Where to buy parts online for VW?

First of all, I've got 246,000 miles on my original Golf strut mounts, and they're fine. A favorite "trick" of shops is to lift the weight off of the front wheels, shake the strut, and show you that the upper bearings are "loose". Well, that might work with some cars, but (unless the Passat is radically different) your VW's strut bearings are only shot if they move around when the weight is on the front wheels.

Valve gasket - unless you've done something special to the head you can get away with a simply NAPA (or simular local part show) gasket. Last I checked the local price for a VW head gasket for my 1.8 was about $30, and the rubber valve cover gasket about $15.

NOW - if you're not doing the work yourself, then you gotta use the parts they want to use. There is no reputable mechanic in the world that will take the parts you provide and use them. After all, who would pay for the damages if the parts turn out to be defective? Who'd pay the mechanic's time if the parts didn't fit right? I know how I run my computer shop, and I know how my friends run their mechanics shops, and I'm pretty sure that the repair people will insist on their own parts.

Tim Wohlford '89 golf, 246,000 miles

hth, TBerk

As TBerk already pointed out, there's

's also with whom I'vehad excellent luck on service and pricing. If you don't need partsright away, there's also FastAddiction at guy who runs the place is pretty cool, but it is a smaller operation and therefore doesn't have the same kind of stock on hand. As someone else already pointed out, the strut mounts on VWs generally require the weight of the car on them to stay in place; the mechanic who did the state inspection on my GTI told me I needed a pair, which I probably didn't, but it was easier to do the strut mounts than worry about him calling me on something else.

Aww...come on. There are a couple shops near me who do awesome work on german cars and they don't give a rats ass if I buy the parts. They charge for their time and let me know if a part will work or not. I think the trick is to build a relationship with a small shop. These guys know I'm not going to try and sue them over something I bought.

I've had my guys install a used upper intake manifold and used starter on my A4, both of which I bought from the vwvortex.com classifieds. I had them put on new suspension I bought online for my A2.

By the way, I wanted to put in my 2 cents on a great link for OEM replacement parts:

I've found some hard to get parts on that site. And you can search on your VW part # as well.

Take care, Dave

Not online, but over the phone, I like:

I can't find cheaper prices on OE parts. Period.

NAJASCYYY.