Okay, I will give that a shot. Thanks!

 

Sorry I didn't follow up...there was no wi-fi on the bus yesterday afternoon.

If you turn out to need a head gasket, let me know and I'll sell you mine, still new in the package, for cheap.

I tend to jump to the biggest, most difficult and expensive possibility when I'm troubleshooting. Weird noise? Probably need a pair of turbos! Oh wait, it was just a $10 bearing? A couple years ago, shortly after I got it, I thought my car had a leaking head gasket and dying turbo, but it was a combination of other things instead:

bad boost leak (weird noise + low power under boost + black tailpipes), hard water in the cooling system (milky coolant that looked like it might be contaminated with combustion gases when hot), plugged heater core, bad temperature sensor leaking coolant and sending weird signals to the ECU, bad bearing in the SAI pump, that sounded like a turbo dying a horrible death on cold start, bad coolant after-run switch & O-ring (leaking coolant onto exhaust manifold, so coolant level dropped daily, but no coolant leaked onto the ground, which made me think it was a head gasket), dead radiator fan allowing the car to get hotter than normal (more evidence of head gasket failure, or so I thought).

What I'm getting at is that if I had started with a head gasket job to fix the weird-looking, disappearing coolant and overheating problems, then moved on to replacing turbos because of screaming bearing, low boost, and black tailpipes, I'd have spent probably $3,000 in parts alone.

As it was, over the course of a couple months I spent about $200 on cooling system maintenance, about a day checking for & repairing the boost leak, $20 on new bearings for the SAI pump, maybe $100? on temp sensors, O-rings & clips, and $100 for a Passat fan (swapped out the plugs to fit the allroad.)

I did a timing belt job, including valve cover/cam-related gaskets, and replaced the fuel injectors (gas smell when it's cold out: -15 F.) I've put 25,000 miles on it since then with nothing but oil changes.

I don't always drive it easy, either. The allroad is my pickup substitute, so I use it to haul heavy stuff, pull trailers over mountain passes, etc. I do stay off boost until the oil temp comes alive, but that's about the only special treatment it gets. There's some turbo whine, just like there was when I first got it, but it keeps going strong. Over the last couple years I've put aside enough money to buy turbos, chip, injectors, etc., so now if it blows one, I'll have an excuse to get a pair of Frankenturbos.

 

You should get yourself a "block tester". Napa has the kit:

https://www.napaautoparts.com/Catalo...282501448&An=0

When a engine develops a bad head gasket, the combusion gases from inside the cylinder get into the antifreeze. The block tester goes over the mouth of the radiator fill and you use the bulb to draw air from the radiator through the liquid. If there are combustion gases present in the anti-freeze, the air at the top of the radiator will also have trace amounts of contaminants in it (CO, CO2 etc) and will turn the liquid from blue to yellow.
It's a great little "tool" to have. Pretty much any problem can be properly/accurately diagnosed before money is thrown at the car.