Where have all the B5 passat and Mk4 Golf estates gone?

few estate golfs and passat B5.5's on evilbay at the moment.

ive had both the b5.5 and the Mk4 Golf in TDI format and would happily own either again, the passat had its dose of issues with water ingress through the pollen filter, and the MK4 had wonky electrics due to the tailgate wash motor leaking, but neither would put me off as they just take the mileage so well and are still fairly nice to drive.

Some Mk3s in here too.

VW Bora Variant by WoertherseePics, on Flickr

Red VW Golf Mk3 Variant by WoertherseePics, on Flickr

Grey VW Golf Mk3 Variant by WoertherseePics, on Flickr

Grey VW Bora Variant by WoertherseePics, on Flickr

Green VW Golf Mk3 Variant by WoertherseePics, on Flickr

I always loved the W8. Not a Retro really, but a luxo barge and a pretty fast hauler. 4-litres and 275BHP. Plus 4WD. I did look into getting one but I had a small drive at the time and also had my sensible head on so bought a diesel Bora. Oh what might have been...

You might just regret asking that. From the top:

• It misfired like mental off idle (idling was fine) and smoked more than a hooker on a good night when accellerating ; people and colleauges let me know about this ; Scanning it with a generic reader revealed nothing. Scanning it with VCDS suggested the MAF was faulty/reading low. Only when we checked the injector stability values did we realise that the camshaft was the most likely culprit
  Rear calipers had seized. They had new motor on prior to my ownership but only changing the calipers sorted the problem.
• I had the dreaded steering lock issue ; It started with the car not always starting and eventually all of the dash died. I was quoted £1k to get it fixed as being an early B6, the steering module in addition to the convenience module have to be changed as they are not compatible with the revised steering lock. I paid a Polish bloke £150 who fitted a new steering lock but I do know he struggled as well
• Heater blower didn't work. Just what you want around winter time. I tried changing the fuses etc. etc. In the end, I bodged a feed to the heater control panel and got it working, except it would always be powered ; I'd have to turn it off manually. I suspect that was a module fault
• Doors would close, as in fling open again due to curse word bowden cables. New ones here sorted the problem
• Horn didn't work. I thought this was down to a broken clockspring. Changed the clockspring and I realised VCDS wasn't telling lies ; the airbag module had failed ; I did also have an airbag light on
• Rear lower arms were so shot the car would twitch violently at speed with the smallest of bumps in the road. I've had £200 Volvos and taken Mondeos to 300k and never had an issue like that
• Finally, the gearbox blew itself to pieces, enough to crack the casing, right after I did all of the above. When I rang up Sanburns, he said it wasn't an unheard issue and while the gearboxes were rare in 5 speed form, they also got snapped up quickly and at a price because of theis ; Aronnd £500 secondhand! After scouring eBay for almost month, and a colleague almost buying the car off him and him doing the same, I gave up on the car and did what I should have done from the off. Put it out of its misery

The brake calipers were the very first things to sell. If I got a £1 for every call I had about the rear calipers, I'd be a rich man!

When working, it was lovely.

Two other mates who bought them also had steering lock issues. FWIW VW didn't want to know about the problem; unless you live in the 'states, then it's changed for an updated item (including the modules) under goodwill.

For that reason it will be very hard for me to recommend one.

Sorry, but that car really did chew up alot of my time, money, only for me to spend more time in recouperating my losses.

It was a 2006 TDI S 105BHP, which I bought back in 2013. I had an '07 Mondeo 1.8 as a daily then, which we only took off the road to the valves burning out. Bar the valves the Mondeo was a superior car in every mechanically, and still was fine at 320k when we sold it in 2016.




That gents, is why the B5.5 will have a decent following and why good ones aren't quite as cheap as you expect.

We've got one of the last b5.5s as a daily (on an 05 plate) 1.9tdi, remapped, Had it for 5 years...It's on 171k and it has never let us down.
I'd run it for ever but swmbo has other ideas....( But I'm keeping it until at least 200k😁)

I've also got a set of BBS W8 alloys but she won't have them on it😔

Wouldn't have a b6/ b7.... Too many expensive stories on ukpassats.....

was behind one of these the other week. - I didn't even know they existed in this guise

The high road tax (£290pa) compared with the value (c.£1k+ for a reasonable one) for a 2 litre petrol probably doesn't help.

And the diesels will be high milers?

I saw a W-reg estate v6 4-motion today. A bit rough round the edges but only 80k ish miles on the clock. Looked interesting!

All these Passats gets me looking at a6 saloon/estates of a similar era though!

...and just make sure you avoid autos, guess what killed my one...yup :-)

Shame as I really like mine...just wish it'd been a manual:



Auto + tdi also murders the mpg vs a manual - and shoves it into a higher tax band.

For me the B5 is still a modern car, but they are getting a bit old now.

My parents (with no interest in cars at all) have owned this one since it was 6 months old. Useful for carting car parts about the country occasionally



It's now on over 200k miles and has just had it's first ever MOT fail

Fail was for a diesel leak - sadly that was from the diesel injection pump.

A pump rebuild was £400, but it was due a cambelt anyway so the timing wasn't so bad... (pun not intended )

They might be looking to get rid of it in the summer, but goodness knows what will replace it. Nothing else will match the tedious reliability (it's only had one non-start in 20+ years!) and load lugging capacity while still fitting in the garage...