I believe someone posted to this group trying to drum up support for
getting all 93 EV's recalled for this serious safety problem. The fact
that VW has not done this on it's own is a good reason for not buying
their products in the future. The new Passat is a great car, but I for
one would not buy it until I see more integrity demonstrated by VWUSA
on this. It's one thing to not stand behind annoying design problems;
it's another entirely for not addressing a potentially deadly problem
that is relatively inexpensive to fix.
I replaced all of the crimp cramps with top quality ABA brand screw
clamps that do not damage hoses. The thing still leaked at cold. After
much frustration, I traced the problem to the two lines (one blue and
one black) that come from the gas tank. The lines are a hard plastic
that terminate with a brass ferule to a short rubber line that connects
to the metal fittings near the engine. The ferule clamps down over the
two lines and a brass tube in the middle. The problem is that the
rubber line cracks very prematurely with age; you can not see the tiny
cracks until you dissassemble it. There are two fixes: replace both of
the lines completely (expensive parts and a complicated repair to get
at the fuel tank). One could probably persuade VW to pay for this with
enough persistence. This is preferred, since the other end of the line
down at the gas tank may have the same cracking going on. That end is
exposed to much less heat, however.
The second is to carefully dissamble both of these lines, preserving
the inner brass tube. The rubber tube can be replaced by a same size
fuel line, and clamped over the hard plastic tube after forcing the
brass tube inside it (this takes some persistence). This approach has
worked fine for me, and has been working well for over a year at all
temperatures. Obviously, I can't recommend it to anyone else given the
safety issues involved.
-Gregg Burgess
