Had a business meeting in Amsterdam 3 weeks ago. 1000 miles in 2 days, car never missed a beat and 40 mpg overall which was fantastic considering the speeds we did.

Garaged it for 5 days and got in it to go to Birmingham. Above 2.5k rpm the alternator light came on. I thought I'll keep it below 2.5k and drop it into the garage tomorrow. Big mistake.

100 miles up the M5 just before M42 car started to stutter, all the dash lights came on and I pulled into hard shoulder with a flat battery.

RAC came, started on a jump but everything, including auto box was shut down and in limp home mode so they towed me into VW Redditch who spent a week diagnosing and eventually changing the alternator and battery at a cost of £550 after a lot of argie bargie over the price and getting them to come within £50 of my local Skoda dealer.

Thing is, the car has only doen 24k so I was surprised that it failed. Just one of those things I guess.

Anyone else had a similar experience? Are the alternators weak? Never had a problem with 2 previous V6 TDi Passats which I assume use the same unit.

Jonathan

It probably needed neither an alternator nor a battery.

The first check to make when there are charging problems is the freewheeling pulley on the alternator. They sometimes fail to drive - so the pulley goes round but the alternator rotor is insufficiently driven to charge.

VAG fit either Bosch or Valeo machines to this chassis - both of which are reasonably reliable, the Valeo being possibly the better.

You would have got a new pulley with the new machine - but you were comprehensively shafted by the Trade - as usual.

rotodiesel.

I had a new alternator at 30 months/25k miles (1.9 130) - and then the replacement was replaced just 7 months later. Out of warranty, but covered by a 3rd party warranty I'd bought (phew!), so the savings more than covered the cost of the warranty. On the basis I won't get stung again, not so quickly anyway, I've now binned the warranty. But I wouldn't be too surprised if Roto's right - just wish I was a little more tech-savvy.

Yeah I tend to think Roto is right too. Bit sick really but my problem was that I was going on hols for 2 weeks when the car gave up so getting it home and looked at by someone I trusted wasn't an option.

Sometimes, you just have to grin and bear it.

J

Had mine reconditioned on my old 1.9 tdi. £60 for full recon incl pulley.

Roto is right, the pulleys are somewhat prone to failure, but its not all that unreasonable for them to fit a replacement alternator, and depending on the circumstances a replacement battery probably wasn't a bad idea.

£550 is a bit on the heavy side, but its a good 2hrs labour to swap out, possibly nearer 3hrs, and at some places charging £100/hr its easy for the bill to mount up quickly.

I have a (non-VAG) car with a Valeo alternator (solid pulley) which has run for over 150k miles. To renew an alternator at such a low mileage is a waste of money unless something fundamental has failed - unlikely.

Likewise, if the drive has been slipping, the battery will be in poor shape. A 48 hr trickle charge will put that right - the battery on the B5.5 chassis is a good size and VAG generally supply reasonable quality components such as Varta.

Far too many servicable parts are scrapped by the motor Trade to swell their profits. Many brake pads and disks are replaced when half worn.

rotodiesel.

Had mine reconditioned on my old 1.9 tdi. £60 for full recon incl pulley.

Bet the pulley wasn't replaced though (they cost that much on their own!)

Yep, had pulley done to, that was the main cause of failure.

Mine went at around 80k, I got a recon unit for £120 and a new battery for £75 as Skoda recommend 4 year life for a battery, I did try to bunk it, but the 1st replacement alternator lasted 10 hours, so I wasn't risking the second one with a duff battery.