Take a test drive (with your wife) before splurging this time?

😳 not sure they’d let that happen on a test drive!!

Have you considered a YouTube channel? Test drives, fault finding, home repairing. So much content!

(Half tongue in cheek, half tongue out of cheek 😛 )

Holy Moly, it doesn’t matter what you like if mrsgrips has effective veto.

No, because we both need to like it. She won’t always hate anything I like…??

surely the towing of a caravan is the main thing?

Not really, it has to be a decent car and also be able to tow because it isn’t always towing. Such cars exist, so there’s no need to waste fuel with an SUV.

Boom

You’ll never sell it now – it is complete 🙃

I did wrestle with this for a while… do I return these genuine original Mercedes-Benz sunglasses holders (two was maybe extravagant), or do I fit them knowing it won’t increase the resale price?

Mrs Grips has said she’s not really all that bothered about it so I can keep it if I want. She did drive for the first time the other day and she didn’t come back raving, but then it’s only 5 miles. She did mash one of the wheels against a kerb though whilst I was watching….

Between now and when the lease is up on the Hyundai, and we may only need one car, the payments will be about four and a half grand, less the two (or so) I’ll get from the Passat, means it’ll cost 2.5-3k, assuming I can clear the loan by selling it. That could be the price for peace of mind.

Is that the faint sound of a worn bearing in the Passat gearbox or am I imagining it..?

Is that the faint sound of a worn bearing in the Passat gearbox or am I imagining it..?

Definitely an issue for the next owner to worry about. Get some subframe bolts in it, then step away from the socket set!

Mrs Grips has said she’s not really all that bothered about it so I can keep it if I want.

sunglasses holders and an unofficial acceptance from MrsMols….

it’s staying!

Oh no she’s curbed it! That would make me sad/mad in equal parts… 😔

Mrs Grips has said she’s not really all that bothered about it so I can keep it if I want.

Translated: she hates the damn thing

mash one of the wheels against a kerb

that’s the excuse to try a set of smaller wheels.

Marvin must be a keeper after all the effort putting the sunglasses holder in!

Definitely an issue for the next owner to worry about. Get some subframe bolts in it, then step away from the socket set!

Bolts on order. Can’t do it this weekend as I have a riding date planned. I think I may have figured out where I went wrong – there are two different lengths of bolt, and I might’ve put the shorter one where the longer one should’ve gone. If so, there might be enough thread left to make it work. Otherwise I’ll need helicoil.

Fixed the handbrake though. Despite trying to different switches I had in the garage, it was in fact just the handbrake switch. £6.99 knockoff part from eBay, done.

that’s the excuse to try a set of smaller wheels.

They’ll have to come from Germany. I can get some nice 5 spoke staggered wheels for about 500 € or AMG 5 spoke ones for 700 €. Apparently Mercedes fans are really into the AMG thing so having non-AMG wheels might put a prospective buyer off. So if I got the non AMG ones I might have to hold onto the original wheels for re-sale; however if I got the AMG ones I could perhaps sell the old wheels on. But if I am going to get non-AMG wheels I’d rather have non-staggered so I could get less sporty tyres, but these are pretty hard to find.

The wheels in this vid are the cheapest at about £380 for a set, available in non-staggered which means I can get much cheaper tyres. Probably the best option tbh.

Do it, you know if makes sense

Check engine light just came on.

😬

Check engine mounts light?

You’ve got a VW. You should be used to that.

Mines been on for 2 years now 😃

It’s in limp mode innit.

I suspect sabotage.

Check engine light just came on.

History repeats itself first as farce then as tragedy!

Occams razer would state that you probably disturbed something doing the work you did

To paraphrase Baudelaire,
“The greatest trick German car makers ever pulled was convincing the world they were reliable”

Occams razer would state that you probably disturbed something doing the work you did

You’re very much onto something. Limp mode happens when the car receives conflicting sensor information about the amount of air and/or fuel that’s going in, so it reduces the power dramatically to make sure it’s not overboosting and destroying the engine. In turbo diesels probably the most common cause is the turbo vanes coking up which means they don’t move to where the computer wants them to. Probably the second most common cause is a leak in the air intake system usually because a hose has split or even popped off. When I did the engine mounts I was working around the air intake system.

I managed to read the codes with VCDS in generic OBDII mode and there was one code – “Leak in air intake system”. So it’s 95% certain that I’ve dislodged a hose as TJ says or possibly even forgotten to put it back on after moving it to access some bolts.

“The greatest trick German car makers ever pulled was convincing the world they were reliable”

They were reliable for a good period. The thing is that they’ve made a few key blunders, and they (like everyone else) have been cramming more and more stuff in the cars. They sell a lot of diesels of course, and there was a period where emissions regs have tightened and forced the use of technology that was fundamentally vulnerable. This affected German cars more cos they sold more diesels. That model of Passat, from one factory for about 9 months had a badly designed small part on the oil pump. A fairly small blunder in the grand scheme of things but it resulted in nearly every affected car failing spectacularly after about 50k miles and destroying its engine. Clearly bad press. But there are many other good engineering features that you never hear about. For example, some manufacturers used dual mass flywheels with little coil springs in as dampers. When these fail, the bits of spring can really mangle things up and even damage the bell housing. The flywheel I took off the Passat had leaf springs inside the flywheel so when they weakened they just stopped holding the two parts together. The result was a rattle on idle and a slight lack of damping under hard load, but no catastrophic failure. So despite all the issues I’ve had I would buy another VW.

The Merc, it has some pretty solid build features but those engine mounts looked a bit feeble for 500Nm of torque. That said, they didn’t actually fail. And there are some fairly flimsy clips in the engine bay too, the engine cover and air intake rattle a bit.

No hoses were obviously unclipped, so I jiggled them about a bit and made sure they were seated. Cleared the code, went to drop my daughter’s cooking stuff off at school, and it hasn’t come back despite booting it about a bit.

Weird. But as long as it behaves.

ah you’ve got a mystery ‘occasional EML’ on a modern diesel. zero chance of diagnosing that, just leave a portable code reader in the glovebox to clear it.

mine throws a ‘sensor voltage low’ once a month..

molgrips – Amazon has a selection of cheap but effective code readers for about twenty quid. Might just be a glowplug or something.

@molgrips on the V6 the engine intake, AFM housing, breathe system etc have a number of Orange Seals which do break down and dont like being removed and refitted, they are all cheap to replace. Yours will obviously be a different shape being a 250 (IIRC?) but I imagine they use the same materials, I bet one might be dislodged or nicked. Cheap to replace.

The Passat dual mass flywheel thing is a funny one.
You read on so many forums about people moaning about them from all manufacturers, ‘why would they do this, the aftermarket solid flyhweel I got from ali-express is so much better’ etc.

The Manufacturers could quite easily build a car that would last 200k miles and never break down.
Nobody owuld buy it though.

Just as no-body would have bought a 35k Passat brand new with a Solid flyhweel that meant its 2.0 tdi transferred all its vibration through to the cabin and driveline from new. etc etc….

Oh and yes, get a code reader. Every private car owner should have one.

Avoid the very cheapest models, and useful to get one that will read ABS and SRS systems.

Oh and yes, get a code reader. Every private car owner should have one.

Any recommendations?

Avoid the very cheapest models, and useful to get one that will read ABS and SRS systems.

That’s usually a long way past cheap, or was when I last checked.

Mine was under £100 and does the above, it was too far back in my Amazon purchases to find I’M afraid. Definitely sub £100.

@mogrim – I have a 2012 C250 cgi (petrol) and have this reader:

iCarsoft MB V1.0 – Mercedes, Sprinter & Smart Diagnostic Tool

Helped me diagnose a sticky throttle body which I removed, cleaned and lubed and solved my warning light and limp mode. Well worth £92.

Thanks for the suggestions!

Definitely a valve actuator – possibly…

Of course this happened the day before I had 4hr round trip to a meeting coupled with the purchase off Gumtree of new 18 inch wheels. I’ve had to reset the code (with VDCS in generic mode) four times and its associated not with full throttle acceleration but holding higher throttle up those hills on the A34 at 70 or more. The code has now changed to boost being outside control range which points at turbo sticky vanes or leaking vacuum hoses. The latter being an internet favourite.

@snotrag thanks for the tip. The air system shouldn’t be hard or expensive to fix, fingers crossed 🙂

Doesn’t it have a warranty? <sigh> 🙄

I just remembered on the way home, yes it has the warranty!

Warranty doesn’t cover problems caused by coking, but I don’t think it’s that.

Warranty doesn’t cover problems caused by coking, but I don’t want it be that.

FTFY. You hope it will be a seal , O ring , spring clip or pipe failure ,possibly on the turbo actuator side . It may well be sticky vanes which apparently can be cured with Mr Muscle oven cleaner squirted up the hot side

I don’t think it’s vanes because it’s had lots of long trips including towing a caravan round Wales, so I reckon that’s a good history. Plus I can move the vanes with my fingers and they feel very smooth, unlike others I’ve felt, so I do think it’s unlikely. Not impossible of course.

I did Mr Muscle in the Passat. Bit of a bastard on this twin turbo job though.

I’ve had to MrMuscle my Golf TDI – you can feel it stutter on long full boost full engine load pulls then it goes into limp mode.