My wife and I have had our '04 VW Passat GLS FWD with the 1.8T and Tiptronic trans for about 2 years now. I am not sure what we were thinking when we bought it. We really should of bought a AWD or 4x4 SUV because well you see we we live down a 1 mile dirt road with rocks and hills that might fit for part of the KOH course. But the turbocharged fuel efficient car seemed to good of a deal to pass up. I really should of researched more before buying the car. I new nothing of leak prone coolant flanges and timing chain tensor gaskets that spit oil all over the back of the engine, but I became familiar soon enough. The PO's regular maintenance seemed to include infrequent oil changes and changing the fuel filter when ever the fuel pump gave out(found receipts in the the glove box). Altho from what I could tell they did use the recommended oil that is suppose to help reduce the chance of the dreaded "OIL SLUDGE". It was a one owner/family car that worked its way from Grandma to Daughter to Grandson who we bought it off of. It had 118K miles on it when we bought it an it now has 157K.
Over the past two years I have replaced or added the following (some things more then once). Thor Aluminum Engine Skid plate, Vacuum pump valve, Timing belt, Water pump, Accessory belt, Fuel pump, Fuel filter, ECS Tuning fuel pressure gauge, Spark plugs, Bank 1 O2 sensor, Cat Delete (test pipe), New trans fluid and filter, Replaced Both CV Axles, Coolant flange (2), Most recently I have : Installed new to me radiator( I stabbed a hole in the original while doing timing belt replacement), Flushed coolant and refilled with VW spec coolant, New Coolant reservoir, Valve cover gasket, Cam chain tensioner, I also put a new battery in and new tires before winter.
I feel now that the car is reliable and good to go mechanically for another 50K but our dirt road has gotten worse. It seems the county road graders have forgotten about us. After this recent snow and mud the road is darn near impassable in the car. We have put it up for sale and no one appreciates the time and money invested in the car as much as I do so we have decided to keep it.
Soooo that leads us to the present project of lifting the car atleast 1 to 2 inches to increase ground clearance and fit bigger tires. A friend of mine who also frequents this board (bigdaddylee) has been helping me with ideas and tracking down potential parts to make it happen. I frequent passatworld forum when I need tech advice but I thought I would post a thread hear for kicks. So far we have these options: HD Bilstien shocks, HD springs from rock auto, spring distance kit from Jeggs or Coilovers. I have not found any coilovers that adjust ride height any higher then stock tho. The cheapest is the Spring distance kit coming in at about $90 per axle but Jeggs offers little info as to how much lift these offer I will need to call them for specs. The HD shocks and springs would be great but thats going to cost darn near $900. So that where I am a at this point, now to end my first post with some pictures: