He means to say the car didn’t qualify. This happened to me - a few cars ago I bought a 2007 Mazdaspeed3 with 62k-ish miles. Mazda extended the timing chain issue past the warranty date by 15k miles or something, but I happened to be 2k past that date. I ended up paying a Mazda dealer to fix it - was only $1,500 IIRC…

Here’s a tip from a VW owner. If you’re buying a VW old enough to be out of warranty: the minute you get it home, go over to Ross Tech and buy VCDS, and go over to Bentley Publishers and purchase the appropriate repair manual. It’s less a question of if they’ll be necessary, but when.

That was my first thought as well. Unless there was some hard cutoff date where VW was no longer honoring the recall or wouldn’t honor the recall for anyone but the original owner, I can’t see any reason why he didn’t immediately take the car from wherever he purchased it straight to a dealer to have it fixed.

Honestly, as soon as they replace the compressor you should sell it.  The issue is most service guys don’t pull a vacuum, so you’ve got moisture and dead compressor crap in there from the first time it went out (which was most likely just a leak in actuality).  Essentially once a fridge has a compressor replaced…

That radiator mishap sounds incredibly painful.  Bet you’ll be sure to wear a shirt while wrenching from now on.

Nah, the chain guide probably broke due to the chain being loose/stretched and flapping around.  The guide tensioner was likely doing jack squat by the time the guide failed.

People asked this question as well in the original blog when he got the car.

This is a pretty typical thing if you have a truck model beginning with the letter “F” or van starting with the letter “E”.

Relax, your stuff is still working. Used clothes washers are nearly free, pick one up off craigslist if you have to. The van can live without a trans flush for a long, long time. Do the oil changes for your daughter on time, that one’s easy.  A dim TV still works fine for now, grab one for $200 in November if you…

Get to it ASAP.  Do you have VCDS?  You can check the cam/crank angle disagreement.  Over a few degrees is bad.  My wife’s 2010 passat 2.0T was at 5 degrees when we parted ways with it.

My functional, reliable DD slipped timing randomly one day and, just to one-up torch, bent all 16 valves. This is not a problem known to happen on these engines unless the timing is redone incorrectly but that had never been touched on my car. It gave me 70,000+ dead nuts reliable miles with just oil changes and one…

2010 hatchback with 71,000 miles with basically no options was $8,900 and that was a steal.  Used Japanese cars are expensive.

It’s one of our most reliable and universal traits.

That’s...that’s amazing. Step 1: Remove Body from Frame...

VW even issued a recall for this, but, from what I could tell, the car my wife wanted did not take advantage of that.

This is why I have a really good mechanic for Jaguar/Land Rover stuff. Here’s a picture of where he lifted a customer’s later-year L320 Range Rover Sport off its ladder frame, in order to replace a warped head, because that’s easier and cheaper than pulling it out of the front of the truck. The 5.0 JLR V8 engines used…

The capacity for humans to ignore problems when they know better, is rather incredible.

I was going to buy my son a 2010 GTI until I read all the horror stories about these engines. I spoke to my friend who runs the service department for Porsche, which is also connected to the VW dealership, and he told me to under no circumstance to buy one of these.  So, I bought him a Mazda3 instead.  First car…

I just bought a 2008 Audi TT 2.0t for my wife, with what I believe is the same engine. I also purchased all the parts to replace the timing chain and associated gear. The parts are still in the box. Not sure when I’ll get to it. It’ll probably be fine, right?

Dang, I did not need to read this story today. Let’s see, my wife’s van hasn’t had a transmission flush ever. My daughter keeps forgetting to do oil changes and I snapped off a nipple on the radiator and fixed it with epoxy and hope. The washing machine has a broken spring and seems to be made of razor blades when I…