B5.5 Passat Estate

[Geoff Campbell]

Still one of the best and most reliable cars VW ever built. I wouldn't bother with coilovers, it's fine the way it sits and the car will thank you for it.

While I know what you’re saying so true, I can’t resist

Brake upgrade for the 312’s are just caliper mounting brackets if you’ve the 288’s. Same caliper and pads, just discs need changed. I’d them on my v5 and v6 as oe, they were grand on the v5, not man enough on the v6 if I’m honest.

That’s very useful to know. Definitely will be looking into that down the line, thanks!

Those other wheels were awful. I like that you've seen sense and gone back to the VW ones.

Different strokes I guess. Wheels are still there and will be back on again.

 

[Ian A]

Is this Robin's old Passat? If so will have been a mint example.

Will always have a soft spot for these and yours looks like a super example.

 

[Geoff Campbell]

Is this Robin's old Passat? If so will have been a mint example.

Will always have a soft spot for these and yours looks like a super example.

It is indeed his old one! Bumped into him at a show and happened to mention I was looking for one and he was looking at selling this so it worked out really well. The comments I’ve had regarding how straight the car is for its age and the condition of the paint is a true credit to how well he kept it.

 

[Geoff Campbell]

Few minor changes to this. Had the rear lights tinted as opposed to smoking them as that would of been too much on a black car in my opinion:

Changed the spacers on the car from 25mm all round to 15mm at the front and 20mm at the rear which suited it far better with the Rotiforms and then also lowered the car more.

Much happier with how it sits. Bar the fitment of US markers at some point, I think the exterior is more or less done for the mean time.

 

[veedubnoodle]

Sitting far better man. I wouldn't have de-chromed the window surrounds or grille but that's just my personal preference

 

[Geoff Campbell]

Sitting far better man. I wouldn't have de-chromed the window surrounds or grille but that's just my personal preference

All reversible if I ever wanted to go back but I mainly dechromed with window surrounds because they were going patchy with water behind the lacquer and this was significantly cheaper than the hassle of new chrome work

 

[veedubnoodle]

I mainly dechromed with window surrounds because they were going patchy with water behind the lacquer

Ahhh yeah, I remember having that issue on my B6 Passat

 

[azzamut]

that looks fantastic!!! Wish my B5 Avant was in as good order

 

[Lyons]

Pretty sure I saw you recently somewhere, it can’t remember where. I meant to put it in the spotted thread but forgot by the time I got home!

 

[Geoff Campbell]

that looks fantastic!!! Wish my B5 Avant was in as good order

Thank you!

Pretty sure I saw you recently somewhere, it can’t remember where. I meant to put it in the spotted thread but forgot by the time I got home!

I was all over the country on Monday helping a friend view cars so I wouldn’t be surprised if it was then

 

[scotty733]

That’s lovely looking!

Here’s a picture of my V6 one I had a while back..

 

[Tam9n]

Got a fjord blue B5 at the moment, it’s a 1.9TDI AFN, returns like high 60’s info the 70mpg everyday cruising the motorway! Love these passats!

 

[Tam9n]

You’ve got a great example, gutted I didn’t get my hands on that one! I love B5’s and 5.5’s!

 

[Geoff Campbell]

You’ve got a great example, gutted I didn’t get my hands on that one! I love B5’s and 5.5’s!

Thank you! It was very much a case of right place right time and I was over the moon to get such a well taken care of example. Yours looks like a good example too, B5s seem to be fairly hard to come by whereas I’m surprised at just how many B5.5s are still about (crazy how you pick up on this after you buy something )

 

[_Stu_]

Thank you! It was very much a case of right place right time and I was over the moon to get such a well taken care of example. Yours looks like a good example too, B5s seem to be fairly hard to come by whereas I’m surprised at just how many B5.5s are still about (crazy how you pick up on this after you buy something )

Tidy condition B5.5s are so hard to get now. The one I had was only the the second one I looked at but as soon as I saw it I knew it was coming home with me. My mate who now owns it had it over earlier for me to restore the headlamps again and I’m happy to report he’s looking after it really well. Headlights came up well too with very little effort.

 

[Geoff Campbell]

So I finally got around to having my US markers painted up after them sitting for weeks. My plan was to bring the car to Built on Sunday and due to other commitments, I had no time to prep the car bar the Saturday beforehand and of course I’d put together a list of jobs to go through including removing the bumpers, cutting them to allow fitment of the US markers and then refitting, clean the wheel arches and also through clean the wheels after they had become caked in tar during the hot weather and also freshening up the calipers, dustshields and bells of the brakes as they were starting to look a bit tatty (understandable given the age of it).

Didn’t get much pictures during all this bar this one (ignore the lawn edging, it was bought for something else but happened to be in shot)

I just about managed to get everything done as I was stuck either waiting for paint to dry to allow me to refit wheels and also the cutting of the bumpers took ages with the dremel. Managed to give the car a wash and wax and then of course it rained the next day!

Had a great day at the show and was very happy with how the car turned out although I still need to actually wire the markers in as I ran out of time but I’ll take care of that during the week. Also decided to lose the black wrap on the outside edge of the front grille I think helps.

A few shots from the show which I’ve found:

 

[Geoff Campbell]

Long time since I posted an update!

Not long after Built, I unfortunately had a run in with a cat

Damage was mainly cosmetic with all the lower grilles being lost as well as the driver side arch liner being destroyed. The lower portion of the bumper thankfully clipped back into place.

A quick appeal on Facebook saw me get replacements parts from a donor car the following day however the sellers location wasn’t exactly lowered car friendly with a lot of wincing and sweating for my sump (there was actually a B5 parked up in the same yard which had a ruptured sump from the exact same roads and it was at standard height )

After that it was mainly used as workhorse with little in the way of other changes. It ferried me and my friend to and from his stag do in Carlingford:

And then after that it received a few changes for Titanic Dubs:

Namely a ‘splitter’, aftermarket steering wheel and roof bars and box painted in VW Black Magic to match. Far from everyone’s cup of tea for sure but I loved how it looked in full Dad mode

Unfortunately not long after TD, the Dual Mass Flywheel packed in on the car somewhat prematurely as I had been led to believe it had been done by the previous owner within the past 15-20k Miles. Took it on the chin and had a LUK clutch and flywheel fitted and fresh gearbox oil.

Then, with the imminent arrival of my daughter as well as the cars MOT, I decided to revert the car back to the AP shocks and lowering springs it originally came on as well as find some winter wheels.

Monzas would be far from anyone’s first choice I’m sure but they were there and at a reasonable price with tyres:

Then, a couple of weeks later than expected, Evie arrived

Once she was home and settled, I managed to get the rest of the MOT prep completed. Took care of the airbag light which had been on since TD (my own fault for knocking the steering angle sensor out by 360 degrees ), swapped the standard headlights back in and sent it through with a fresh CV joint and it passed with no advisories!

I did also get auto locking enabled on the car however that turned into a bit of a nightmare when the door control module on the driver side front door became faulty and meant I was locked inside my own car on a couple of occasions thankfully, it’s a common failure point so replacement modules are readily available and cheap to buy. A hour or two had the new part fitted which also resolved the other issue where the interior lights weren’t coming on when the door was opened which was nice.

The car more or less stayed that way up until earlier this month where I was getting bored of how it looked so put some fresh tyres onto the Rotiforms and fitted up a fresh set of coilovers since the previous set were blown:

Future plans mainly consist of a set of Votex style sideskirts which I have sat and address a couple more niggles (silly stuff like a new roof aerial and also a fresh micro switch on the boot latch as the boot light doesn’t come on when the boot is open). Fairly uneventful update for the most part but still loving Passat ownership!

 

[Anto84]

looks great

 

[natogreen16v]

Good old battle wagon these are Geoff

 

[Geoff Campbell]

Another long period has passed since I updated this thread and since there's little else to be at these days, I figured I'd try and bring this up to date.

After the last update, I managed to pick up a 300mm MOMO team with boss from a friend for a great price so proceeded to fit that up along with a New South Performance boost gauge with their column mount holder.

.

Then proceeded to gather up a few more bits. I had Votex style side skirts sat for ages for it but felt it also needed a splitter up front to match especially as the last attempt with the rhino lip didn't look great. So decided to go for an ABT style lip off of eBay. On top of that, the rear lights on the car had annoyed me for ages as they had a bad habit of misting up and, while I could have sourced replacements, I honestly preferred the look of the older B5 lamps which can fit into a B5.5 with a little work.

All the parts gathered up:

B5 lamp mocked up in the compared to the standard lamp:

And both lamps fit and wired in:

At this point Dubshed was rapidly approaching so I hastily got the splitter and sideskirts fitted and made an attempt at painting the original lamps. Also managed to pick up some front fog lights so got those in and wired up too.

How it ended up looking:

After that, car sat like that for a little while and then decided to send the Rotiforms off for a refurb as they had previously been damaged by a tyre fitters and were generally a bit tired. Had went off the Monzas as my winter wheels so went and found another set of Phoenixs plus refit the W8 headlights:

Also took the opportunity to source a set of 312mm front caliper carriers and a fresh set of discs to match.

Then it all went a bit wrong...

 

[Blackie]

Mate that interior looks soooooooooo clean! And you’re right, the B5 tail lights are much better looking.

 

[Geoff Campbell]

So at this point it was July 2019 and I'd had the car a little over a year and I'd already replaced the clutch and flywheel about 9 months previously however one day while commuting to work, I attempted to shift into 4th only to be greeted by nothing On top of that, it seemed like the clutch had started to slip.

Weighed up my options, especially as the car was due a belt change too and ended up sourcing a replacement box and biting the bullet to get it all done and out of the way.

It would appear that there is an early and a late 5 speed gearbox for PD130 Passats and the early box is thought to be the better of the two so managed to find one of those to slot into it.

After a few weeks between sourcing parts and then waiting for my mechanic to take a look at it, finally got it back. Parts included a full set of belts, water pump and tensioners then a new clutch and flywheel to go in with the 'new' box as well as a replacement arm on one side and a new CV then service parts. And yes, it was a hefty enough bill.

In the mean time, I had sourced some more parts for it including a set of new wheels to cheer myself up:

Had wanted Tarmacs since I had owned my old Focus but just never was able to make it work out so when I found these advertised down South, I managed to convince a friend to help go and pick them up while the car was still with the mechanic. First thing to do was to swap out the rubber band 35 profile tyres to a 40 profile to suit the height of the Passat and also fit a new ECU with a more clutch friendly remap to try and preserve the new clutch with a smoother torque curve.

So got the car back, fit the wheels up and took it to SoLow:

Then once that was over, I sent the Tarmacs for a refurb with KLC Wheel Refurb in Enniskillen in anticipation of taking the car over to Cleanfest in Edinburgh.

At the same time I wanted to tidy up the front wings as they really had seen better days too. Managed to source a replacement set off eBay pre painted for decent money so set about swapping those onto the car.

Before:

During:

And after:

And back on the ground on the freshly refurbed wheels:

Also decided to retrofit Cruise Control to the car in preparation for the drive across Scotland (which after seeing all the average speed cameras was a great idea!)

On the boat:

And leaving Cleanfest (one of my faourite photos of the car thanks to @Tinners)

 

[Geoff Campbell]

That took it up to October of last year and winter fast approaching, I had to address something which I been meaning to do for ages which was the heater matrix. I had bypassed this some months previously due to the fact that it failed and was causing it to evaporate coolant onto the inside of the windscreen. This wasn't too much of a problem in Spring or Summer but was going to make Winter pretty miserable.

Had done some research on the job at hand and no matter what way I looked at it, it seemed to be a pretty miserable task especially as the core itself is right at the back of the dash itself so full dash out job So recruited the help of a friend and tore into it.

Part way through:

Then of course, hit a big problem. Got the old heater core out but in the process of trying to manhandle the heater box assembly back into situ, the entire box split This then meant I was back to square one. Happily, I happened to recall that @browne174 had a Passat which was set for scrap in his yard. Went around the next and tore the dash out of it (amazing how much quicker the job is when you don't have to be quite so precious or when there's not a windscreen in the car ).

Managed to get the entire thing back together but its definitely up there as one of the worst jobs I've ever had to do on a car.

After that, got the car MOT'd and that took me into the new year.

Enjoyed the snow:

Destroyed one of the side skirts so ended up getting some better fitting replacements:

Found some rare Inpro rear lights for sale so took a punt on them and swapped out the red/amber side markers for clear ones to match:

Swapped out the blue caps under the bonnet for black:

Fit a spoiler (which not long after tried to make a break for it)

Took the spoiler incident as a sign to source a replacement bootlid to replace the current one as its rotten along the bottom edge:

I have it and a US front bumper on the way which will both be painted up once things settle down plus have sourced another set of wheels to replace the Tarmacs.

And that's pretty much everything for now!

 

[davemk2]

heater matrix replacement and steering racks imo can be the biggest waste of a day and always think a couple of hours will sort it

mintest looking Passat estate I've seen hats of to you, you no notion of smoothing the boot?

 

[Geoff Campbell]

heater matrix replacement and steering racks imo can be the biggest waste of a day and always think a couple of hours will sort it

mintest looking Passat estate I've seen hats of to you, you no notion of smoothing the boot?

I’d like to imagine I was being semi realistic with setting aside a day or two but even then I was surprised at how much of a handling it turned into

And thank you, it’s certainly not perfect but I’m very happy with it generally speaking for it’s age and mileage. As far as the bootlid is concerned, the dream would have been a US bootlid but I just couldn’t justify the cost of one. Besides that I quite like the VW badge being left on the bootlid personally but I’ve seen some smoothed which does look well.