Honestly, I love working on cars, all the maintenance I can do myself, I love to do it. But following my "flooded" servo, which may mean I need a replacement, I have been wondering if this may be outside the scope of the average home-mechanic.

Anyone tried it?

Skoda want about £300 for the part alone. Ebay "OEM replacement" brand new £165.

I have replaced many servos, but not on a B5.5. Once you have full access to the plenum chamber with all covers off (including that horrible one at the base of the screen), it doesn't look too bad. The reservoir comes off the master cylinder with one cross bolt underneath and it should then be possible to move the master cylinder away with the pipes connected. The bulkhead nuts and pedal linkage will be fun though...

Are you sure it needs a new servo? If it just had a few gulps of water, it might be OK - or don't you trust it any more?

I take it you have removed both plenum drain bungs - the one under the battery tray and the one with the pipe running through it in the servo well. If not, it will all happen again...

rotodiesel.

Here you go:

http://www.passatworld.com/forums/showthread.php?t=307884

Looks a sod of a job...

rotodiesel.

Here you go:

http://www.passatworld.com/forums/showthread.php?t=307884

Looks a sod of a job...

rotodiesel.

Thanks rotodiesel.

I have cleaned both bungs, yes, but not removed them. Is there any logic in having these bungs there, I don't understand why VAG bothered to put the bungs in there at all, when the 1 inch hole would probably never get blocked"bungless". Unless they wanted to avoid water tracking down below....

Basically I do not trust the servo any more, but will not replace it until I have a re-occurrence of the problem I had. A bit of water in the servo does not worry me really, I will pop the vacuum pipe off while I have the use of my second car to help it dry out. My concern is if there is rust on the bottom of the housing, in which case it has reached the end of its life. When I have some time, I will play around with it to see how well its holding vacuum with lots of application of brakes at low engine speeds. :yes:

Take the bungs out (push the one under the servo down about 1") or this problem will recur. It's a totally brainless design and the cars should all have been recalled. Toyota are saints compared with this lot.

The standard test for a servo is a "vacuum runout test". Find a long spiral car park ramp and start at the top. Drive down as slowly as you can in first gear with your foot on the brakes applying the brakes so as to travel as slowly as possible.

With the engine at idle, you should get to the bottom of the ramp without losing assist.

rotodiesel.

...It's a totally brainless design and the cars should all have been recalled...

I've seen this problem once. A mate drove his car round to my place at about 10MPH. I was laughing at him for being such a wimp but only because I didn't fully understand the full horror of this problem. I didn't laugh for long. I took it for a quick drive across a nearby car park. Stopping distance was 100ft from 20MPH.

I believe that this problem isn't just the loss of a 'secondary/backup system' but also acts against you as you use muscle power. Either that or the primary system is inadequate for such a heavy car.

We contacted VOSA who didn't even want to log a report. My mate wanted them to examine the car before any work was done on it. Their response was that they only do that if there has been a serious injury and only then if the police determine that a mechanical problem was to blame. USELESS BUNCH OF W**KERS.

I followed the procedure in the link given by rotodiesel. All I can say is that I wouldn't want to another one.

The bolt on the bottom was rusted on and took half a can of PlusGas and 30 minutes before I could get it off.

Had to fit a new servo as it had rusted so badly. SUK (shouldn't there be a C in there) did eventually supply the servo FOC as a 'goodwill gesture'.

Good Luck