19 y.o. daughter has a 2009 VW Passat 140k miles. Paid for, of course. Her plan was to save for 12-18 months and pay cash for a newer used car that will last 10 years. Went for an oil change, after which the car would not start. This car is notorious for timing chain tensioner failure and has interference engine. No compression in any cylinder. Three shops have said timing chain, which basically means the engine is toast. Yes, maybe the head can be pulled and repaired/replaced if we are lucky that pistons/engine not damaged, but then we have a cost of $3k plus for parts and labor and a 140k mile bottom end. Or $4k+ for putting in a high mileage used engine. And of course we still have a 140,000 mile 14 year old car. We decided it was best to move on since there is other work the car needs as well. She has only had the car about 6 months. Ouch.
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Just thought I would share our recent car failure and buying experience.
Lol, I own a 2010 CC (very similar to a Passat).
@EchoStache, laughing with you, not at you! My car has the same timing chain issue, so you very much have my sympathy.
Your case made me reflect on the question "How come that didn't happen to me?" On behalf of readers, I hope I'm not out of line sharing incidents that helped avoid the tensioner trouble.
1. Reading about the vehicle and also talking to experienced friends about car repair, found in general that German cars including VW have a reputation that scheduled maintenance must be done on time. They wear very well if it's done, badly if not.
2. IIRC, adjusting the tensioner is dauntingly expensive (over $1,000 even at the competent mechanics if, like me, the job is beyond your own wrench). But doing it around 100,000 miles or so is part of scheduled maintenance.
3. I've owned the car since it was new, which was stupidly costly in my pre-Mustache era. Until the dealer warranty ran out, I got the scheduled maintenance done free.
4. When I reached a point after 80,000 miles / 10 years or so where the scheduled maintenance was expensive out of pocket, I yelped to find the best third party VW mechanic in my city and had them "check what the car needs". The only expensive thing was - I didn't have to adjust the tensioner yet, but it needed to be done soonish, and they could do it cheaper now by combining with the other maintenance. I did it now.
5. In other words, I prevented the timing chain from breaking by doing the once-every-80,000-mile-or-so maintenance.
Thoughts:
6. If I were buying used, I'd ask what maintenance had been done.
7. As far as I know, the big 3 expensive things that this car* is likely to need between 80,000 miles and 180,000 miles are:
a. Adjust timing chain (tensioner)
b. There's a spot where the oil enters the engine block (something like that) - it doesn't always break, but sometimes the seal goes bad, and because of the internal location, replacing it is a $2000-2500 job. Mine had that. (If all the easilly accessibe seals are tight, oil cap tight, hoses tight and you're leaking oil, you might have this problem!) I went through the fix-or-sell analysis and chose to keep the car, therefore did the repair.
c. Major transmission repair. I don't know if these vehicles per se are "likely"/"unlikely" to need it, only that it's expensive and not uncommon.
In my own case, with a and b complete, I do expect another 5 to 10 years of good driving available with maybe only one repair in the $1000-plus range. The total cost of repairs and forgone sale cost is less than the $10,000 that I think you paid above, so keeping would be cheaper. In future, perhaps more reading about the car's specifics and determining which repairs were done could help in projecting which repairs to do preventively after taking possession of the vehicle, and also in realizing when future costs will likely be low because you completed the probable repairs.
My personal case is a bit different bc I have only 102,000 miles and another 10 years will likely still be less than 180,000 miles, but hopefully the preventive maintenace and the "cost for keeping" calculation are worth considering for future purchases.
*Passat and CC are close enough that I assume it's the same for both; will defer to more knowledgeable posters
