So, as car guys go, I’m pretty darn particular and or peculiar when it comes to my personal-car choices. I’m not what one would call brand loyal, but rather engineering loyal. I’m not a completely mad, one car obsessive gear-head. I have certain very specific requirements for my cars. They must be reliable, of superior quality, good design, and have good driving dynamics.  As a result, I’ve been drawn to pre-1995 Mercedes W124 E Class sedans and wagons.

 I’ve had three of them. My first was a 1987 300D turbo diesel that I donated to a charity with nearly 600k miles on the odometer. The car was in fine shape, and ran like a top. I won a couple best in show awards a some local car shows with the old gal. Next came a 1995 E420 V8 powered beast of a Benz. This is by far that all out fastest car I’ve ever owned – more than capable of transporting it’s occupants at exponentially illegal speeds in near silence and absolute stability. This car at 130 felt more stable than some cars at 50. The E420 suffered severe rear suspension damage when the sub-frame mounts rusted and punched through the rear chassis. A shame really, as the 300k on the clock was hard to fathom given the literally showroom perfect original paint and interior. The one previous owner before me was a MB club member, etc; as fanatical as I when it came to auto care… I sold the car to my mechanic for use as a donor vehicle from which he could harvest the engine for a crazy project of his… 

Currently I have a 1993 400E in my possession, basically the exact same car as the E420 aside from a couple differences in cosmetics. As of this evening, this is my “youngest” Benz, having only 154K miles on it. Ironically, this car has been the most troublesome, if it can be called that, due to a slight oil leak from a loose oil pan/gasket combo. A $20 fix. The most trouble a W124 chassis car has ever given me.  

Given the above, you can venture to guess that these are damn good cars. I have always bought them with right around 100k miles, and in the course of ownership, have added several hundred thousand to the clock with minimal maintenance or fuss. To me, it’s the perfect car. Stylish, of supremely high quality construction, great handling, and fast as stink! I’ll never own another car, right? WRONG! 

About 2 years ago, I took a position close to home with a large technology firm in the capacity of a sales training/manager/specialist. It was so close, that having the big (actually it’s a midsize) Benz was a bit of overkill as I seldom was able to get the old bugger out on the expressway to stretch its legs for long distances, as it was designed for.  

As a side note: Mercedes cars are designed to travel at triple digit speeds on the German Autobahn roadway network. If one fails to get them out onto the open road, and “blow them out” at least a couple times per month, the cars will literally start to pack up and run quite poorly.  

As a result of my not needing a bahn-burner as I called the car, I decided to step out of my comfort zone and get a much lighter – more efficient means of transport; something small and fun to drive. So, I found me a loaded up ’01 Passat GLX sedan with every stinking feature under the sun, except it had a manual transmission.  

You’re probably thinking, “a Passat isn’t a small car, what’s this guy smokin?” Well, let’s put it into perspective. I went from a roughly 5,500 lbs rear drive V8 Mercedes “mid-size” sedan to a 3,800 lbs Volkswagen V6 front drive sedan with a shift it yourself transmission. To me this thing was like a go-kart! 

VW has a mixed reputation in the states, having recently had a tarnished reputation with it’s rather questionable Brazilian built Jetta sedans from earlier this millennia. The Passat was a “real” VW having been built in Emden Germany on a platform shared with the Audi A4. Overall, a recipe for much automotive goodness, or so I thought.  

Here I have a gleaming silver sedan with about 70k miles on it that is ages ahead of my old traditional Mercedes sedan. Given the fact that I usually keep a car till it has about 300K miles, this car is going to serve me well in the coming years, right? No, not so much.  

Now, I need to preface this by saying that this is by far the best driving front drive sedan I have ever driven. It’s responsive, stable-at-speed, and handles like it’s on rails. The interior is superb; covered in soft touch, rubber like materials that have an air of quality and sturdiness to them. The seats are nice and supportive, with a good range of adjustment to suit my 6’2” frame and my fiancé’s 5’7’s. The engine is torquey and a free spinner as well, which combined with the manual transmission, makes for an engaging and entertaining driver.  

Despite all of this, the VW is by far the worse car I have ever owned. In the 20k miles I’ve driven the car since in my possession, I have spent more money just keeping the thing on the road then I have on my last 6 cars combined, 2 of which were English, none-the-less!  

Most recently, after a period of letting the Passat sit for a month, un-driven, a whole host of issues have arisen preventing the car from passing it’s emissions inspection, and hence relegating it to my garage until repairs can be completed. So far, the diagnosis, not all of which are emissions related include.

·         Inner and outer tie rod ends – both sides

·         Oil pan gasket

·         Timing belt

·         Clutch

·         Complete exhaust, including catalytic converters for both sides

·         2 new front brake calipers

·         4 new brake rotors

·         Brake pads – all 4 wheels worth

·         Front, lower control arms and ball joints, both sides

·         Air pump

·         And an ABS control module

In all totaling $5,800 from the dealer!!!

Needless to say, I won’t be taking the VW to the dealer for these repairs, and will do as much as I can myself, leaving the rest to my trusty independent German car mechanic. Still, that quote is well north of $3,000 in total. When asking around at various dealerships and forums about these issues that have arisen after a bit of an extended down time, the response was “it’s normal”

For the love of all things holy! How can letting a car sit for a mere month with synthetic fluids in the sump none-the-less, result in such a cataclysm of malfunctions and damage? The first time I drove the car after it’s hiatus from the road, I treated it as though it were made of glass, up-shifting early, and only getting up to about 30 mph on a straight, smooth back road. All seemed fine until the next morning when I started the car to find the entire dash lit up like a Christmas tree!

To be fair, the car drives fine. It idles a bit rougher than it used to, but only so minutely, that only me and my anal manner of keeping cars notices. My mechanic says it’s smoother than any V6 Passat that he’s ever driven, but still, mine was smoother! The suspension is making all sorts of noises now that the bushings appear to be shot, and the ball joints in dis-repair. The clutch only slips ever so slightly when under hard throttle in 3^rd gear when going uphill, or when passing. It feels like a bit of a bump, then is fine and never happens again. All in all, the car is “technically” fine from a performance aspect, yet is on the verge of self destruction.

Being that the car is in need of a new exhaust system, it cannot pass the Illinois state mandated yearly emissions test. Not because it is  polluting the environment, but rather, because the exhaust system o2 sensor monitors are not speaking with the OBII port on the car, giving an error to the emissions test center computers. So, until I can justify paying the $3,000 it would take to rectify these issues, allowing the car to pass the test, and allowing me to renew its registration, there it sits in my garage - a slap in the face to my meticulous regime of auto maintenance and fanaticism.  

Being that the car is cosmetically in show room new condition, my neighbors are a bit perplexed as to why the rather common VW Passat never leaves my garage. It’s not like it is a rare collectable, carefully enshrined for future generations to enjoy. It’s a measly middle class German sedan, of which there are hundreds of thousands on the road.  

It would seem that being a VW owner is fraught with turning a blind eye to electrical issues, and questionable reliability to simply maintain the “hip” image that VW “bestows” on those who choose to drive their products. So much so, the dealership thought it perfectly acceptable to indicate that the issues I was experiencing with my auto were perfectly normal, and within specification! 

I’m sorry, but there is nothing about this particular car that makes nearly $6,000 in maintenance and repairs acceptable. I might as well be driving a Ferrari 612, or something far more exotic and impressive! No young girls have ever “oogled” my little silver sedan before. Hardly seems worth the effort now! 

So, still having one Mercedes left, the 400E, I have reverted back to using this as my daily car, leaving the much newer VW to decay in my garage until a time when I can justify the repairs, or offload this thing on a wholesale lot. Using the 400E as a commuter car is akin to hiring a prize fighter to keep the neighborhood kids off your lawn. It’s a bit of overkill. 

Having stepped out of my realm of familiarity, and pushed my beloved ubber-Stuttgart autobahn burning Benzs to the back burner turning instead to the beast from Emden, I find myself supremely betrayed…