Man. It is a labor of love keeping my 04 Passat in top running condition. Right now, getting an oil change, brake fluid flush, and fuel injector flush. Total charge is $260. Right now, for me, that is a lot of money. But there's nothing like having the security of a ride that's reliable and fun to drive. A lot of people, like my co-workers, just let their cars get fucked up and then they're like "now what?" Me, I'm obsessive with mine. I listen to the sounds the car makes all the fucking time. I feel which gears are not shifting right (it's an automatic). I always average my gas mileage. I've thought about the economics of having this car during a recession when I'm not making shit for money and don't have shit in my savings. The thing is, before my Acura got stolen and my Dodge was totaled, I had this view of German cars like, "oh, the maintenance is expensive and you'll go broke." You know why that's total bullshit? Because when you fix something on a German car, it's fixed. Whenever I fixed something on the Acura or Dodge, something related would break within the month. And, for some reason, the cost of doing a transmission flush costs twice as much on both of those other cars as it does on the VW. The reason, says the mechanic, is that the VW engine is constructed in a way that makes general maintenance stuff easy as hell to access. He said it's plug and play. Man am I fucking wired and tired.
Maintaining the VW
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- Thread starter captainballs
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Welcome to the bliss of German cars. I've got an b5 a4 that is the bastard child in my small collection of old BMWs, but after working on German cars for so long you realize the lesser cost of maintaining them is well worth the small amount extra up front. I will say though, you should try a BMW next time around 
