[72GTOMN]

Thanks for all the advise! Hopefully I'm not developing a German car superiority complex. If someone wanted to race, I'd say "sure, let me go get my other car."

I have lurked around a bit on the VW forums but it's sometimes hard to get the honest truth from enthusiasts. Qball outlined most of what I have heard.
1) Stay away from the dealership!
2) Parts availability can sometimes be an issue
3) I've noticed they are very polarizing. People tend to either have great luck, like the diesel rabbit with over 1/2 a million miles, or you'd think buying a VW was the worst thing that ever happened in their life.
BTW, the Corrado (along with the original GTI) were the first VWs I really liked.

[mike nixon]

VW's are expensive to work on and seem to be more troublesome than the domestics I see.

I don't work on them but I have a buddy that does. HE hates them and from what I've seen with good reason.

Mike

[FrankieT/A]

I seem to remember a friend that had one and he always had problems with the pwr windows. A mechanic friend of mine replaced an automatic transmission cost him $250.00 at the junk yard, no big deal right? It cost him $150 for the fluid.

[A.J.]

Originally Posted by goatless

A.J., can you fill us in a little on your troubles? Year, model and engine? More info would help to determine if the problems you've had are relevant to others.

Troubles on my car. Passat estate -07 2,0FSI 6 speed manual transmission
Parking brake button breaks due to poor quality. If your unlucky the car will sit with brakes locked (electrike parking brake) happend twice. Its not R/R but you need to recalibrate the brakesystem, costs about 300$. (you cant change brakepads without calibrating the system either)

The manual gearbox started to sound like the sync-rings were worn after 85000 km. The VW dealership told me over the phone that it was not within warranty and the VAG group Sweden told me that they do not talk directly with the customers.... VAG Germany was of no help either. A friend who runs a shop pulled the gearbox and got me another on from Germany. The old gearbox had only 1/3 of the oil quantity but no sign of leaks. The gearboxes does not ever get any oilchanges following WV: maintenace program. Lucky me I had an insurance covering this so I only had to pay 800$ and without car for 3 weeks...
(Think the used gearbox was 7700$ covered by the insurance)
Scanning the forums I'm not the only one having that problem.

The microswitch for the trunk broke, common fault due to poor quality.
The car just feels bad rattling interior etc.

A colleague had a -10 Passat DSG7. Needed to be towed to the shop 7 times in 30000 km du to malfunction of the DSG. The shop had to download data from the car and send to VW headquarters and wait for their response and new software for the gearbox.
VW has now withdrawn the DSG7 gearbox from proffesional use like taxi and claims theres no problem for the common car owners. A car with DSG is a dead fish on the market here, if you have one you wont get rid of it.....

Other faults are surging oilpumps causing severe damage to the engine. This seems to be caused by the longlifeservice oil. Do not do the longlife service, go for the regular.

The Audi 2,0T and all V6 (same engine as in many VW) also suffer from surging oilpumps and broken camchains. The problems may start as early as 30000km on the V6. As Audi is part of the VAG group is the support and warranty is just as bad. Audis tend to be dead fish on the market as well.

My insurance company made an investigation showing the most expensive car to own due to various damages. A Passat cost in average 1850$/year in machine damages, a Golf V 2150$/year and the Audi A6 4153$/year.

In Germany Dekra performed a similar investigation showing Audi A6 and A4 in top (best) followed by the other German brands.....

Heres a link to the investigation by my insurancecompany, in swedish though.
http://www.lansforsakringar.se/priva...aderapport.pdf

[David Brown]

One more thing...Don't, under any circumstances have them teach your son to throw a baseball.

[Qball]

Originally Posted by 72GTOMN

Thanks for all the advise! Hopefully I'm not developing a German car superiority complex. If someone wanted to race, I'd say "sure, let me go get my other car."

I have lurked around a bit on the VW forums but it's sometimes hard to get the honest truth from enthusiasts. Qball outlined most of what I have heard.
1) Stay away from the dealership!
2) Parts availability can sometimes be an issue
3) I've noticed they are very polarizing. People tend to either have great luck, like the diesel rabbit with over 1/2 a million miles, or you'd think buying a VW was the worst thing that ever happened in their life.
BTW, the Corrado (along with the original GTI) were the first VWs I really liked.

One more thing, www.germanautoparts.com is a GREAT source for parts. These guys are very knowledgeable about V-Dubs and have good pricing.

If I were to get another VW, I'd go TDI all the way.

[jhann42]

I'm not sure about reliability, but I have 2 master techs working forn me and when they get an RO for a repair to a VW they bawl like a couple of babies. Jon

[hurryinhoosier62]

Qball,

BINGO! VWs, like ALL German vehicles, have SCHEDULED maintenance. Keep on the schedule, you have FEW problems. Drive it like MOST Americans do, you WILL have problems. We've owned 4 Passats and 1 Eos. Other than tires on the 4motion Passat and the stow switch on the Eos, we've had ZERO problems, putting 40-50,000 miles per yr on them. I STILL trying to talk my wife into buying a TDI Passat to replace her C300
Mercedes(I HATE that car!).

[455Grandville]

Originally Posted by arbys

Is it manufactured in Europe? I've heard that the standards for producing insulated wiring in Europe cause it to fail in 3-4 years. Like an MB needing an entire dash harness. You should do some research on this.

Ive heard plenty of bad stories on the electrical systems on newer diesels which added up to credit card melting expenses.

[goatwgn]

Originally Posted by mike nixon

VW's are expensive to work on and seem to be more troublesome than the domestics I see.

I don't work on them but I have a buddy that does. HE hates them and from what I've seen with good reason.

Mike

X2! I can't stand working on them either. If you are going to have a complicated vehicle that doesnt make any sense like this, you might as well buy something with a lot more "snob appeal" such as a Mercedes or BMW.

[goatwgn]

Originally Posted by jhann42

I'm not sure about reliability, but I have 2 master techs working forn me and when they get an RO for a repair to a VW they bawl like a couple of babies. Jon

I run the other way and become scarce LOL. I am getting too old to waste my time with that mess. I then set there and watch another person fight with the electrical system-the major source of issues with these things, for anywhere from 6 hours to a few days. Other problems are usually the HVAC system,clutches and transmissions. The engines seem ok if you keep the maintainence up on them.

[77 Canamman]

Originally Posted by 72GTOMN

Hopefully I'm not developing a German car superiority complex..

The only thing worse is an Asian car superiority complex.

A friend had a 2000 Jetta with 200k miles, not serviced like it should have, but it ran great for the age and miles. I still wouldn't go out and buy one.

[mike nixon]

Originally Posted by goatwgn

X2! I can't stand working on them either. If you are going to have a complicated vehicle that doesnt make any sense like this, you might as well buy something with a lot more "snob appeal" such as a Mercedes or BMW.

Christ BMW? Those are worse than the VW's neither are a positive choice for a cost effective driver.
Mike

[goatwgn]

Originally Posted by mike nixon

Christ BMW? Those are worse than the VW's neither are a positive choice for a cost effective driver.
Mike

BMW and Mercedes are all overpriced headache mobiles. I was just pointing out that the VW is as complicated as the 'Higher cost" German "Snob mobiles". For economical "cost effective"transportation you need to look somewhere other than Germany. No "Mini Coopers" and other nonsense either. I would rather walk down the street carrying a 60 year old Pontiac hubcap than drive a German made car.

[carcrazy]

I live VW's for a lot of reasons but reliability is not one of them! Everytime I think about purchasing one I remember some of my bad experiences.

[455Grandville]

Originally Posted by goatwgn

BMW and Mercedes are all overpriced headache mobiles. I was just pointing out that the VW is as complicated as the 'Higher cost" German "Snob mobiles". For economical "cost effective"transportation you need to look somewhere other than Germany. No "Mini Coopers" and other nonsense either. I would rather walk down the street carrying a 60 year old Pontiac hubcap than drive a German made car.

My daughters friend has one; it's a fashion car for teenage girls. I'm surprised British purists don't hate those damn things compared to the orginal which was in production for over 40 years and a British icon. Hell, there's even a new Mini dealership in St Louis, hard to imagine so many want those little turds.

Originally Posted by mike nixon

Christ BMW? Those are worse than the VW's neither are a positive choice for a cost effective driver.
Mike

The old ones I'm told were good cars; friend does SCCA racing is big into those older 2002 & 320I models; he's had several rack up huge miles without too many problems.
The new ones ? Hell, I heard they don't even have dipsticks !

[goatwgn]

The people in Britain that like the actual Austin Mini I don't think care for those things. And the new BMWs don't have dipsticks. Only a matter of time before the rest of everything out there follows suit. You have to check the oil through a computer readout inside the car. You know computers never have any problems LOL.

[Ben M.]

Originally Posted by 455Grandville

My daughters friend has one; it's a fashion car for teenage girls. I'm surprised British purists don't hate those damn things compared to the orginal which was in production for over 40 years and a British icon. Hell, there's even a new Mini dealership in St Louis, hard to imagine so many want those little turds.

No kidding. Have you ever priced replacement parts for them? It's like owning a BMW in hard maintenance labor and expensive parts without the prestige of owning a BMW...

[Lightfoot]

I would consider owning a TDI over any other European vehicle newer than 1988.
I swear by GM 3800 powered cars but if the day ever comes that I can't find one.....

I got oriented to VWs through a family friend who's family had exclusively owned Rabbit diesels, Golfs and Jettas since we knew them. Usually 3rd or 4th hand and run them till they have structural failure from rust. It helps that the oldest son (a mechanical wizard) does not have any stigmas about diagnosing & fixing anything that goes wrong.
His 'never get discouraged' attitude helped me except that funky German engineering shouldn't get in the way of owning a good practical car.

BTW They run a small family owned dairy farm in LaSalle county IL, so I'll pass on the tip from Qball about where to go for serious repair.

[Kurt Zimmerman]

Look up New Beetle, transmission problems on Google and you will find what I ran into.

The trans is sealed, no way to check fluid levels, and no owner servicable parts, all special tools needed to even check the fluid. Fluid is special synthetic, $40 a quart. The recommended fluid and filter change is $500.

The first car I ever bought that cost me two grand just to get rid of. Worth every penny.

VW does not stand behind their cars, will not fix known defective problems, and don't care about their customers. My experience.

Kurt