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Our 2002 Passat wagon has been a disaster--it's a terrible car with multiple maintenance problems & horrible customer & repair service.  Among other things, including two recall letters, the brakes FAILED two years ago (young child in the backseat), and then our "oil pressure" alert light came on.  After an original misdiagnosis by the dealership in Connecticut (Montesi), we were sent back out on the road, only to have the oil pressure and "STOP THE CAR IMMEDIATELY" lights come back on again during a road trip over the 4th of July weekend.  It was not "too much oil" as Montesi would have it, but the notorious oil sludge problem.  Fourteen hundred dollars later (car rental which VW has refused to pay for and $800 repair which they also claim they won't pay for), I am fed up with VW, their cars & their service.  

both my mom and my brother have passats and both have had tons of problems with them, one of the dealerships were horiible to deal with. and my mom had that stop the car immediatley light come on and it scared the hell out of her  

Well it sounds like you have had two problems with the car. One with the brakes, and one with oil sludge. I found that most people that complain about VW are actually complaining about the dealers. I have owned 5 or 6 VWs (within my family we have probably owned 20 and I have been active in several VW clubs) and all I can say is that a good VW dealership is as rare as um well it may just be the most rare thing there is. VW of America is even worse than their dealer network. They have absolutely no concern for their customers or how they are treated.

You should try posting at www.vwvortex.com  I have complained about service on that site before and I actually got an email from Len Hunt, the then president of VWoA. I passed on my complaints, who knows if it did any good, at least the guy at the top heard them. Use the dealerships name and who you dealt with.

On a side note, I thnk it's hillarious that people always have to include the fact they had a child in the car when the car malfunctioned. Like the car should have waited until the kid wasn't in the car, if the car was that smart it could have waited until it was at the dealership for an oil change or something so it could be fixed as long as it was there. Maybe people are saying that adults are expendable but kids aren't, I don't know.  

aquabat911:
Well it sounds like you have had two problems with the car. One with the brakes, and one with oil sludge. I found that most people that complain about VW are actually complaining about the dealers. I have owned 5 or 6 VWs (within my family we have probably owned 20 and I have been active in several VW clubs) and all I can say is that a good VW dealership is as rare as um well it may just be the most rare thing there is. VW of America is even worse than their dealer network. They have absolutely no concern for their customers or how they are treated.

You should try posting at www.vwvortex.com  I have complained about service on that site before and I actually got an email from Len Hunt, the then president of VWoA. I passed on my complaints, who knows if it did any good, at least the guy at the top heard them. Use the dealerships name and who you dealt with.

On a side note, I thnk it's hillarious that people always have to include the fact they had a child in the car when the car malfunctioned. Like the car should have waited until the kid wasn't in the car, if the car was that smart it could have waited until it was at the dealership for an oil change or something so it could be fixed as long as it was there. Maybe people are saying that adults are expendable but kids aren't, I don't know.

hahahaha good point on the bottom of that one  

VEE DUB IN THE HAUS JAAA  

My sister also had lots of problems with the passat...we'll see how these new VW's turn out...  

Recently, I had a very similar experience with oil change. In the middle of nowhere, oil pressure and STOP THE CAR warnings came on although the car was far from the planned oil change deadline. I had to stop the car and get it towed to the WV service. When I was at the service, the car was not running. They proposed me to change the oil pump for $800. Now, the car consumes the oil faster, so I have to add almost every 1500 miles. This is a nice but high maintenance car. Now, I found a local service with more reasonable prices than VW dealership.