A Diamond in the Volkswagon

We own a 1994 Volkswagon Passat.  It's all wheel drive, heated leather seats, great cd stereo system and almost enough room to hold all five of us.  These are the great things that I love about our car.  Also, the fact that it is a manual 5 speed, which I love.  Automatics are boring.

I wish I had found the site http://www.repairpal.com/ before purchasing so I would have been informed of some common things that go wrong with these vehicles.  However, I don't believe it would have swayed us from the purchase since it has been a minor detail and relatively low cost to fix.

The check engine light has been on three times in our Volkswagon.  The first time was thought to be because there were leaves clogging up the mass air flow sensor.  However, when the leaves were removed, the engine light still came back on.  Which indicated apparently that the mass air flow sensor itself was damaged.  So that was replaced. 

Almost two years later and yup, it's on again.  This time it is apparently the thermostat sensor which is not working and causing the light to come on.  Again, based on review on the page www.repairpal.com/volkswagon this is a relatively easy fix and not too costly.

So far this vehicle has been one of my favorites.  Even though we have had it back to the dealer many times for many minor issues.  All of these issues though were not due to the vehicles poor performance, they were due to the dealership we had purchased the vehicle from....which is a whole other story.

In conclusion, I would like to say, all vehicles have issues.  Some worse than others.  But they ALL do.  Having a site like http://www.repairpal.com/ to go to for quick information and advice will make all of our future car questions a little easier to deal with.

Cheers! :)