1993 Volkswagen Passat GLX review from North America

The car has had two fuel pumps go bad within 6 weeks of each other. These were covered by the extended

warranty. The heater core went out at 40K miles. It took three trips to the dealer to get the dash fit corrected.

The car has had numerous small oil and coolant leaks which the dealer could not pinpoint.

The sunroof jamb and had to have $700 dollars of warranty work. The car had some ignition and spark plug wire problems that were not covered by the extended warranty.

The car failed a smog check in 2001 due to a bad ERG valve. I believe that was the last covered item we got fixed under the extended warranty. There were many other small repair too numerous to mention.

As with the other survey submitters we found that the car is a bit rare so parts and qualified people to work on it are hard to find as well. The car still get 26+ MPG on the highway and is comfortable and roomy. Our main problem was the local dealer and their inability to get the repairs done right. I would estimate that the $900 extended warranted add on we bought with the saved us $9000-$10000 in repairs.

Unfortunately it has expired and now the car needs a $3000 dollar automatic rebuild. We won't buy another VW mainly because of the dealer.