98 VW Passat V6 - Interference or Not

A friend's BIL bought one before I could tell him not to. Timing belt went within 2 weeks of ownership.

Is it an interference motor or not? (or Is he screwed or not?)

Yup. BTDT. New rebuilt cylinder heads that cost a small fortune from an Audi dealer (mine was a '98 A4 2.8 - mechanically the same as a Passat). Fortunately, it was covered under warranty (blew up on the drive home from purchasing).

As Ian noted, it is very much so an interference engine. Your frend's BIL just bought a really expensive German paperweight.

Oh, and IIRC you have to take the entire front end of the car apart, bumper, core support and all, to get at the belt. Book rate on the job is outrageous but then again so is the job itself.

Ahhhhh, VW.

IIRC, the final bill was something like $6000 using refurbished heads. It was a dealer to dealer deal and I didn't see the actual receipt until later after I sold the car and was trying to get warranty info for the new owner. This was all back in 2002. I only had the car for a few months.

Is that the same engine as in an Audi a6? If so even without bent valves its an amazingly difficult and complicated job.

Did a 99 Passat a few years ago for my BIL. He bought the car as a basket case for $450 Dead cost on me doing the job was somewhere in the range of $2500. It was over $1000 just for the machine work on the heads, not including parts...

SlickDizzy wrote: Your frend's BIL just bought a really expensive German paperweight.

Thanks to everyone - I let him know about that ^ ^ ^

I'm remembering a bit more... (like I said - I owned/sold the car over 10 years ago).

The Audi tech said the timing belt in my car looked like it had been replaced recently, but they botched the job, which is why it failed. I believe it was something about not installing the tensioner correctly. It's probable they looked at the manual procedure for the R&R and tried to take short-cuts to save time. It worked for a little while... until I was about 70 miles away when it started sounding like a diesel... then stopped entirely.

Anyway, my point being if the belt was replaced recently there may be some recourse the BIL may be able to take if he's lucky. Otherwise, yeah - he's probably screwed. If he's the industrious type, he can probably get most if not all of his money back parting out the car on the VWVortex.

I think they are going to try to pick-up a used engine.

I helped them find a low mileage one about 2 1/2 hours away from here.

NGTD wrote: I think they are going to try to pick-up a used engine. I helped them find a low mileage one about 2 1/2 hours away from here.

Unless he just wants to fix it for fun (and by fun I mean spend weeks working on one of the most unpleasant cars to work on that you can imagine, and buy a bunch of expensive tools and parts), you might not have explained well enough how bad an idea it was to buy that car lol.

In reply to NGTD:

Good luck. Take a lot of pictures.

NGTD wrote: I think they are going to try to pick-up a used engine. I helped them find a low mileage one about 2 1/2 hours away from here.

And I assume you are going to change the belts with it on the stand before you install it?

dean1484 wrote:

NGTD wrote: I think they are going to try to pick-up a used engine. I helped them find a low mileage one about 2 1/2 hours away from here.

And I assume you are going to change the belts with it on the stand before you install it?

I am not touching anything - I had a 99 Passat 1.8T. When my friend called me the first thing I said was "Run Away - Fast".

I will tell them to change the belt and tensioner.

Travis_K wrote:

NGTD wrote: I think they are going to try to pick-up a used engine. I helped them find a low mileage one about 2 1/2 hours away from here.

Unless he just wants to fix it for fun (and by fun I mean spend weeks working on one of the most unpleasant cars to work on that you can imagine, and buy a bunch of expensive tools and parts), you might not have explained well enough how bad an idea it was to buy that car lol.

Unfortunately they bought it before talking to me. See my post above for what I told them. At this point they are trying to cut their losses. I suggested the best bet was to do that was scrap it! Unfortunately they can't do that.

I know how they feel. We're in a similar boat with g/f's 850 wagon. She's into it way too deep to dump it. Sometimes it takes a few years of misery to finally give up, but at least by then they'll hopefully driven it some and gotten some use out of it. That's basically where I'm at with my Cummins and my E30. Enough time and miles have passed I can stomach the financial loss.

From driving my E30 over the past week or so, I'm finally under $3/mile cost of ownership... Although I'm sure something will break soon to change that...

Doing a tbelt on a double cam v6 is never easy, but these aren't the end of the world. Done a few. You MUST have the cam/pulley tool however to keep things aligned. The nose comes forward in about 20-30 minutes into the service position when you know what you are doing. Never had to take it completely off--don't recall the repair manual saying that either. HEADS WILL BE expensive though they are the same side to side just reversed on install for the most part. Best of luck! Do change the belts, water pump, and tensioner on the new (used ) motor.

I think that's the 12V V6 right? Make sure they get the right motor and not a later 30V.

My '99 1.8T was a great car that didn't gave me very little trouble. The timing belt was really easy in comparison to the Mitsubishi products I've worked on. They have a bad reputation but I think it comes down to poor maintenance, a few lemons, and the Internet little chicken.

SlickDizzy wrote: Oh, and IIRC you have to take the entire front end of the car apart, bumper, core support and all, to get at the belt. Book rate on the job is outrageous but then again so is the job itself.

Only if you're the sort who strips naked in order to take a leak.

Bumper comes off in two big bolts and a small handful of little Torx holding the skin to the fender. The nose of the car ("lock retainer" or somesuch) is another small handful of little Torx and seven big ones holding the bumper shocks (why it's seven and not eight, I have no idea) and then you put in two long 10mm bolts on either side and slide the nose forward four or five inches. All of the hoses are designed with a lot of slack or S-bends in them so you can do this. Sometimes you have to unplug the headlight harness connector, and on 1.8t models you have to disconnect the cross-vehicle intercooler plumbing.

10 minutes tops, usually five. I use case bolts from a broken Mazda 5-speed as the temporary through bolts.

Waaaay easier than fighting the fenderwell on a transverse. I wish all cars were as easy to work on.