I received a call the other day regarding my friend’s 1999 Passat Wagon, 1.8T motor with a hair over 100k, auto. He had the misfortune of a snapped timing belt while driving, and he is out of luck with the dealership.
Being a grad student, money is never a surplus, but he is willing to take a loan in the ballpark of $2000 to get his car back up and running reliably. (Not sure what a used motor would go for)
If anyone on here is interested in this project, let me know either here or by PM. I have spoken to a couple members of the community that are not able to complete this right now, so step up if you can
we could pull the head and have valves put in it, they’re available and Napa has quite a bit of experience doing machine work on 5 valve heads as of late. either that, or i could just change the broken ones myself and lap them in to save machine shop charges, it’s not hard, just time consuming. once we get the car in it’d be a couple day turn around, would just have to wait a day or two on the machine shop to get it freshened up and ready for action again, or for me to sit on a stool putting the head together on a bench. i’ve done a ton of them in the dealer as everyone pushes the envelope on the rubber band and many lose sadly. there was a recall on them for a free belt “inspection” as they found a fault with the belt tensioner was known to fail and the belt to let go.
http://www.timingbeltsettlement.com/index.htm have him read through this and see if schmitts is just holding out. if it’s under 105k, he might fall into the bulletin. if he contacts audi of america, they may goodwill it even if the local dealer says no. did he go to schmitts or VWOP to have it checked out? call orchard park with his info and see if VW will take care of it, beats paying us to do it. we’d love to do it, but if it can be done for nothing out of pocket, why not?
Hey everyone. Thanks for your support and taking the time to hear my situation. It’s very complicated so I will do my best to type it out. I’m on an iPhone so please excuse any misspellings.
I bought my car from a dealer called automax in spencerport ny. The vehicle had 92k on it when I bought it in oct of last year. Essentially, the car timing belt failed at a hair over 100k mi, and so I thought the class action olson vs vw of America would cover te cost of repair. I was under the 105k limit. The northtown dealership took their sweet time to tell me that apparently someone had done a botched job doing some repairs under the hood. Woode would e able to clarify this. To my knowledge, someone apparently welded the tensioner and some bolt to the timing belt mechanisms. As you can tell I know nothing about cars. BUT what I do know is that northtown refused to repairthe vehicle because this voided the warranty. I am now maki g payments on a $6,000 balance in which I owe on the car. Nt said at least 4 grand in repairs. I’m without a vehicle and severely indebted. Right now I want to jump off a bridge. Someone PLEASe help me rescue my Sadie. I love her and need her to get me where I’m going.
I want to add that I called vw of America customer care and they also denied my claim this morning. I asked for an extension of good will and they would not override nt decision to unauthorize repairs.
Aside from small claims court against the dealer, what are my options? Will someone extend a hand of kindess?
Pm me and I’ll give you my number so we can talk in more detail.
To clarify what was pointed out under the hood yesterday by Northtown:
-Tensioner bolt was welded, mechanic explained that the tensioner was a common failure item and that was probably the previous owners attempt to fix it.
-There is no contact between the inner/outer pieces.
-There is no way to adjust the tension provided the hack job done by the previous owner.
Don’t know how to drive 5 spd. But thanks for the offer. A mechanic on colvin at universal said they may be able to do the repair on the ballpark of 2 g’s. So instead of buying another vehicle with double the mileage wouldn’t it be a better idea to fix the one I have?
Of course Chris, Spam16v also posted in this thread recommending Black Forest Motorsports over on Genesee, they have a very reputable shop and come highly recommended. I would try inquiring with them first – 634-1200
$3200 best case scenario. I’m looking to spend about 2 to 2 and a half to get this going. Not really trying to pay 90 an hour for “labor”. When I invoice for my web design or video services - I quote per project not per hour. Any takers? Don’t get me wrong, I know this is very labor intensive and expensive job, but I’m on a budget an looking for someone to help a brother out. I appreciate j’s insight into this, just ant afford this after all towing costs and costs from vw dealership fucking me.
