The Amazing PH Passat Alltrack Thread

[hornetrider]

Emeye said:

Has anyone mounted a smartphone on the dash? If so what how have you done it? pics would be nice.

Nope. Pop mine in the rearward cup holder powering from the USB.

Emeye said:

Also, does anyone else find the volume set to zero when they start using the system or switching sources? It doesn't do it very often, but sometimes when I get in the car and switch to DAB or Bluetooth, I think it hasn't started playing, but the volume is down to zero, even though it was definately up last time I used it.

Nope.

Happy to help

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Yes, yes I have. It's pissing it down at the mo, so no pics. Not entirely uneventful mind. I'll put an update down over the weekend.

[hornetrider]

Right taken some pics.

As you can see, from behind nothing to be seen.



Here's the towbar in the spare wheel.



And underneath, a cut into the underside of the bumper.



So the electrics rotate down, and the piece which looks like a H is the plug that the bar slots into when it's in situ.

The bad news is the guy fitting it managed to scratch the lower plastic silver trim piece in a couple of small places, which displeased me greatly. I knocked 50 off the price paid for it, then rang VW and found out they charge 70 for a new one! Still waiting to hear back from the towbar company after I informed them.

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Haven't decided yet. It's a bumper off job, but not too major according to the install guy. The biggest job for him (which involved half of the rear trim coming out) was installing the electrics. At £350 all in I'd have to question if it's worth my time and the ballache, frankly.

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I'm on 3.2k in 6 weeks... Ooops

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I'll leave it till the halfway point. Seems to be the done thing.

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Sheepshanks said:

Emeye said:

In other news, in an unpresidented moment of total numptiness, I managed to kerb the front passenger alloy.

Put the spare on and hope they don't notice on return.

Genius! The advantages of having a full size spare!

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aj1509 said:

I'm happy to snap it up!!

At 100/m for the 150 manual I'm not surprised! That is cheapo motoring!

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My Adblue warning popped up yesterday. 1500 miles to go, quite annoying that it beeps quite loudly every time you start it up - 1500 miles is a long way away at normal mileage rates. Albeit I'm chewing through 2k+ a month.

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Emeye said:

Apparently, as well as the Adblue you will need to buy an adaptor if you are going to fill it yourself. Friend with an Adblue Touran said the adaptor was £12.

I have seen signs for Adblue advertised at Shell petrol stations, but not sure if this is some kind of pump or just bottles of the stuff.

I thought Adblue was included FoC for Merc for so long if you had it serviced with them - not sure what the score is for VW.

ETA some details here: http://www.volkswagen.co.uk/technology/diesel/adbl...

Edited by Emeye on Friday 19th August 15:55

Thanks for the link. At £1.89/l 20l comes out at £38. VW are expensive, who knew eh?! Think I'll grab some from the bay of E for half the price.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/AdBlue-20L-FREE-Pouring-...

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My bottles of adblue arrived yesterday. £38 for 40 litres, including spout, delivered to my door. They are huge, I hadn't quite thought how big a 20l container would be

I'll fill it up later and let you know how it goes... how exciting!

[hornetrider]

85ppl is a total bargain, good darts. Filling mine was OK but not the easiest as you'd be surprised how heavy 20kgs is when you're trying to top it up at filler cap level

Still, all done no dramas or spillage.

In other news, towed the caravan about 120m on Friday on a mix of Mway, A and B roads. Pleased to report the car tows with aplomb. Rock solid 70mph cruise, no weave, no drama. All wheel drive a plus on slippery wet grass on the campsite.

The car is really getting under my skin. Almost everything about it is positive, the only downer is the throttle response which is a product of modern diesel engines I guess. Oh and the timer on the nav.

It certainly has me searching for similar type cars for when the lease is up.

Currently thinking about:

Audi A6 Avant 3l TDI Quattro 14-
Audi Allroad 14-
Passat 4mo BiTDi 16-
Superb 2.0TSi Estate 4x4 15- (left field)

Liking the Superb as presumably has the same chassis set up with 4mo and DSG but instead has the 280bhp 2 litre petrol turbo VAG lump from a Seat Cupra. Receives great reviews and would solve the only real issue with the car for me, the dag dag up front.

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bedonde said:

Towed with mine last weekend too and very impressed with the stability, although I struggled to get the nose weight down to 90kgs on our caravan...

In 3.5 years of towing our van I've never measured the noseweight

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Cripes. FWIW there's a chap in the last few pages of the general lease thread who picked up a 150bhp Passat GT Estate for little over 200/m, no doubt a good alternative.

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I think 160 is what his (ours) cost a month if you level up the mileage allowance. Our was 130/m based on 6k.

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Is the Passat not a sector 'up' from the Octavia, as well as the Golf? Boot space is huge, and rear legroom too.

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blueg33 said:

Our new Octavia Scout 184dsg is being delivered today. Specced a few options so list is a startling £32k, struck a good deal though, paying £23,500.

Nice deal. Just picking up from your earlier post, you mentioned the Skoda was about a grand cheaper than the Passat for similar spec? Extrapolating, does that mean you were looking to be paying 25kish for a brand new 190 DSG Alltrack? Cheapest I can see at the moment is 27k for pre-reg.

There's also a decent value one at 28k with Discover Pro, LED lights and metallic paint.

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/2016...

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blueg33 said:

I am talking circa £1k difference on list price with the relevant extras. I never got to the point of negotiating on the Passat because my wife found it too big especially when in town

Ah I see.

In other news - mine has pinged a low coolant warning two days in a row now after early starts. Seems its not entirely unheard of... http://www.passatworld.com/forums/volkswagen-passa...

Reading that I suspect a slight underfill from the factory and colder starts. Not great! If there's no leak, coolant is not something I'd expect to pay for on a 4 month old car.

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I have a very poor experience of the Bristol VW dealer from my VR6 days, not overly keen to take it back to them!! Might try Cardiff on the way home, see what they say. Mind you it won't be simple will it. Book it in please sir we can't possibly look at it now, courtesy cars not available for 3 weeks, yes there may be a cost involved... all for the sake of a drop of coolant which I'm too tight fisted to pay for myself because, well, because.

[hornetrider]

Nope, no creaks. However I do have a noticeable jolt when decelerating gently from 15-10mph... anyone else?

Here's my coolant level btw...



And after two cups of water from the office cooler...



Job jobbed but I'll be keeping an eye on the levels going forward.

Also the oil is halfway down the dipstick and black as tar. Bit of a change from my 550i, even at 100k miles it didn't get anywhere near that dark. The joys of diesels.