Oil flange gasket

99VW

MEMBER
VOLKSWAGEN

My husband has a 1999 VW Passat w/ approximately 90000 miles. It is a 1.8 Turbo. It has had some minor issues with leaking oil from when we bought it 2 years ago. On December8, 2006 it was in VW repair for an oil change & coolant repair. On January 17, 2007 my husband came out of work to find that most of the oil had drained from his car. He had it towed to the VW dealer and it had to have the oil filter flange gasket replaced. Friend are saying that this is Vw's fault from the previous visit(12/06). Vw is telling me it has nothing to do with it. Is VW telling me the truth? Thanks for your help!

1 Reply

BRUCE HUNT

MECHANIC
3,754 POSTS

There is not a history of this problem on that car. This is one of the reasons to do the work yourself. Some places have all of the new guys do the oil changes and they don't look around at other possible problems. Regardless, given the time and with no indication of miles, I favor VW's point of view. It is not their fault. They changed the oil and yes the flange could have been loose but probably was not leaking. There is a grave amount of responsibility upon us as car owners to look our car over and be proactive. Problems happen and this one happened to you. It could have been worse where he didn't see the leak and drove the car causing it to seize the motor from a lack of oil. Be grateful to get the easy fix.

Sorry if this doesn't agree with your friends viewpoint.