Hi richsimm, I'm a nooby as well. Hang onto your 2001, I've had a '98 Passat V6 and loved it. Bought the Wife a 2005 Passat 1.8, I've since inherited the '05 when we got her a 2013 Passat SEL. The older generation does not have near the issues the new gens have. More technology leads to more problems, at least in my case. I'm fearful of the Takata airbag recall that VW has not made owners aware of yet (recall acknowledged March 11, 2016) because there is "no fix available yet". That's because there aren't enough safe airbags to replace the potentially deadly airbags.

To me, that's not a good reason to alert the owners/drivers, it's just shady...like the emission scandal. My 2013 has been to the dealer 6 times for Warranty issues since November 2015. Luckily it was a CPO, so my warranty carries until March of 2018 or 60k miles, only has 21k miles on it to date.

Peace!

Good luck with your '01, keep up on routine maintenance and it will do you very well. I say this from experience, and love for the Passat. Am I stupid, perhaps?

 

Hey George K, good to know I'm not the only nooby. As I said I haven't had the car long but it drives great, just got a few little issues to sort out with it, that's how I got to PW.

I will be looking around the forums because there is a ton of stuff to look at here.

Cheers

 

Hello, richsimm. I too have just acquired a v6 Passat b5. It is a well built car and I have been working on getting it going. I got it for $450 USD . in process of replacing my timing belt and can chain tensioner shoes. Its quite the undertaking as all my previous timing belt jobs have been on 4 cyl cars and did not require special tools as these vw cars do. One thing i will tell you is ALWAYS use a good synthetic oil and change it on time. The vw v6 seems to have a million places to leak and bad oil speeds this up