done this on a 91 golf and would assume a passat of similar age is the same.
move the mirror so its pointing down and inwards, then with a small screwdriver release the two small clips (visible behind the glass on the top-outside of the mirror) over the mount and carefully prise the "peg" free of the hole in the mount.
then move the mirror to point out and do the same for the top-inside.
now you've got the top off and the bottom should be easy
take your time though and don't use too much force as you can damge the pivots in the mechanism (or crack the glass of course)

If you had gone for a new merc (which I have)I got a free upgrade from the E220CDI to E270CDI, AND £2000 towards the purchase price from Mercedes AND negotiated a 4% dealer discount AND £300 worth of body care. That is through Mercedes (London)

why not approach it logically?
Engine size required
no of doors
max miles
equipment (CD/Aircon etc)
Insurance Group (Parkers Guide site has a list)
safety (see HJ guides)
reliability

Then servicing costs - may have to phone garages for that or read What Car.

Colour preference.

Narrow it down and then search in Autotrader.

Personally a Ford Fiesta 1.4 Ghia (1.6 would be over budget) goes well/is reliable/cheap to run and great fun to drive.. but yes and early Honda etc (but insurance?)

Approach it logically and then cross of what is not liked/unrelaible/expesnive and look for a good one of the list left.

(but who says car buying is logical?:-)



madf

Thanks for the link. It certainly makes chilling reading. I am pleased that my VW Touran has both a 5 star passenger protection and 3 star pedestrian protection.

Safety isn't sexy and not as exciting as scantily clad draped across the bonnets of cars with large engines.

However, the death and serious injury tolls on the roads of Europe are significant enough. I was a junior doctor in Casualty in 1988 and was very pleased that the law that made wearing seatbelts compulsory was introduced in 1986. This had an enormous impact on the number of patients needing facial stitching to repair the lacerations as their head had hit the windscreen so by the time I started work, very few patients needed suturing.

I imagine the NCAP proposals could have a similar effect if enacted. You can choose which car you travel in but you can't choose which car hits you if you are unfortunate to be the pedestrian victim of a road traffic accident.

Women often have the casting vote when buying cars these days so the answer could well be targetting a female constituency for whom safety may be a higher priority than 0-60 times.

If the problem is fuel starvation (fuel filter / pump), I would expect it to show up while accelerating, as well as limiting your top speed.

Another possibility is that an electrical problem is causing misfiring - high tension leads, spark plugs, distributor etc failing when stressed (assuming your 205 is old enough to have a distributor). But this should show up while accelerating as well.

So, do you have any problems when accelerating hard?

Ian