Having a VW diesel in order ive been looking deeply into this and spoke to folks at the stealers. The truth is it's just a load of ****. Most of it is sensationalism and doom mongering from the media (who'd hve thunk it?!). It's true that VW put these devices in their cars to beat ridiculous US emissions tests, but it's only actually illegal there. In EU tests the cars have a test mode anyway, and every manufacture manipulates in these sort of ways, right down to disabling literally anything that isn't used in the test to make the engine run as lightly as possible. Air bags, stereo, lights etc all disconnected to save strain on the engine. Anything that's not needed is stripped out, the cars are little more than bare shells. This is all in line with the rules of the tests and none of it is illegal. This is why you will never in a million years get the MPG that the manufacturers claim. Its expected that this whole saga is likely to cost VW around 6bn euro's (half of their profits after tax from last year) to an estimated maximum of 11bn if a full recall is demanded. A recall would be entirely pointless as the software only makes a difference to the testing and makes absolutely **** all difference to the car out on the road. A far cry from the 18bn fines alone our all knowing media are telling everyone. This boils down to the Americans trying to throw a foreign manufacturer out of their market, and little else. It's funny the software was put there because fat lazy Americans can't be arsed to fill up a tank of additive (AdBlue) every few thousand miles so they made this software to use full AdBlue during testing whilst it barely uses any out of test mode so the fat lazy Americans can just have their mechanic do it once a year when they take it for a service, paying about 10x more for the benefit. So there's no need to panic if you're a VW owner and anyone with a bit of coin should be chucking it in VW shares now because they'll rocket again once this story is no longer news worthy and the typical mainstream loving sheep stop being environmentalists on social media. By the way the cars affected are the euro 5 1.6 and 2.0 TDI's with the Bosch ECU. New euro 6 cars aren't affected whatsoever.
I bet they didn't rig data given to Hitler. Volkswagen Timeline, 1940's... http://www.volkswagen.co.uk/timeline/index?decade=1940&max=25&q= 01 June 1945: 'Responsibility for the Volkswagen plant is handed over to the British Military Government to administer'. Fancy that!
VW Scandal: German HQ Raided By Prosecutors... http://news.sky.com/story/1566112/vw-scandal-german-hq-raided-by-prosecutors
More bad news if you're a VW owner. Fuel effiency figures, MPG, also rigged... http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/...ns-certification-800k-diesel-petrol-cars.html How it might affect you... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...y-VW-car-has-emissions-cheating-software.html
The PD 150's were brilliant engines. Shame the 1J platform wasn't. Requires a lot of modding to make it half decent, to lumpy, high, soft, bendy, twisty and front heavy, an 18 tonne artic can navigate bends better than a mk4. Not to mention its prone to rust around the sills, floor pan, boot lid and arches. And the crappy alternator pulleys and belt tensioners which always go, coolant temp sensors always go, mfd's packing in, tacky brittle oil return breathers that always snap (£60 for a new one and all! It's only a poxy little hose) location of said hose meaning the throttle body needs cleaning every week, the turbo's always block their boost pipes with gunk because of a stupid return pipe, the exhaust centre section is held on by a poxy little flimsy bracket that will snap at first sight of a speed bump, the battery case is in the way of the near side head light so you have to remove half the engine bay to change a bulb, the arm rests snap off ridiculously easy, the cup holders never work, the fuel filters are held on by a jubilee clip and being just in front of the rear wheel get covered in **** and worst of all salt off the road (believe me it takes some guts to take an angle grinder right next to the fuel tank). Oh and every single mk4 eats coil packs like there's going to be no tomorrow. Apart from all that definitely one of the best cars ever made. With regards the post about mpg figures being cheated, that's well known and every manufacturer does it. As mentioned in another post on here the tests are open to manipulation, anything that isn't needed in the test is switched off and disconnected, anything that doesn't need to be in the car isn't. They weigh a fraction of what it would on the road and the engine is basically just running itself, no lights, no air con, no stereo, no wipers, etc. The media is full of total bollocks about this story and making any tiny thing they can dig their claws into an earth shattering development, trying to whip up the outrage even more.
When I bought my VW in 2001 was warned by several by several suppliers not to go for the 150bhp versions as there were problems with the engine. I assume they were resolved?
Never hd one but as far as I'm aware they're bullet proof, easily go to 200k+ miles, and with a remap they're fast as fook. Noisy as fook and all though. They don't half make a racket.
Probably all pretty accurate stuff Bob but for me none of it detracts from what I personally found to be a superb car, in eight years all mine had was oil and filter changes and a couple of cambelt kits. Mine was the PD 130 which I understand to be preferable to many over the PD 150, one of the reasons being that on the 150 if the slave cylinder fails you need to crack the gearbox as that's where it resides. My old Golf was remapped to 165bhp anyway, and I loved it, it had covered 188,000 miles when I let it go.
I think the PD 150 has a much better gearbox on it, might be wrong on that one. Most it's common problems are avoidable with good care being taken and it's pretty bullet proof to be fair, and the ones that aren't are easy fixes anyway. I've had a mk4 for over three years, it's at 140k and its decided to start dropping to bits (indeed the fuel pump motor crapped it's pants yesterday). ****ing annoying as my new car is being built next week and now I keep having to pour money into this heap of ****. The engines never let me down but I think everything else has.
I love my 2007 Passat 1.9 TDI estate. Driven carefully, it easily returns more than 50mpg on longer journeys, high 40s on mixed journeys. Have managed to get 900 miles from a single tankful once. It's my fourth second hand Passat in a row - the others were all petrol and rarely did better than low 30s mpg. I look forward to being able to pick up another 2nd hand Passat diesel at a snip now they've had so much bad publicity. Bring it on ... Combine this with an electrically assisted pedal bike for central London journeys and that's perfectly green enough for me.
The problem that you have now is that you have one of the last Passat's with the bulletproof 1.9 engine, your next Passat will have to be the less than bulletproof 2.0. The amusing thing is that when I asked VW a few years ago why they'd dumped such a great engine for the 2.0 the answer they gave me was to gain improved emissions.
I start my new job in a couple of weeks as a car sales exec, it's at a main dealer franchise and fortunately has absolutely nothing to do with German cars or Vauxhall. Not that I'm touting or owt.
