died." Gaahhhh!!!!

Whatcha going to do. Oh well.