What did you do to your Passat today?

Bought a 2001 Passat 4moition for $1500. A coolant hose popped off on the way home so it was fun getting it here without the proper tools. I should have known better. Plan to get the coolant system flushed tomorrow. Take it to Autozone to test the charging system. Change the oil. Clean it and hit oxidized paint with compound and wax. 150,000 miles, so hope to get a couple of years out of it. Bought for a friend but I’ll be working on it. I had a BMW E46 before my current company car.

Spent $200 and attempting coolant flush. Cleaned out the leaves. Changed both air filters. Going to change the oil if I have time.

It ran great after the coolant flush. Temp stayed steady. Took it to Autozone and had them check the battery/alternator and got good news. That's not on the to do list. Got it washed and started buffing out oxidation. Oil didn't get done today.

Have the big clunk when first accelerating so have torque mounting bushings on the way.

No lights on the instrument cluster. Any ideas on that?

Changing the oil was easy. Didn't have to jack anything up. Got the sludge out and fresh oil in. Started it and it started pouring from the oil pan. Guess I'm dropping the pan tomorrow and doing another change.

Google oil leak after oil change and a VW article pops up. Same thing happened to my neglected BMW. New oil goes in and detergents break down the scabs holding everything together.

AndreasPassat said:

If sludged oil is holding things together, you've got some other pressing issues at hand that should probably get addressed.

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I'm worried about that too. Figured I just did an expensive oil flush. Its drained now and up on jack stands. Getting ready to get under there and drop the pan. We will see what happens when I fire it up.

Two bolts broke, so can't finish the job until tomorrow. At least they were two that were easier ones to get to.

Got the two broken bolts out and finished the job. Pressure washed the engine and underside. Don't see any leaks yet.
Trying to install a new head unit, so will head over to a different thread.

Wet sanded the oxidized paint, washed it twice. Tomorrow will be compounding, polishing, and wax. Looks like it has a small coolant leak I need to track down. You can smell it burning off of the manifold.

Got my antenna adapter in, so radio install is complete instead of the crappy job the PO did. Replaced the hood strut so I don't have to keep propping up the hood when working on it. Chasing a coolant leak today.

The tail lights I ordered from Ebay didn't fit. It has smoked tail light covers on it now that I don't like.

A lot of fail today. Tried finding the coolant leak that I think is coming from the CTS area but couldn’t get the duct over it out. There’s a T25 that is tough to get to.
Decided to look at the back windows that had wedges in them to keep them up. Drilled out the speaker so I could feel around and see if anything had fallen out. No such luck but I did feel a loose regulator wire. Started removing the inner skin and can’t get the piece off the window. Tapped a screwdriver, drilled with several sizes of bits. It’s still won’t release.
May try the passenger side rear tomorrow and hopefully finish one of the jobs I started today

Tortelious said:

You might only need to get rid of that hose clamp and go back to one of the original spring-type. Those worm-gears suck !

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It's not leaking from the lower. I put that on after the lower popped off on the way home after buying it.