Lovingly maintained in a sort of love/hate codependent semi-abusive relationship.

Age: well, about 75% of it dates from 2006
Mileage: again, varies quite a lot.

I would like to revise my prediction to 2k posts by Boxing Day.

🤣🙃

and Huzzzah for the Passat 👍

Passat passed the MOT. Of course 🙂

Am I the first to say…… Sell the Merc ?

Age: well, about 75% of it dates from 2006

Well, I laughed.

Grats.

Am I the first to say…… Sell the Merc ?

Not by a long chalk. 😁

Passat passed the MOT. Of course 🙂

*Applauds*

Am I the first to say…… Sell the Merc ?

No and you’re not the first to think of it either.

I’m too paranoid driving the Passat now – on the way back from the MOT place I was constantly listening for noises. No-one else buying a £1500 car is going to care that much so it has to go.

so what if you hear noises ? if it starts and stops it’s all good.

Passat passed the MOT. Of course

As if there was any doubt. We’ll done, as I said in my post yesterday. Always nice to get a pass when you’re invested in the repairs personally.

For those who might be considering the Passat, I saved this last time Moly talked of cleaning out the ashtrays…

Well done on the MOT!

Was that —^ because something on the heater/aircon bust?

No, he’d dropped a pound in the footwell

First go at helicoiling the subframe mounts – from the inside… 🙂

Was that —^ because something on the heater/aircon bust?

No, it filled with water when it rained. I pulled all that back to find it leaking at the base of the windscreen, which was a replacement so maybe that was it.

No, he’d dropped a pound in the footwell

Thanks, now I need to go flush cola out of my sinuses.

A warranty is there to cover breakage

Your mounts weren’t broken. They where worn. It’s why the car is less money than a new one.

If you read your policy it will say sudden and unforseen failure and breakage and not failue due to in service degradation. Or very similar

Yiu could if it’s insuranced warranty try the FSa but I doubt you’ll get anywhere.

Some policy’ ain’t like that.

I also don’t like tcw. If I remember they where a pain to deal with.

Fair re the mounts. But not the boost pipe. There is nothing about the induction system, the only mention of turbo is that coked up vanes aren’t covered. Nothing about the vacuum system either.

But, this wasn’t made clear at time of purchase.

mols, if you do a lot of your spannering on the drive…post some pics as it should be in a bit of a state.
Can you identify the various stains by vehicle and fluid type?

My Jag warranty has been very good, but then it does cost me an arm and a leg to be fair. I recently had the timing belt and water pump done (7 year service interval), and bizarrely the idlers were not included in the kit. Dealer got them covered under the warranty, as they thought it was equally ridiculous they weren’t included..

Pity the Passat is RHD. It would make a perfect Mongol rally car. I reckon it would get there and back trouble free with just the addition of sump and tank guards and some slightly higher/stiffer springs. I’m surprised there isn’t already a queue of STW bangernomics fans with a roll of 20s in their pockets outside your door, Molgrips.

No comment on the Merc, *bites tongue* musn’t comment on the Merc *picks up guitar, turns away from keyboard*…

Updates:

As I said earlier, initial diagnosis was boost pipe, and the place who diagnosed it were booked up til mid Jan. So I took it to a different specialist who have smoke tested it and said it’s the inlet manifold. A very common problem on this engine caused by incorrect torquing of the bolts at the factory which causes the plastic manifold to split. He quoted £1000 to fix it.

BUT

The inlet manifold IS listed in the warranty! Let’s see if I can actually get money out of them. The guy at the specialist here thought that I’d be able to have them do the work, pay them and claim it back.

🥳 don’t let them weasel out of it!

Also, the website they direct you to make a claim links you straight through to their preferred supplier booking system; however you are actually allowed to take it anywhere, which is a huge help.

Interesting…

Surely the cracks in the boost pipe would also have shown up in the smoke test though?

If they are cracked, they’ll also need replacing – although I guess they’re only a pittance compared to the manifold and labour.

Well first specialist didn’t smoke test it, just examined it and used the throttle to look and listen for leaks. They thought there was a crack in the boost pipe but apparently not the case. Based on that I’d already bought the pipe but it was only £50 so I’ll have them put it on anyway for good measure since those pipes can also crack.

A very common problem on this engine caused by incorrect torquing of the bolts at the factory

Will the warranty and ‘in service failure’ cover extend to a factory build error?

(Genuine question)

The garage called the warrant people, apparently they will pay, except for associated stuff like coolant (it needs draining) and gaskets. FFS how do you replace an inlet manifold without changing gaskets? Even when they pay out they’re shit.

I guess they don’t know the specifics of why an inlet manifold has cracked and if the allegations about bolts are correct (in case they are reading!)

They should cover the gasket.

Coolant I get it can be caught and reused.

Now that is a result. £1k for warranty, £1k for warranted fix. You’re now ahead of the game Moly. Congratulations. 😉

It’s back, well before Christmas so thanks to Cassley Autocare of Cardiff, great service. All done within a week, unlike the other two places that quoted me mid Jan.

The car is definitely quieter than it was originally. The leak may have been there from the start slightly, as it had sounded ever so slightly whooshy before at times. It doesn’t feel any quicker than it did originally, really, but it may be a touch more economical. And the transmission is now much smoother, which makes sense because if the transmission was expecting the engine to be producing more torque than it actually was it wouldn’t have been able to shift properly.

However given that I can’t imagine life without jobs to do on the car, I still have two. One is to fit the Alexa Auto thing so I can have full music access whilst driving, the other is to try and get what I think is an ink stain out of the expensively AMG branded passenger side floor mat.

 Alexa Auto

hahah. Everyone’s experience with voice control in cars;

You: “Play driving play list”

Car “calling your mum”

Well the hope is that Alexa will be better at it now than Mercedes were in 2009. Calling my Mum isn’t so bad, what’s worse is calling a random work contact that I used to work and be relativley friendly with a decade ago but really don’t care about now, that’s a far more stilted conversation.

However given that I can’t imagine life without jobs to do on the car, I still have two. One is to fit the Alexa Auto thing so I can have full music access whilst driving, the other is to try and get what I think is an ink stain out of the expensively AMG branded passenger side floor mat.

I sit here with mixed emotions.
Positive, as it seems the problems have been fixed and you’re left with 2 reasonable simply tasks left.
Negative, as I was hoping for more entertainment over the Xmas period.

Is there even a small chance that fitting the Alexa will mean you have to drop the engine? Or at least, could it turn into a much bigger job?
This year of all years, we need this. Please.

I sit here with mixed emotions.
Positive, as it seems the problems have been fixed and you’re left with 2 reasonable simply tasks left.
Negative, as I was hoping for more entertainment over the Xmas period.

This ^^^

Congrats on getting it all sorted. For now… 😉

Is there even a small chance that fitting the Alexa will mean you have to drop the engine?

Most likely outcome is that I damage part of the interior then fixate on repairing it.

Oh, there’s another one. Whoever fitted the towbar didn’t use thick enough cable for the fridge 12v supply so whilst it works it doesn’t work very well. I might try and change it for some thick stuff. That could get messy.

Good news Mols,a well deserved Christmas bonus.👍

@molgrips do you need an Alexa or do you have one already? Have one sitting doing nothing.

Ah, I bought the car specific one in black Friday week, only £20. Thanks tho. I plan to use it for music only as my phone has Google assistant which I use for other stuff, and whilst it integrates with Amazon Music a bit, it’s not very good.

I’m wholly sold on the Echo infrastructure, but I’m lead to believe that the Auto variant is gash. I’d be very interested to hear your experiences with it.

Well, it was reported as being gash because it’s crap at doing satnav style directions. Which is fairly obvious, really, it’s never going to be any good at that. You can’t follow just the audio with satnav. My car has satnav, phone integration, it’ll handle SMSes and that. The only thing I want Alexa for is asking to play stations and playlists. Maybe I’d set a reminder or drop in but probably not. I might drop in on the house cos my wife’s phone is often on silent.

It connects directly to the car for BT audio, and the Merc appears to do separate connections for phone and for audio, so I should be able to do phone via the phone and audio via the echo.

I was considering a widget that you plug into the older Merc infotainment and it can do the full wireless Android Auto experience on the original built-in screen using all the car’s built in buttons and mics etc, but a) it’s £500 and b) it still doesn’t solve the Google -> Amazon Music integration issues.

You can’t follow just the audio with satnav.

maybe not with Alexa, never used it. Google Maps directions are very verbose though, you could easily do it just from the audio description, no different to having someone in the passenger seat giving you directions!