[cityvic]

Originally Posted by fordfreak

See you in December? Cheers!

Sure, lets plan a drive or something.

[fordfreak]

30,000 km/ 2-year service:-

Sent the car to the dealer last week for the 2 year/30,000 km service. Took an appointment for a regular service and also complained about the faulty TPMS (covered under warranty).

Was an overall satisfactory experience. The service was completed on the first day itself, but the dealer kept the car a day more to diagnose the issue with the TPMS. Only annoyance was the lack of feedback from the dealer's end. Took me 3 attempts to get hold of the Service Adviser while going through the dealer. Was finally given his mobile number on the third attempt. Car was however returned at the promised time and was nice and clean! Was charged Rs.16,326 for the service. Got a feedback call from the dealer a day later asking about my experience.

Car running fine now and has currently covered 16,100 kms. Managing to get about 10.3 - 10.5 km/litre.

Moving on, I finally took the car to the petrol pump to have the leaky tyres' sorted out. The front-left and rear-left had been letting out air. On reaching the pump, the FL read about 24 Psi and the RL about 15 Psi! The attendant was courteous and quick in his work. Got both the wheels off one at a time and repaired the punctures. The FL had a screw lodged in it (Pics enclosed); while the RL had 3 Pins/Screws embedded in it!! The long nail in the picture is from the rear-left.

I asked him to be gentle while changing the wheels since I didn't want to damage the (infamous) sensor and have my dash light up like a Christmas Tree! After removing the wheels, he located the puncture and pulled out the offending object. He then used some sort of product to plug the hole and inject a filler into the tyre. He rolled the tyre so that the filler spread evenly on the inside. Once done, he re-checked his work for any leaks and then put the wheel back on. Refilled all 4 tyres' to 35 Psi after fixing them. He charged me Rs.160 for the whole affair.

[shatrughna]

Originally Posted by fordfreak

30,000 km/ 2-year service:-

Sent the car to the dealer last week for the 2 year/30,000 km service. Took an appointment for a regular service and also complained about the faulty TPMS (covered under warranty).

Car running fine now and has currently covered 16,100 kms. Managing to get about 10.3 - 10.5 km/litre.

Moving on, I finally took the car to the petrol pump to have the leaky tyres' sorted out. The front-left and rear-left had been letting out air. On reaching the pump, the FL read about 24 Psi and the RL about 15 Psi! The attendant was courteous and quick in his work. Got both the wheels off one at a time and repaired the punctures. The FL had a screw lodged in it (Pics enclosed); while the RL Pins/Screws embedded in it!! The long nail in the picture is from the rear-left.

I asked him to be gentle while changing the wheels since I didn't want to damage the (infamous) sensor and have my dash light up like a Christmas Tree! After removing the wheels, he located the puncture and pulled out the offending object. He then used some sort of product to plug the hole and inject a filler into the tyre. He rolled the tyre so that the filler spread evenly on the inside. Once done, he re-checked his work for any leaks and then put the wheel back on. Refilled all 4 tyres' to 35 Psi after fixing them. He charged me Rs.160 for the whole affair.

Nasty nails . 35 PSI seems to be a good balance as I experimented with 32 PSI as well as the company recommended PSI. Car is bouncy at 38-39 PSI.

Good that none of your tyres got damaged. I had a nasty cut and had to change the tyre . I picked up OEM spec tyre that cost Rs.15800/-.
FE which you have mentioned is reasonable for a traffic infested, heavy traffic/ jammed placed. On the highway- while maintaining consistent speed between 70-80 kmph, I have clocked ~24 kmpl. This was just to check the best FE , it can give and this is what I feel is the best thing about this car apart from ventilated seats at front.

But on the highway, this speed in the range of approx.70kmph is unrealistic and feels too slow. In normal driving mode on highway, I got ~ 19-20 kmpl in 350kms return trip during all the highway trips I have undertaken. In daily commute, I am fortunate to drive on a relatively better roads in non-peak hours and manage to get 14-15 kmpl as per the MFD. But this car is quite capable of returning an excellent FE figures even on daily commute and on many occassions , at least on one way during non peak hours and non-spirited driving , have managed 18 + kmpl as shown on MFD on a 30 kms stretch. I keep the auto start/ stop switched on - most of the time and ac at 24degrees in morning and evening hours of commute.

AC- after first service and change of pollen filter, slight improvement is felt in cooling efficacy but , it is still not upto the Hyundai, Mahindra or Maruti benchmarks that I have experienced so far.

The worst problem that I am facing is while negotiating the speed breakers. Even while at dead stop speed just allowing to roll it off the hump crawling, the bottom scratches on few normal speed breakers too. Is there any options/ possibility to increase the ground clearance with any change of rim/ tyre, suspesion tweek or spacers that may not spoil the safety/ warranty? Please, share if you have any update.

[fordfreak]

Originally Posted by shatrughna

Nasty nails . 35 PSI seems to be a good balance as I experimented with 32 PSI as well as the company recommended PSI. Car is bouncy at 38-39 PSI.

Good that none of your tyres got damaged. I had a nasty cut and had to change the tyre . I picked up OEM spec tyre that cost Rs.15800/-.
FE which you have mentioned is reasonable for a traffic infested, heavy traffic/ jammed placed. On the highway- while maintaining consistent speed between 70-80 kmph, I have clocked ~24 kmpl.

In normal driving mode on highway, I got ~ 19-20 kmpl in 350kms return trip during all the highway trips I have undertaken. In daily commute, I am fortunate to drive on a relatively better roads in non-peak hours and manage to get 14-15 kmpl as per the MFD.

AC- after first service and change of pollen filter, slight improvement is felt in cooling efficacy but , it is still not upto the Hyundai, Mahindra or Maruti benchmarks that I have experienced so far.

The worst problem that I am facing is while negotiating the speed breakers. Even while at dead stop speed just allowing to roll it off the hump crawling, the bottom scratches on few normal speed breakers too. Is there any options/ possibility to increase the ground clearance with any change of rim/ tyre, suspesion tweek or spacers that may not spoil the safety/ warranty? Please, share if you have any update.

Hey shatrughna,

I was lucky that the tyres were repairable. Would you know if the tyres covered under the bumper-to-bumper insurance plan? (I can't remember). I followed the suggestion given by a fellow member on the forum regarding tyre pressures, and have found that the ride is much better now than before.

The maximum indicated efficiency I have ever seen on my MID was 19.4 km/l on a late night run back from the airport. I am more than happy with the overall fuel-efficiency of the car.

Since its winter time now, I haven't been too bothered about the AC. It performs more than adequately for now. So I haven't had a chance to note any improvement in the cooling after servicing.

Lastly, coming to the issue of speed-breakers; I too face this on a daily basis. I dread to think what the under-body of the car looks like now after scraping god knows how many bumps! My car ends up grazing about 80% of the bumps (says a lot about Calcutta roads ). I wouldn't recommend trying to increase the ride-height really. It would most certainly void your car's warranty. I'm not sure how well such modifications would work out. Moreover, I don't think an increased ride-height would suit the stance of the car. Visually it would look poor. An increase in ride-height is also bound to affect the way the car feel when driven. But then again, I never tried something of this sort with my car .

Cheers!

[Akshay1234]

Originally Posted by fordfreak

I followed the suggestion given by a fellow member on the forum regarding tyre pressures, and have found that the ride is much better now than before.

Was me if I remember correctly. Good to know the ride is much better. But this is news to me that the car scrapes everywhere, is it some specific part like the nose, or just the underbody. And its it scrape slightly or is it like a thud? I wouldn't have thought the Passat would have such a soft suspension.

[fordfreak]

Originally Posted by akshay1234

Was me if I remember correctly. Good to know the ride is much better. But this is news to me that the car scrapes everywhere, is it some specific part like the nose, or just the underbody. And its it scrape slightly or is it like a thud? I wouldn't have thought the Passat would have such a soft suspension.

Yes akshay1234, it was on your recommendation that I changed the tyre pressure on my car .

The chin doesn't scrape on normal speed-breakers. I have grazed the chin on two occasions while exiting a steep ramp. The car usually scrapes the under-body area directly below the front seat (near the middle of the car). The Passat does have a fairly soft/bouncy suspension. My friend's E90 3-series crosses nearly all bumps with ease, while my Passat scraps them! This is an issue I have learnt to live with. Just have to be very careful while maneuvering over bumps (approach them diagonally as slow as possible).

Would also like to share something that happened this morning. Was around 5.30 am and I was heading for the golf club. Was going about 80-85 km/hr on the flyover. The car ended up bottoming out as I came off it (the angle at which the flyover meets the road-level)! It seemed like the moment when WRC cars bottom out at the point where the incline meets the plain road! I don't think there is any damage on the car, but the sound of the road scraping against the under-body really made me cringe.

Cheers!

[fordfreak]

Just touching 19,000 kms and the car is running as good as ever. However, there are a couple of issues which have been bothering me since the last update.

Tyre Bugs:-
Punctures are a major annoyance that I have been having to deal with lately. Since my last update, I have had 2 more punctures! The last one being 3 days ago. Now I don't know if this is just my rotten luck or are the stock tyres too delicate for our far-from-brilliant roads in Calcutta?

The attendant repairing the flat tyre pulled out 2 small-medium sized metal pieces in front of me (looked to be bits of a screw or nail). The Passat seems to be the only car in my garage which seems to pick up punctures so frequently! My Corolla, City and Altis haven't had a puncture for over 8 months! *touchwood*.

Stero Problems:-
I have a pen-drive attached to the USB port in the glovebox (with about 90-100 songs in it). At times while scrolling through the song list, the system freezes up for no reason. It stops playing music and nor does it scroll up/down the list. Other functions seem to work fine at the same time (radio, CD, etc). Restarting the stereo doesn't seem to help as well. I tried disconnecting and then reconnecting the pen-drive to the USB port; this fixed the issue on one occasion but not in the instances after that. The problem sorts itself out after about 2 days or so. This has happened about 6-7 times over the last 2 months. Thankfully things have been ok since the last 10 days.

Has anyone faced something similar?

Cheers!

[dkaile]

Originally Posted by fordfreak

Stero Problems

Try formatting the usb disc to fat32. Switch to a higher/good quality usb drive. Make multiple album directories and keep songs in them rather than all songs in one directory. Have been following this on my sd card on Bolero stereo and zero issues till date.

[harsh.m06]

Originally Posted by fordfreak

The chin doesn't scrape on normal speed-breakers. I have grazed the chin on two occasions while exiting a steep ramp. The car usually scrapes the under-body area directly below the front seat (near the middle of the car). The Passat does have a fairly soft/bouncy suspension.

I suspect the mudflaps available for The Passat are hard plastic ones and they hang very low to the ground. I had a similar problem of scraping on my Vento below the front seats. It was the low hanging hard plastic mudflaps. Since the day I have removed them, I haven't scraped anywhere even on completely broken/non existent roads.

Passat has a softer tune of suspension as compared to The Superb, only slightly softer, not much.

The observation regarding the mudflaps is completely personal, there might be other factors too that are creating problems.

[fordfreak]

A Sunday well spent giving her a well deserved wash. Pretty please with the end result

[rpunwani]

Hi,

I am also a Passat DSG Highline owner and here are my observations on the car:-

Tyre Pressure: best at 35 psi, this works well with 4 passengers and luggage too. I have maintained 35 psi for two long drives Mumbai - Ahmedabad - Jaisalmer - Jodhpur - Udaipur - Mumbai and Mumbai - Mysore - Coorg - Bangalore - Mumbai. Even city driving is comfortable, though a lower tyre pressure will soften the ride - but will increase fuel consumption.

AC: Not as effective as I would like it to be, even the aircon in the Polo is more effective. Have any of you faced similar problems? If yes, what corrective actions have been taken by VW.

Mudflaps: When I bought the car, the salesman managed to sell me mud flaps at around 9k extra. During drives, I found the mud flaps scraping on most speed breakers. I go the service centre to remove them at the first service. Since VW provides a 12 year perforation warranty on the car, I feel that mud flaps are a complete waste of money. They add to the drag at high speeds and scrape very often

Fuel Efficiency: I have been pretty impressed with the fuel efficiency of the car. On our Rajasthan trip, I got a trip average of 13.83 kms/litre and on the Coorg trip I got 14.39 kms/litre. This included city driving as well. We drive a lot from Mumbai to Pune and back. I had been driving at 100 - 110 km/hr on the expressway and consistently got an average of over 16 kms/litre. Last Sunday, we drove back from Pune and I decided to limit my speed to 80 km/hr. For most of the journey on the expressway, I used the cruise control and lo behold, I managed to get a trip average of 21.6 kms/litre. We also managed to cover the distance between our home in Sopan Baug, Pune to our home in Cuffe Parade, Mumbai in 2 hrs 51 mins.

No other issues faced with the Passat till now, having driven over 13500 km.

[fordfreak]

Originally Posted by rpunwani

Hi,

I am also a Passat DSG Highline owner and here are my observations on the car:-

Tyre Pressure: best at 35 psi

AC: Not as effective as I would like it to be
Mudflaps: When I bought the car, the salesman managed to sell me mud flaps at around 9k extra.

Fuel Efficiency: I have been pretty impressed with the fuel efficiency of the car.

No other issues faced with the Passat till now, having driven over 13500 km.

Welcome to the T-bhp family!

I also maintain all four tyres at 35 psi. The recommended pressures behind the fuel lid seem far too high. The ride was much harder when I had followed them.

Honestly, the AC on my 10 year old Corolla cools much faster than the AC on the Passat. But once the cabin is at a comfortable temperature, it works fine. This issue is only a problem when the car has been parked in the sun for a long period of time.

I am really impressed with the fuel economy the car returns. My car is only used in the city and has seen the highway exactly twice since I've owned it (Airport runs don't really count). The MID shows a long-term average of about 10 - 10.5 km/l. In rush hour traffic, the car gives 7-8 km/l and on late night drives on empty roads, I've gotten figures as high as 18-19 km/l!

I've done 22,000 kms so far and haven't face any major issue. There were a couple of sensor failures which were fixed under warranty and thankfully nothing new has surfaced since. The stock tyres seem to be very fragile as the low-pressure warning keeps popping up every 2 months.

Do post a review and pictures of your car if possible. Would love to follow your experiences too.

[rpunwani]

Thanks fordfreak,

I Plan to take the car to the dealer shortly to have the AC checked out. I believe that Skoda has fitted more powerful compressors on their Superb after receiving customer complaints on the AC system. I did check with one of the service managers in VW Downtown and he was not aware of any upgrade program.

How do you see the long term fuel average in the car. Have switched the MFD through all the various displays and have not located this one so far.

I agree that the Pirelli Cinturato P7 tyres are fragile. I lost two tyres last month in Bangalore. I went over an open gutter and both the right side tyres deflated in a matter of seconds. Luckily for me, there was a gas station with a well equipped tyre centre just 30 m away. On checking theatres, there was a huge gash in the sidewall. Since I was returning back to Pune/Mumbai the next day I had to purchase one spare tyre as I was told that repairing this tyre would take hours. Luckily, I could get an exact replacement; so out came the brand new spare. I used new tyres at the front and used the existing front left tyre for the rear right side.

On returning to Mumbai, I took one of the damaged tyres to a Pirelli dealer in Mumbai hoping that he could repair the tyre. To my utter disbelief, there was a crack all over the circumference of the tyre. Had to invest in another one :(

I will post some pictures in my next.

[rpunwani]

Here is a picture of my Passat, this was taken on our trip to Rajasthan last December

[Crazy_Bean]

Originally Posted by rpunwani

Here is a picture of my Passat, this was taken on our trip to Rajasthan last December

rpunwani,

I love the color of your car. My favorite color for the Passat, looks even better is little less lighting. Congrats man!