Friends do not let friends buy Volkswagons

[jcp123]

All the PCVs I have seen are vacuum actuated. There's no computer control. I think you have two separate issues - a vacuum leak and a bad thermostat.

[user removed]

Thermostat and fuel injector cleaner (techron-Chevron). Taped hole in PCV hose to eliminate unmetered air (already done).

Fresh oil change couldn't hurt, clean the plugs if they are recently replaced.

With a thermostat working properly you should see 180-200 cooling system temps, opening point may be on replacement stat, mine was 78.5 C, about 180 degrees middle of the stock gauge on my car.

I prefer OE or Robert Shaw, then Stant.

I can't see the hole in the PCV hose causing the condensation. Metered air would have the same humidity.

With stat working and a more than 2-3 mile each way commute, with fresh oil, the condensation should disappear.

Clear codes and drive it for a few days, see if codes set again. Operating temp needs to be above 180. Wouldn't hurt to run it agressively to help techron clean injectors.

If it runs good at high loads, where vacuum is minimal, but crapsout at low loads when vacuumis high, then suspect more vac leaks. If so maybe a smoke test of the induction system to locate EVERY vacuum leak or they can drive you crazy piecemeal.

The PCV supply hose is not really a vacuum leak directly, but indirectly it is allowing more air (unmetered) through the crankcase ventilation system which is technically a vacuum leak assuming it has a PCV valve going to the intake manifold.

That point (where PCV meets intake manifold and where there is vacuum) is where the excess unmetered air is entering the induction system and creating a lean condition in the ports closest to the PCV valve.

regards
mech

[Rembrant]

I just picked up another old VW TDI earlier this week.
It's a 2003 one owner car with 172k miles on it, and it has several issues...LOL. Check out the picture of the intake below...just pulled the EGR off last night....and I think the EGR valve was worse.

[Xist]

He bought a 2015 Passat.

[deejaaa]

i have an 02 jetta tdi, and no friends. my son, 22 yo, says it's gay, but it gets me 60 mpg in the summer and has let me down once. not bad for 3 years, almost. my truck is still down, a chevy. all of my vehicles have left me stranded a time or 2 and i have owned mostly chevys. except for the vw rabbit, fox and jetta.

[oil pan 4]

I figured out what was wrong with mine.
It just needed its 70,000 mile everything change.
Took it to the dealer 100 miles away, by trailer. They charged me $200 to diagnose it, that's not bad at least I knew what was wrong. Told me there were 4 things wrong with it.
Said it needed an ETC valve, MAF, diverter valve and oxygen sensors.
I didn't know what the ECT valve was so told them to replace it. Turns out that was actually the Engine Temperature Control sensor, I already replaced it with one from napa but it was bad. It is literally the easiest part on earth to change, you need no tools to do it. They charged $30 (not bad) for the sensor then $100 for the install, which took them maybe 20 seconds to do. If their service rep knew what they were talking about I could have saved $100.
The MAF was about $200 after core charge, I installed that. They wanted another $100 for 4 minutes of work to do that. I got the MAF from the dealer, everything I could find about the MAF on these vehicles is "only get an OE MAF from VW".
They wanted about $200 per oxygen sensor with parts and labor.
They wanted $88 for the diverter valve and another $100 to put that on too. That diverter valve takes about 1 minute to install and a pair of channel locks. I put on an ebay special that cost me $44.
Then after all that they wanted $100 to clear the codes, a job a $50 code scanner can do. All that added up to an initial quote of $1200 to $1300 to fix it for me. I got their bill down to about $480 putting most of the parts on my self and turning in that MAF core.
If I could have gotten it done for $380 (-$100 for the temp sender install) I would be loving the VW dealer.
I put the front oxygen sensor on from advance, that was $80 to $100. I bought the rear O2 but I may return it and not even bother.
So really basic tools plus an oxygen sensor socket could save you $800. All of these parts aside from the O2 sensors were about as difficult to change as an air filter. The O2 sensors just require that O2 socket and some way to get the vehicle up off the ground. So if you can do an oil change you can do an O2 sensor change.

And it needs an oil change, they only wanted $72 for that. Don't remember if that was in their original quote or not.
Doing it my self only costs about $35 even using the more expensive Castrol VW spec oil and proper filter. Next time I am just going to use rotella.

[Xist]

A friend was looking at cars on Craigslist and told me a Volkswagen was cute.

"No no no no no! Never!"

So, she started looking at smrt cars.

Do you guys have experience with those? I had not heard anything bad about them, just they need mid-grade fuel, which does not make sense to me, when it is supposed to be an economical car. The major complaint I found on-line was dealing with Mercedes Benz dealers. A hundred and thirty dollars an hour and expensive parts is to be expected with $50,000 cars. This one only has 28,700 miles.

The chart Ecky shared showed smrt cars being barely more reliable than Volkswagens, but one owner said they were horrible until 2003 and there were many (admittedly anecdotal) comments of people having few to no problems.

I am going to test drive it today if I have the time.

[Fingie]

the gearbox is semi-auto. They fail sometimes

[Andyinchville1]

Hi All,

Never drove a VW until my latest car (2003 Jetta TDI).

Had 210K when I first got it and now has about 225K on it.....NO problems at all and it gets 50 MPG highway if I do 60 MPH.

I have heard horror stories about VWs but I have been happy with mine....

So happy in fact that I would recommend that you NOT buy the ALH VWs (I think from 1999 to 2003) so it'd be easier for me to get another to keep in reserve when this one finally wears out (which in my reading should be well north of 500K miles) ;-O

Andy

[vskid3]

Can your friend afford to pay for maintenance? If money isn't a huge deal, they might as well get what they like. Smarts only get alright mileage for what they are, though, a 4 door compact car can easily beat them and you get twice the car. If friend is on a budget, try steering them towards something like a Civic or Corolla. Buying a European car on a budget can be a bad idea unless they can do any work that's required.