I thought I'd start up a thread about my daily wagon as there seems to be some love for B3 Passats on here, and mine's slowly creeping away from being standard now.
I bought this last October as a response to my Scirocco's engine seizing solid on the motorway, the idea being that it'd give me transport while I was at uni and didn't have time or money to sort the 'rocco. I've always had a thing for Passat estates, my parents had a B2 when I was a kid, and a good friend had his mums old B5 estate as his first car that we did a load of mountain-biking road-trips in, so they've earned my appreciation, it helps that they're bloody good cars too!
My Scirocco seized its engine on a trip back home from uni for the weekend (Oxford - Chard), and having spent about 6 hours on the side of the road waiting for recovery I managed to get the car dragged back home where I was able to diagnose the engine as "Well and truly F***ed". Being at uni in my final year I contemplated doing without a car until I finished, but decided to have a browse around and see what was about. One of the first cars I spotted was this Passat, being sold on here by 'tsp'. He was only wanting £400 with just off 5 months tax and 6 months test. It had a few little faults, but nothing expencive/hard to fix, and for that money even if it only lasted until the test then donated its engine to the Scirocco (which is already 1.6td converted), then it would still be worth while for a few months motoring.
I called in a favor with a friend who's local to tsp and he went and looked at the car for me on the Saturday to save me the trip to Portsmouth (~80 miles), he reported back that it was a very clean car, the only faults being those listed in the advert, so I booked a train to Portsmouth for Monday morning, collected the car and drove the rest of the way to Oxford in the Passat. The car was exactly as described, and actually in great condition bodywork wise. There's no rust on it anywhere that I've found, and very few marks on the bodywork. It also came with a tow bar fitted with twin electrics and a roof rack. (Both a bonus for me.)
As I collected it:
Standard and with a couple of little faults:
The clutch bites a little high, but works fine.
The drivers side rear door wouldn't unlock.
The drivers window needs a bit of persuading to get back to the top after it's been rolled down.
The engine mounts are really quite soggy.
The horn didn't work.
It didn't have a stereo.
I chucked in the stereo from my Scirocco and this was basically how it stayed until MOT time, besides needing a new battery it was faultless and returned a minimum of 47mpg. I sent it in for its test and it returned needing new track rod ends, a brake pipe, rear wheel bearing and needing the rear door and horn fixing. I didn't think that was too bad for a £400 car on 155k, so got it sorted and smoked around in it for a little while longer. I say smoked, but it's actually one of the cleanest running diesels I've experienced, you only ever see a tiny hint of smoke if you really boot it at night when other cars headlights show up the smoke. The back of the car never gets sooty, and the oil level's never needed touching between services.
After a while a guy in my Materials lectures mentioned he had a set of coilovers he'd bought new for his B4 but never fitted, so I snapped them up and threw them on, as I was board of the boat like ride, it was nice in bumpy back roads, but on smoother roads it wallowed enough to actually be less comfortable than a firmer set-up in my opinion. It was also soft enough that any real load in the boot would give it comedy rake, making it horrid to drive.
The coilovers went on and this is how it stayed until tonight, ever reliable, always returning 47-56mpg, comfy, quiet and dependable:
Then earlier today when striping the front brakes down to stop an annoying squealing (all sorted), I noticed that the front tyres were getting a little boarder-line, and I need to tow a Mini back from London on Thursday, so decided to get it sorted ASAP. I drove over to my dads house and grabbed the Scirocco's wheels, some 15x7 BBS originally off an E30.
So this is how it sits now:
I'm not sold on the style of wheels, but they're better than the steels, and its nice to be back on decent quality tyres again, I'm not much of a budget tyre fan. I'll be keeping an eye out for some more flat faced 16" wheels I think.
So the plans for the future. Not a huge amount really:
- I want to get vented discs on the front as the brakes are good, but they do fade quite badly on some of the hilly roads around here.
- I'd like to change the seats sometime, as the basic ones in it now are somewhat shapeless. Ideally I'll grab some mk3 Golf GTI seats for the front, and a B4 interior for the rear seats and door cards. (16cm speakers and tweeters in all 4 doors.)
- Fit remote central locking.
- Replace the engine mounts.
- Replace the tatty front plate.
- Paint the faded plastics black.
- Touch up the 2 small scratches.
- Paint the VW badges (satin black or colour coded), as they've gone white and lost their chrome effect.
- Tint the rear lights all red.
- I'd like to drop it a little more, but I'll need to roll the arches, and much more drop will need the front legs notching to keep any real suspension travel. These things are great for ground clearance, so that's not really a concern.
- If I find my self towing with it much then it'll probably get the boost and fuel turned up a touch, and if that's not enough, then depending on how I get on with it in the future it may receive a 1.9tdi of some sort, preferably one of the PD lumps from a mk4 Golf/A3.
Otherwise it'll just be maintenance. I'm really enjoying it as a daily, it's cheap, comfy, practical and old enough to have a little character and stand out from the average cars on the road.
(PS. Apologies for the crappy phone camera pictures, I'll get some proper ones sometime.)
I bought this last October as a response to my Scirocco's engine seizing solid on the motorway, the idea being that it'd give me transport while I was at uni and didn't have time or money to sort the 'rocco. I've always had a thing for Passat estates, my parents had a B2 when I was a kid, and a good friend had his mums old B5 estate as his first car that we did a load of mountain-biking road-trips in, so they've earned my appreciation, it helps that they're bloody good cars too!
My Scirocco seized its engine on a trip back home from uni for the weekend (Oxford - Chard), and having spent about 6 hours on the side of the road waiting for recovery I managed to get the car dragged back home where I was able to diagnose the engine as "Well and truly F***ed". Being at uni in my final year I contemplated doing without a car until I finished, but decided to have a browse around and see what was about. One of the first cars I spotted was this Passat, being sold on here by 'tsp'. He was only wanting £400 with just off 5 months tax and 6 months test. It had a few little faults, but nothing expencive/hard to fix, and for that money even if it only lasted until the test then donated its engine to the Scirocco (which is already 1.6td converted), then it would still be worth while for a few months motoring.
I called in a favor with a friend who's local to tsp and he went and looked at the car for me on the Saturday to save me the trip to Portsmouth (~80 miles), he reported back that it was a very clean car, the only faults being those listed in the advert, so I booked a train to Portsmouth for Monday morning, collected the car and drove the rest of the way to Oxford in the Passat. The car was exactly as described, and actually in great condition bodywork wise. There's no rust on it anywhere that I've found, and very few marks on the bodywork. It also came with a tow bar fitted with twin electrics and a roof rack. (Both a bonus for me.)
As I collected it:
Standard and with a couple of little faults:
The clutch bites a little high, but works fine.
The drivers side rear door wouldn't unlock.
The drivers window needs a bit of persuading to get back to the top after it's been rolled down.
The engine mounts are really quite soggy.
The horn didn't work.
It didn't have a stereo.
I chucked in the stereo from my Scirocco and this was basically how it stayed until MOT time, besides needing a new battery it was faultless and returned a minimum of 47mpg. I sent it in for its test and it returned needing new track rod ends, a brake pipe, rear wheel bearing and needing the rear door and horn fixing. I didn't think that was too bad for a £400 car on 155k, so got it sorted and smoked around in it for a little while longer. I say smoked, but it's actually one of the cleanest running diesels I've experienced, you only ever see a tiny hint of smoke if you really boot it at night when other cars headlights show up the smoke. The back of the car never gets sooty, and the oil level's never needed touching between services.
After a while a guy in my Materials lectures mentioned he had a set of coilovers he'd bought new for his B4 but never fitted, so I snapped them up and threw them on, as I was board of the boat like ride, it was nice in bumpy back roads, but on smoother roads it wallowed enough to actually be less comfortable than a firmer set-up in my opinion. It was also soft enough that any real load in the boot would give it comedy rake, making it horrid to drive.
The coilovers went on and this is how it stayed until tonight, ever reliable, always returning 47-56mpg, comfy, quiet and dependable:
Then earlier today when striping the front brakes down to stop an annoying squealing (all sorted), I noticed that the front tyres were getting a little boarder-line, and I need to tow a Mini back from London on Thursday, so decided to get it sorted ASAP. I drove over to my dads house and grabbed the Scirocco's wheels, some 15x7 BBS originally off an E30.
So this is how it sits now:
I'm not sold on the style of wheels, but they're better than the steels, and its nice to be back on decent quality tyres again, I'm not much of a budget tyre fan. I'll be keeping an eye out for some more flat faced 16" wheels I think.
So the plans for the future. Not a huge amount really:
- I want to get vented discs on the front as the brakes are good, but they do fade quite badly on some of the hilly roads around here.
- I'd like to change the seats sometime, as the basic ones in it now are somewhat shapeless. Ideally I'll grab some mk3 Golf GTI seats for the front, and a B4 interior for the rear seats and door cards. (16cm speakers and tweeters in all 4 doors.)
- Fit remote central locking.
- Replace the engine mounts.
- Replace the tatty front plate.
- Paint the faded plastics black.
- Touch up the 2 small scratches.
- Paint the VW badges (satin black or colour coded), as they've gone white and lost their chrome effect.
- Tint the rear lights all red.
- I'd like to drop it a little more, but I'll need to roll the arches, and much more drop will need the front legs notching to keep any real suspension travel. These things are great for ground clearance, so that's not really a concern.
- If I find my self towing with it much then it'll probably get the boost and fuel turned up a touch, and if that's not enough, then depending on how I get on with it in the future it may receive a 1.9tdi of some sort, preferably one of the PD lumps from a mk4 Golf/A3.
Otherwise it'll just be maintenance. I'm really enjoying it as a daily, it's cheap, comfy, practical and old enough to have a little character and stand out from the average cars on the road.
(PS. Apologies for the crappy phone camera pictures, I'll get some proper ones sometime.)
