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Michael Cecil wrote: > You can look up such recalls and "secret" service bulletins by year > for many vehicles here: http://www.alldata.com/TSB/ > And in that vein, the official Federal Government recall site is here: http://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/cars/problems/recalls/recallsearch.cfm If you do a lookup, click on the document search. It's often an interesting read to see the correspondence between the Feds and the manufacturer. Campaign #06V017000 happens to be my baby. I shipped NHTSA the fuel pump on my Passat for a failure analysis (they confirmed my findings that the electric motor brush composition was the culprit)- there had been a rash of failures we had been discussing on vwvortex.com and passatworld.com- and NHTSA wanted my fuel pump. The forum participants deserve much credit for getting this recall to happen, and for submitting incidents with NHTSA. I just wanted my $300 back (what I paid for the part, which I installed myself, because I was 8000 miles past my warranty). I strongly suggest that if you ever have a problem with a car that's a safety issue (fuel, brakes, steering, etc.) to submit an incident to NHTSA via their website. So, recalls aren't "secret". At least not official Federal ones. As for secret service bulletins, VW does have a few currently- they're quietly extending the engine warranty on all 1.8T B5 platform (Passat and A4) vehicles to cover the issue of sludge buildup clogging the oil pump inlet screen leading to oil starvation and potential engine/turbo damage. Since this is a voluntary extended warranty and not an original warranty, you must essentially PROVE that you had your oil changed at the dealership the whole time- which is how they get away with not having to comply with the provisions of the Magnuson-Moss act. The root cause was that dealerships were being lax in conforming to the proper oil specification (book calls for VW502.00 spec oil, almost exclusively available in 5W-40 synthetics like Mobil1 0W-40, no dino oils) while the dealerships were using dino 5W-30 using the 5000 OCI called for the synthetic. Conventional oil would break down and coke- especially at the heat found in the turbo bearings- and eventually leave something resembling coffee grounds in the oil pump inlet screen. Basically, if you can prove your dealer fouled up and used the wrong oil, and have reciepts for EVERY SINGLE CHANGE AT THE DEALER, they're on the hook. All this because the service managers thought they knew more than the Germans in the white lab coats. :) Do I blame VW for this? Not really- it's the US dealer network that decided not to follow a reasonable recommendation (perhaps under pressure from customers wanting to save $20 on an oil change). What's worse is that you can't drop the oil pan on a 1.8T Passat without dropping the front subframe and supporting the engine on a crane, in case you wanted to preventatively clean it out. Essentially you need a boroscope to inspect the bottom crankcase. Makes me glad I have the V6, which doesn't have these problems. The current TSB recommends explicitly what oils to use, and recommends a larger filter to increase oil capacity by .5 qt (the very large oil filter used on 78-84 1.6 diesels). Note that the 1.8T VW A4 platform doesn't have this problem, as those have larger oil pans due to their transverse engines. To bring it back to Type 3s, it looks like they're no recalls issued on my '73 Fasty. That's a relief. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ List info at http://www.vwtype3.org/list | mailto:gregm@vwtype3.org ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~