2002 Volkswagen Passat Wagon from North America - Comments

I have a 02 Passat w/1.8T and recently experienced the "stop engine, low oil pressure" light at 67k miles light. I took it to my local dealer and after chasing to find my receipts they proceeded to do a $1200 engine flush. Upon leaving the dealer the "check engine" light came on. The saga continues...

Same STOP warning came on for my wife & I this past weekend. We did what the car told us to do, STOP & called Roadside Assistance. We had the sludge issue, and fortunately, after documenting our 5 oil changes to the VW dealer, they got VW to cover the cost of repair. Also fortunately, our lease was up in 3 weeks...so, we went ahead an leased a new 2008 Passat Wagon (this one has a 2.0 engine, so we should not see this sludging issue). No cost out of pocket (nor should there have been!). Was able to walk away with a new, trouble free VW. I am annoyed that VW would not make an effort to contact it's Passat owners to warn of this issue... and truly feel for those who got screwed. This also contributes to my bias towards leasing a vehicle, vs. buying new or used. Lease, maintain, turn in, get a new trouble free car.

I'm glad to hear all these comments, I thought I was the only one with this problem and that it wasn't such a big deal, so now I'm angry, am I screwed? Cause the engine light comes on too, it went away for a while, but came back on like the others, and the stereo doesn't turn on, I check the manual, it says that sometimes it locks, and when you turn on the stereo it will show on the screen that it's locked, but the screen doesn't even turn on with instructions on how to decode it, so does anyone else have this problem??

I bought a pre-owned 2002 VW Passat Wagon with under 40K miles a little less than one year ago. Since then, I have had nothing but regrets about buying this car.

There has been a consistent electrical issue that the dealership didn't know about or decided not to tell me about. The first issue was when I turned my headlights on, a flashing yellow triangle symbol pops up and never goes away. I had paid for a bumper to bumper warranty, so brought it back to the dealership. They had no idea what the symbol meant, but replaced all the fuses anyway. Since it didn't seem to affect the car's performance, I decided to live with it.

The second issue was when I pushed the ASR button (for traction control) and the power to my radio and steering wheel controls (including horn) went out. After a full day at the authentic VW dealership (not where I bought the car), they also had no idea what was wrong, but had "fixed" the problem to the point where the stereo and horn worked as long as I never, ever used the ASR traction control. Awesome. But the car ran, so again I continued making payments and driving it.

Then the EPC light started to come on randomly. Once in awhile, the car wouldn't turn over on the first attempt, but then it would start and drive fine.

Then a few months later I get a letter from VW saying that a heat shield needed replacement (free of charge). While I was there, I opted for the 40K mile tune up, got my brakes replaced and had an oil change. The EPC problem was intermittent, and they couldn't recreate the issue, so there was nothing they could fix.

Well, now the piece of junk car is stalling (randomly, with no cause) at red lights. I put it into park, turn the engine off, and try to re-start. It coughs and sputters, but finally turns over with the EPC light on and horrible performance. I have to pull over, turn the car off, and try to re-start. On the second attempt, the car will turn over and run fine with no EPC light.

What is wrong with this car?? I am so sick of paying out the rear for an unreliable vehicle. I thought VW was the way to go, but NEVER again will I own one of these. Now driving is a stressful and joyless operation. Thank you Volkswagen!

I just looked at a lovely 2002 VW Passat wagon with only 90k miles on it, but after reading all these reviews, I think I better look elsewhere! I can't take the chance of having all these problems and I sure can't afford to make all the possible costly repairs! Thanks to everyone for your warning. I'm very sorry to those who didn't know what I now know about these VW wagons!

My 92 Passat Wagon has 87,000 miles and I really like the car. I have been worried about problems, even though I have had none as of yet... I have kept up all maintenance, and seen that the car is very expensive to maintain. After reading these comments, I am thinking about trading it in on a PT Cruiser before something goes wrong that I can't afford.