The latest cheap shed, Passat PD130

[Djw John]

I'm not sure why I do it to myself but I've ended up with this. Sold my Uncle the Saab we had and asked what he was doing with his passat, "scrapping it, it's ruined", then I heard someone who sounded just like me saying "I'll fill the saab up and take the passat in exhange". Wife was over the moon about the first half of the conversation when she got home, less so about the next bit.

So details, 2001 Passat S B5.5 PD130 on 197k, loads and loads of history, MOT until December and a new clutch 4k ago. But I'm not convinced it had been cleaned or hoovered in the 5 years he owned it. Got it looking like this

Untitled by john.holligan, on Flickr

Untitled by john.holligan, on Flickr

Untitled by john.holligan, on Flickr

Untitled by john.holligan, on Flickr

Untitled by john.holligan, on Flickr

Untitled by john.holligan, on Flickr

Untitled by john.holligan, on Flickr

Untitled by john.holligan, on Flickr

Untitled by john.holligan, on Flickr

First things first, what can I do for free?

Untitled by john.holligan, on Flickr

And took out the Alpine headunit and sold it for £30! Went and bought a new light, wipers and various odds and sods from the scrappies then set about trying to clean the interior. Spent about 3 hours and the only thing that was ok really was the mats (that aren't even for this!)

Untitled by john.holligan, on Flickr

The seats still looked like this

Untitled by john.holligan, on Flickr

Untitled by john.holligan, on Flickr

 

[Djw John]

In that time I'd used a little, done some maths and realised that if I sell the RB I can get the flamer better so the decision was made to keep this for a little while.

What better to do than take the standard headunit back out and take the alpine from the RB so its got bluetooth and this

Untitled by john.holligan, on Flickr

which highlighted that every single speaker looked similar to this

Untitled by john.holligan, on Flickr

got 2 from a scrappies for the front and left the rears disconnected cos I don't like rearfill anyway

On Sunday night I was struggling to sleep and ended uo browsing ebay, which is a stupid thing to do. But then found these locally for £100, heated leather ftw!

Untitled by john.holligan, on Flickr

Got the full interior from the Highline spec one so leather seats, doorcards and centre console Monday afternoon and had it all fitted by the evening, very easy to do on these cars

Untitled by john.holligan, on Flickr

Untitled by john.holligan, on Flickr

Gave the carpets a good hoover whilst it was all out and it honestly feels like a different car now! Final interior things to do are a new gear gaiter and a mk4 golf 3 spoke steering wheel.

 

[Djw John]

Needed to get rid of this shonky mesh

Got a grill for a fiver, needs a clean but that fine

And last night for some stupid reason started to back to black it and gave the wheeltrims a cost spray of dragons breath!

Will need to clean it properly and finish back to blacking it. Then keep an eye out for some nice cheap alloys.

 

[Jason_E]

Such a solid engine, loving the effort to clean it up too.

One thing I did with my disgusting Volvo/Golf interiors was use a Magic sponge and some APC mixed with water, its a particularly good mix for removing the "Shine" off of dirty leather seats, but equally good for caked in aids on plastics. Give it a shot!

 

[Knuckles]

B5 avant fwends.

Cracking job on the upgrades already haha


Odd question but can you picture the levers for folding the rear seats down for me please.

 

[Djw John]

Good shout Jason, the only original bits of trim now are the dash, fag bin and rear boot bits, load cover is minging but not sure if I'll do much about that.

I knew you were odd @Knuckles but thats the strangest fetish I've heard of! But yes I will, wife is taking it to work tomorrow and obviously dark now so remind me if I forget.

I figured it was gonna cost about £50 to get the seats clean by a valter so man maths made the leather an easy decision!

 

[Jason_E]

I find that the magic sponge gets just about any stain off of anything (Insert your own jokes here). I wish I'd found out about its magical abilities sooner, especially during my teen years.... You can get a pack of them off amazon prime for bugger all! Couldn't believe how black the water was after I cleaned the steering wheel on the Volvo... properly grim.

 

[Djw John]

I think there might be one in the cupboard under the sink already. Don't have to be a teenager to have disturbing stains about the place. (owning a toddler requires one)

 

[Marc.]

Same colour as my family wagon. Mine's in a lot better nick than that though lol! Epic machines though, I have a soft spot for ours

 

[cat171]

A new front plate will really sort the front end out

 

[Djw John]

Epic is a sting word Marc!

Yeah, I'm surprised it was only an advisory at the last mot, a new pair will help it look slightly less s**t!

 

[imprezaworks]

What are these 'magic' sponges.

Good cars these, far better than the newer crapness

 

[Daniel]

What are these 'magic' sponges.

Good cars these, far better than the newer crapness

They are made of pure awesome. I love them!

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/142322986832

Get them wet, spray APC on the offending article, clean off. Wallop.

 

[Marc.]

Epic is a sting word Marc!

Yeah, I'm surprised it was only an advisory at the last mot, a new pair will help it look slightly less s**t!

Epic works for me - it does absolutely everything I need it to! For a 14 year old car, it's a lovely place to be as well, I really enjoy it.

 

[imprezaworks]

They are made of pure awesome. I love them!

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/142322986832

Get them wet, spray APC on the offending article, clean off. Wallop.

Likes of g101?

 

[Daniel]

Likes of g101?

That's what I use yes. But I like it very weak.

 

[imprezaworks]

Cool. Ordered some, cheap too

 

[Djw John]

Wife took it to work again today but left the lights on. Massive thanks to @Djw Dave for saving the day.

Also, does anyone know of a cheaper way of sorting the door module than the 7 billion pounds that VW forums seem to think it'll cost?

 

[dann2707]

One of my favourite cars I had was my seat ibiza with the same engine. I spent a lot of time and effort maintaining the engine as best as I could and got some unbelievable figures out if it in terms of mpg. I'll find you my thread as it might help for some ideas.

 

[Djw John]

So far all the work in the engine bay is unplugging the vac line to the egr and covered the rad with cardboard. If it manages tomorrow 300+ miles trip fine then I'll invest in a thermostat for it!
Found that I can do diagnostics on the climatatronic which highlighted that the gauge is a dirty liar.

 

[dann2707]

So far all the work in the engine bay is unplugging the vac line to the egr and covered the rad with cardboard. If it manages tomorrow 300+ miles trip fine then I'll invest in a thermostat for it!
Found that I can do diagnostics on the climatatronic which highlighted that the gauge is a dirty liar.

http://www.detailingworld.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=320705

Got it. Copied it a few hours ago and forgot to post haha

Found this I made too

https://www.briskoda.net/forums/top...and-how-to-fit-the-group-buy-egr-delete-pipe/

 

[DaveDreads]

Wanted one of these for my Mum, but ended up getting her a B5.5 1.8T 20V auto because it was an utter bargain, bloody love Passat estates, massive amounts of room and comfy as f*ck.

 

[Djw John]

Just got to Aberdeen in it, 70-80 the whole way, 40mpg. That doesn't seem that great to me. Given the clio does similar/more.

Not sure I'll have it long enough to make it worthwhile investigating the issue though!

 

[Daniel]

Just got to Aberdeen in it, 70-80 the whole way, 40mpg. That doesn't seem that great to me. Given the clio does similar/more.

Not sure I'll have it long enough to make it worthwhile investigating the issue though!

You would have seen 50mpg at 65/70.

 

[Djw John]

And even more bored.

 

[alistairolsen]

My bora would do 53 up the same road at 72 on cruise and that had also done 200k so it's definitely not right.

 

[Djw John]

I know the thermostat is weak, on the hidden climatronic menu I was keeping an eye on the temp, even with the rad completely blocked off with cardboard it was running high 70s, low 80s. The only was I can get it to be around 90 degrees is by kicking its hole in/sitting at 90. Got 37mpg on the way home but that was north of Aberdeen to near Edinburgh in 2 hours 10 so I'm not gonna complain about that!

I need to way up the options of what all needs done and how long I plan to keep it. The tyres make ling longs look premium, wife drifted it like a pro round a roundabout this morning with me behind her, held it lovely and was funny as f**k seeing this land yacht with a good full turn of opposite lock on at about 10-15 mph!

Just acutely aware that I dont want to fix it up too much as it'll always be a £600 car at the end of the day!

 

[Gray]

Epic barge.

I've got an A4 Avant PD130 (same car, different badge!).. It's covered a mere 163,000 miles, with minimal problems.

I was suffering from poor MPG and the engine / coolant not coming up to temp. £3 thermostat and a bottle of coolant, sorted.... MPG went from low 30's to mid 50's! On a long run I'll see 600 miles to a tank.

 

[Djw John]

That's more my sort of maths. All the vag forum bufties are banging on about how it has to be oem or everyone will die but f**k spending £70 to sort that out, car only cost that!

 

[Gray]

That's more my sort of maths. All the vag forum bufties are banging on about how it has to be oem or everyone will die but f**k spending £70 to sort that out, car only cost that!

Just checked, it was a Circoli branded thermostat - Looked identical to the OEM one I removed. I did buy genuine coolant from TPS though, was cheap enough and I bought Quantum PD oil at the same time.

I am sure you know, but the PD engines run on a very particular oil.. Book recommends 5w30, but if you've done moon miles use 5w40. It seemed to 'quieten' down my engine when warm.

 

[Djw John]

Yeah, they seem to be be most oil sensitive engines ever! Thanks for the tip though, I'll chuck that in when/if I service it.

 

[Christopher]

Awesome daily barge. Kinda want one now to replace my 1.2 daily.

 

[Gray]

Yeah, they seem to be be most oil sensitive engines ever! Thanks for the tip though, I'll chuck that in when/if I service it.

This guy on eBay is crazy cheap for servicing parts, based in Motherwell.. not sure how close you are, it's all Scotlandshire to me

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/222367137780

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk

 

[Djw John]

That's only about 20 miles from me, ideal cheers for that.

 

[alistairolsen]

They just have a feature that requires oil with a high shear resistance. All PD engines do. You can buy any PD suitable oil, but quantum from TPS is about the cheapest you'll get anyway short of buying in bulk.

 

[Djw John]

And........... it's broken.

Fell into limp mode yesterday on the way home from Glasgow. I'd noticed the mpg had been shocking (32 at 70mph) and it felt a little down on power and then it became a lot down on power.

Thankfully I was nearly at my wife's work so I ditched it there and stole her car to get the wee one home. Once she was in bed and I had someone to look after her I went and got it.

Wasn't in limp anymore but there was a big delay in pressing the throttle and anything happening, and it wasn't happy staying at a constant speed. So combined with that and me being pissed off with it I kicked its teeth in all the way home. 23mpg over 16 miles has to be some sort of record in these no?

Not looked at it since but my feelings are it's a loose hose or a blocked something.

 

[imprezaworks]

 

[Djw John]

Sold. Didn't lose on it but couldn't say I made profit. Covered all my costs including running it and enough left over for a takeaway!
Never did figure out the problem with it.

 

[Goodj]

PD is the answer to all questions that don't require revs

 

[Marc.]

MAF Sensor maybe? I had issues with mine a while back, wouldn't see above 60mph, and rubbish MPG's. Not that it matters, given you've chopped it in!

Once we finish up moving house, we'll be getting rid of ours too, I should think.