Our daughter, my step-d (didn't you know I was the "Wicked Steppie" as in Cinderella)... bought this 01 VW Passat. It might have been a nice car once but I'm going to say it's a 'Pass-it'... but her girl-friends like VWs. I'm hearing this second hand... thankfully she's not asked me to advise her. She's been using her uncle's mechanic at the used car lot & nothing he says makes any sense.

She broke down & had to be towed off the Mass pike after leaving camp. They claimed 4 coils were bad & had to do a lot of work to get to them to replace them. Then they claimed the car had 4 catalitic converters... the back 2 were clogged... so they cut out the front ones & moved them to the back & just put pipe in the place in the front... then told her that it will not pass inspection this way (not what she wanted) but their inspection station will get her a sticker. WTF??

She tells me there are 2 tailpipes. I'm seeing that this is the staggered hybrid 6... a cross between a V and an in-line. I'm researching online & seeing picts of 2 head pipes that merge and then have a dual tip tail pipe... It may be that misfiring cylinders ruined the cat. I can see sticking in a "test pipe". But why the story. I think her uncle (my bro in law), is not up on modern cars & the lieing sack of scat he has working for him are clueless.

My wife has suggested DD (Dear Daughter) find a better place to get her repairs done.

I have made lots of mistakes. Bought interesting vehiles that were rare. Like The Ford Ranger with a 2.2 diesel that no one had ever seen before. I'm going to say for best economy, get common place ordinary cars. OK, I'm just the Wicked Steppie...

VR6s commonly have coil problems. A long term misfire could kill catalytics, but I don't think that car should have 4. Maybe 3 or 2. Not familiar enough with the Passats to say so.PassatWorld forums may be a good place to browse to pick up some things. VWVortex is huge but full of riceyness and more Golfs and Jettas than the big cars.