I've heard the opposite, that it's the passenger side that's typically worse. That was the case with my car as well. I'm surprised you waited this long to have yours checked with all the warnings posted on this forum. The proper way to fix this is to weld/rivet in a new perch and preferably reinforce it with an extra brace, not just patch up the existing one. The bodyshop that did the work for me elected not to reapply undercoating in that area (with which I agreed) since it is the undercoating that seems to do more harm than good. Instead they painted and greased the area after installing the new perches. BTW, MB paid 50% of my expense and they picked the bodyshop for me.

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2004 VW Jetta TDI (manual)

Past MB's: '96 E300D, '83 240D, '82 300D, '87 300D, '87 420SEL