Well after 6.5 years and 136k miles, the Passat has reached 200k miles. I think I must have a very mild case of OCD as reaching 200k in a car was in one of those sad list of things to do which I must keep stored in a obscure part of my mind!

Car (B5 TDI 110 sport saloon) bought in June 2003 from a VW dealer on a 97 reg for 7k IIRC. I was the third owner with the previous owner apparently a butcher and giving the car a bit of a hard life - service was 5k overdue when I purchased the car.

Took a little bit of adjusting to a large car in my 20s (I bought the car as the cheapest access to the 110 engine rather than the model) and within a couple of months I'd somehow managed to break the catalytic converter having hit a dip in the road shortly before at a somewhat indecent speed. Fortunately VW stumped up for that repair through the 12 month unlimited mileage warranty. Only other repair in the first year was front suspension arms & related gubbins which were again covered under the warranty.

Once the 12 months were up, I switched to the local indies to keep the car serviced & to change the shocks to Bilsteins. Made a big improvement to the handling. Since that time, the car has been serviced every 10k, with cambelt changes at 120k & 180k. The front suspension has been the only major weakness of the car but if you treat it as a service item then it helps to soften the blow ;-). The climate change module also packed up a couple of years back but was replaced for a couple of hundred pounds IIRC.

Some of you may remember that I have managed to achieve some pretty high mpg out of this car and I'll come back to this. This may give the impression that I have treated the car with the upmost respect & kept it wrapped up in cotton wool. Nothing could be further from the truth! 75% of the time that I've had it, I have let's say, been "making progress". Performance wise the car is not fantastic but at the same time, it's no slouch. 0-60 comes up in just under 11 secs & I've seen 130 (speedo) on the autobahns on one of the many European trips it's been on. Overtakes (of which there have been many) are straight forward with sufficient torque at the important speeds to make things safe. Handling safe but not as dull as described by some.

Coming back to the mpg issue if driven with economy in mind & on roads mainly outside of the south-east, the car has achieved over 1050 miles on a tank which is a little over 75mpg. The car was still capable of achieving such figures a couple of months ago which suggests that the engine is still performing reasonably well. In town & driven hard on motorways, the car will still return 50+ mpg.

The body work is looking a little bit tired now with a few small dents & scratches although these are only really uncovered on its annual (at best) car wash! The bodywork is galvanised and no sign of rust to date. If you take a step or two back from the car, it's my somewhat biased view that the car stands up well in design & look terms when compared to equivalent age cars.

The inside of the car was one of the reasons that I bought the car in the first place. It's now dated but still a fairly pleasant place to be - I'm a sucker for those blue lights ;-). Toys include cruise, climate & trip computer which all still work. The central fan vents adjuster wheels snapped ages ago but I haven't bothered replacing them.

Size wise, it was bigger than our needs when we first bought it. Having said that however at well over 6ft I can sit behind myself comfortably. Now with a toddler in tow, the car is coming into its own & is standing up relatively well to the abuse. The boot is huge although access is limited for larger items.

So, now with 200k up, the question is what do I do now? I had always intended to replace it at this stage (6 years is a record for car ownership for me). However I'm now not so sure! Neither mpg nor performance appear to have made significant advances in the last few years and there appear to be question marks about the reliability of the engine technology to enable these cars to be produced to be in compliance of the emissions regs. The Passat still comfortably keeps up with traffic and matches the mpg. It is currently reliable & covers 20k miles a year. On the other hand, it is due a service (the more major 20k one) and needs four new tyres (I've run Kumho's throughout my ownership of it)....

I've managed to partly satisfy my probably irrational need to have a 'new' car by running an MGF as a weekend toy for the past year. So I'm leaning to stick with what I know but would welcome input from the backroom. What about a halfway house of a B5.5 Passat TDI 130 Estate? Prices seem high for what they are though....

Cheers & apologies for the length of post!

Bost

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