1993 Volkswagen Passat GLX from North America - Comments

Almost Every thing. Heater core at 50,500,Auxiliary water pump, Thermostat housing, Fuel filter busted, sunroof broke, shocks.Replaced almost all cooling hoses. Cup holder cracked, too much oil leaks, Hood doesn't lock, new catalytic converter.Oh! and last year at 84,000 miles, water got into the transmission after the transmission Cooler broke. Believe it or not, the transmission is okey though shifts alittle bit rough. Recently replaced the speed sensor to save the tranny. And lastly, the engine gets extremely hot. I have spent a lot of money, but I loved this car's performance wise until recently.Some repair work on this car is more expensive than a BMW.

If I was a mechanic, I will keep it until the wheels fall off coz I love this car.Most people dont believe its a 1993 because its very pretty.

You have put nearly 45000 miles on this car in two years.

It is already 10 years old and you wonder why things are going wrong?

That is a lot of broken stuff for under 100k miles. I have a 1993 Accord EX with over 150k miles that has only needed a routine timing belt.

Heater, AC, AT, PS, hoses, radiator, heater core, evaporator, power windows, etc... are all OE.

It did get broken into twice in the late 90's, though, so the radio is no longer OE.

Maintenance and repairs total $1500-$2000 for the life of the car! That is T-belt, brakes, tires, etc...!

Absolute Lemon Car! As referenced above, all of these failed including the door handles, windows all the way around. Caveat! This car will cost you an arm and a leg... IF you bring this car to a mechanic for over heating, make sure you get several opinions first! All heating related, cooling related parts on this car will fail if one part fails! 3 Heater Cores (VW has just begun to call this part "recalled" and will fix the heater core problem for you and reimburse for other parts and labor related to heater cores - as for everything else that seems to fail, Good luck!). You may run into problems with the heater core simply failing, spraying scalding collant everywhere in the passenger compartment, namely at your feet if you are passenger or drive and then additionally into the passenger compartment via the heating vents, front windshielf defroster rendering the windshielf useless to see out of. This car also has ignition coil problems on top of what has already been said... It is a crap shoot on these cars. Some are still out there running fine and you have to admit that it is a fun, well handling car however if it starts to break do all that you can to begin fixing it before other parts begin to fail. Oh... I forgot, the parking brake will cease on you in the winter causing the rear tires to lock rendering the car useless. Lemon, Lemon, Lemon. We thought about getting a newer VW, however we keep hearing stories about the newest models going into the shop time after time after time. What happened! I thought VW's were OK, german engineered cars. We bought a 1985 Volvo station wagon that takes a licking and is truly still ticking. We are going to keep driving the Passat as long as it doesn't kill us which it may, but hey, who in the auto manufacturing world cares? VW should take this car back, reimburse us for everything! and use it as a study case.

I would like to add in that my passat 1993 glx VR6 is wonderful.. I got the car from a friend that blew the water pump than the head gasket. She told me if you can move the car it's your free, OK I said, so I went to my shop and got the trailer put it on and took it home. Now is where it got fun. I had ahard time finding the book on this, I found it though Bentley cost 65.00. I thought that it would be a project, but I striped it down in 2 hours. The head was needing to be plained 18 thous. cost 50.00, not a bad price. But needless to say that I have rebuilt this car with all new parts in the motor and have added the turbo package to it and now looking for the 4 wheel drive unit for it. Getting the car for free and only spending 1,300.00 fixing it, hands down best gas 28 mpg on the highway and 19.8 city. My car has 168,456 miles on it. Any questions about it you can contact me at Richhasgonenutts@adelphia.com I will be glad to help anyone tring to fix theres.. Richard.