You said it has the VR6 ?

You will be as happy with this as you are your jetta. I know that the "more smarter" VW minds will chime in here, but I'll lead the way.

The VR6 has timing chains, 3 of them, and you need to pull the motor away from the trans (out of the car really) to change them (they are in the transmission side of the motor- draw your own conclusions here =). I think the replacement interval is every 80k or 120k. I'm not sure if they are interference or not (not sure if you bend valves from broken chains or not)

97 was the last year of that body style (they sold a few 97 Passat TDI's, I'd ebay my soul for one...) so thats good, but I'd expect the construction to be of the same quality as the Jetta. MAF/engine sensors will be more expensinve than your 2.0 Jetta. Mileage will be 20 to 26 mpg if everything is working ok. 123c is good on the HP numbers, for some reason 176hp out of a stock VR6. You could really rice this thing if you wanted to.

It is, like you said, a bigger car, and the VR6 models got all the options (leather, ABS, bells and whistles) so if that makes a difference to you...

IIRC the 97 passats with a 6cyl only had the VR6, I don't think that any audi model shipped with that motor. (I thought that audi had their own 60deg. V6 that they used for 6cyl applicaitons - I've never seen a VR6 motor mounted longitudinal.)

Free ? yeah, drive it till it dies, but that might be soon. I'm debating leaving my Jetta and getting back into a W123, 124 or W126.

-John

__________________
2009 Kia Sedona
2009 Honda Odyssey EX-L
12006 Jetta Pumpe Duse
(insert Mercedes here)

Husband, Father, sometimes friend =)