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On the lookout for a 2007-2010 Jetta with <100,000km's, diesel, automatic and under or around the $15,000 mark.
I found one being sold privately and locally so I went to test drive the vehicle which has done 91,000km, 103TDI. On considering the car a little more, I found out the VIN and gave the VW service centre a call where it had been serviced. Having not heard from the seller, I was shocked to hear what the VW service centre told me...basically to avoid this car as it had been diagnosed with having petrol put into it in February this year.
It was then an economic write-off due to the cost to replace the entire fuel system. I then asked the owner about this, to which he said he didn't mention it as it was mis-diagnosed at the VW service centre, and knew it wouldn't be a problem for future drivers. He told me he is a VW technician and that the problem was in fact a timing issue and says he has the fault codes and everything. As a result he replaced the timing belt, cam belt and the flywheel. He claims that the service centre couldn't diagnose the problem so they quoted the whole fuel system. The fault code that came up was for the amount of air being used by the engine (air mass meter), in this case he says the code came up because the engine timing was out which meant it wasn't using enough air. He claims to have the report from the technician with the fault code. There were no metal filings found from the fuel tank. I haven't met with him since or seen the technician's report, a bit shocked to tell the truth.
Is this worth pursuing with the owner or should I just leave the car in search of another one? What worries me is that he wasn't honest from the start in telling me that it had been written off, but I don't doubt his story about the servicing.
In contrast, the price is quite good and he is a nice guy, not (in my opinion) trying to be dodgy.
Cheers
I found one being sold privately and locally so I went to test drive the vehicle which has done 91,000km, 103TDI. On considering the car a little more, I found out the VIN and gave the VW service centre a call where it had been serviced. Having not heard from the seller, I was shocked to hear what the VW service centre told me...basically to avoid this car as it had been diagnosed with having petrol put into it in February this year.
It was then an economic write-off due to the cost to replace the entire fuel system. I then asked the owner about this, to which he said he didn't mention it as it was mis-diagnosed at the VW service centre, and knew it wouldn't be a problem for future drivers. He told me he is a VW technician and that the problem was in fact a timing issue and says he has the fault codes and everything. As a result he replaced the timing belt, cam belt and the flywheel. He claims that the service centre couldn't diagnose the problem so they quoted the whole fuel system. The fault code that came up was for the amount of air being used by the engine (air mass meter), in this case he says the code came up because the engine timing was out which meant it wasn't using enough air. He claims to have the report from the technician with the fault code. There were no metal filings found from the fuel tank. I haven't met with him since or seen the technician's report, a bit shocked to tell the truth.
Is this worth pursuing with the owner or should I just leave the car in search of another one? What worries me is that he wasn't honest from the start in telling me that it had been written off, but I don't doubt his story about the servicing.
In contrast, the price is quite good and he is a nice guy, not (in my opinion) trying to be dodgy.
Cheers
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