For your consideration.

[barry12345]

Volkswagen dieselgate cars where sold off in various venues by Volkswagen.
we never actually got a copy of the government mandated warranty on ours. We purchased it through a used car dealer that had an ex Volkswagen service advisor on staff. He told us what he thought the warranty was. I found out later it was two years longer than he mentioned.

Many where just sold through car auctions with no mention of the warranty. I kind of watched. Sure enough one turned up cheap with problems at a Dodge dealer as a trade in.

I called them. They told me their back shop could not deal with the problems. I asked them the millage and I already knew the year from their ad.

They did not know it was still under heavy warranty. I did not enlightened them. I suspect this situation will happen over and over again around north America. My guess is most of them have been subject to too much city driving. I did not take that one myself. If we were not on the verge of retiring from an income stream I might have. Fully loaded highline Passat.

First I would have had to drive there. Take it to A Volkswagen dealer to see if they could check it out. Would have had to get an appointment. From their description of the issues all would have been covered I suspected. This situation is more common than one would think. I have run across a few owners myself that did not know their car was still under Volkswagens dieselgate warranty.

I suspect this situation does not apply to Mercedes dieselgate cars. As there was too much correspondance with owners. I cannot remember even if Mercedes purchased them back from owners. Most the Volkswagens where buybacks with the company. We have rattled ours up to 100K miles in the past about two and a half years.

Two problems so far. Urea injector and exhaust restriction valve.Covered totally with no isues. Warranty still extends to the end of September next year if we do not put too many more miles on it.

First official inspection for retained soot in the soot particle container is at 120K. Naturally the warranty stops at 119K. You have to love these companies. I will have that checked at 118K without fail. Although with basically only highway miles it does not seem to be a problem. You plan of using these cars in primarily city driving they will cost you after the warranty.

Anyone that owns one of these type of diesels. Be it Volkswagon or Mercedes. Do your oil changes really early. When these engines start to consume base engine oil. I suspect without really knowing it will cause havoc in their pollution control system, At 100K miles ours does not appear to be using any base oil between changes. Just judging by the dipstick reading.

I also suspect again without knowing. Both Mercedes and Volkswagon are using very similar automatic transmissions. Volkswagen went from lifetime fill. As there is no dipstick. To change the transmission filter and oil every forty thousand miles. Up to the owner of course. Me paying Volkswagen to do an engine and automatic transmission oil change is around five hundred. Doing it myself being careful to follow the instructions. About half that cost.

I cannot find the ESP engine oil locally in 10-30 grade. I can find 5-20 mobile esp that is allowed. As is the 10-30 esp. Do not have the dealer change the engine oil unless you see what they are putting in. Volkswagon in Canada is putting in 0-20 esp I found out.

Transmission gets into 6th gear fast. It will hold it down to about !K revolutions. The engine revs are only 1200 at fifty miles per hour. That to me at least is loading the engine to some degree but basically unavoidable if you want the fuel millage these are capable of. Since diesel engines burn almost nothing at idle. You can average about 48 miles per American gallon in city driving.

Diesel fuel burns slower than gasoline. So the advantage of operating at 1200 rpms or less is more energy efficency. You are not losing the pistons moving away as quickly. So more work gets performed for the same amount of fuel. This seems to make up for all the stopping, Waiting at lights and almost constant speed changes. Things like fuel injectors are not rebuildable to my knowledge. So expensive like a lot of things on these more modern diesel engines. They will probably not make economical really high millage cars. Many of these Passats where built on the audi a4 production line. So there are a lot of simularities.

This year is the last year they are being produced. That assembly line fell below Volkswagons paint finishing quality unfortunatly. Generally quality of assembly was better than the Mexican plant though. Never any detail issues so far. Since the same car was also built in China. I almost have to assume a huge amount of the car is composed of Chinese made parts. The European built Passat is a different car. Never exported to north America to my knowledge.