I have a 99 Passat that just died on me christmas eve in the middle of traffic. I just had it serviced about 2 weeks ago and the car was working fine. I had it towed to Esserman VW this morning which costed $105.00 dollars and now i have to wait until late this afternoon or tomorrow to have my car looked at. I have problem with the VW dealer that i take my car too because everytime i take my car there something always breaks a week or 2 later. And i have to waste time going there to pick my car up at least 2 or 3 times before it is fixed correctly. And VW customer care is closed until after the holidays so if i have a complaint i can only go thru the dealer which is a complete waste of time. Something needs to be done!

…you freaks

Not only that but they have the worst service as well. I have a 2004 Beatle and have problems from day one. The first problem I had was the driver side window kept opening after I closed it. The service department insisted that it was Pinch Protection and it could be fixed with adjustments. After five adjustments and the problem still there they decided to swap out the motor and regulator. Trip number six for the same window they installed the new equipment but failed to align the window properly causing a whistling noise forcing me to come in a seventh time.
Now I have a leak on the drivers side when I drive in the rain, so I take it into service, later that day I get a call from VW saying that they ran water over the car for an hour and they could not find the leak and that I can pick up my car. I guess that I have six more times of them not finding the leak before they fix it.
My last car was a Ford Escort and the only time it was in the shop they fixed the problem. I should have stuck with Ford.

I have a 99 Jetta and the coolant light beeps and blinks constantly. Now my temp gage doesn’t move and heater takes 30 minutes to blow warm air. Has anyone else had this problem if so HELP the flashing and beeping is making me insane

After the infamous “”Emissions Workshop!”" message came on with the check engine light, I took my 2000 passat to the dealer, who diagnosed the problem as secondary air pump and replaced it, and charged me heftily for it, stating it was not covered by warranty.

Then on the same day I was looking at the warranty booklet (the little book that comes with the owners manual and the rest), it lists the secondary air pump as 7yr/70000mls coverage item. Of course I called the dealer back with this information.

This time the service manager simply refused to even look it up the warranty information, saying that when he checked it yesterday it wasn’t covered, and that they only go by the on-line information and don’t look at individual booklets, and that he doesn’t know what warranty booklet I was talking about. And it was only after I told them then I would take this issue to the better business bureau, he suggested I call the VW of America, which I promptly did. (Of course the service manager didn’t even give me the number for it, either.)

Turned out that it WAS covered under warranty, and only after I had the customer care rep who answered my call to call the dealer and speak to them directly, the service manager agreed that there was a mistake and will refund the repair cost. Their feeble excuse was that he must have put in the wrong parts number in the computer.

Now what gets me is:
1. I had repeatedly asked about the warranty when I was picking up the car, and he refused to take one minute of his time off eating his breakfast donut to double check it.
2. He had the second chance to check it again when I called back with info from the warranty booklet, yet he simply ignored it.

Is it a simple case of incompetence? Or do they deliberately do this to overcharge you and hope you don’t bother to check? Hopefully I’ll never know. But one lesson to learn: NEVER TAKE THE DEALER’S WORDS FOR IT when they say it not covered by warranty. Check again.

I had a “”coolant migration”" problem diagnosed by the dealership. The symptoms were that the electrical system was behaving intermittently problematic and irregularly (i.e. ARS light coming on – then going out; EPC light coming on – then going out; engine light coming on – then going out) I took the car to the dealership immediately. I was told that it was “”coolant migration”" and that this is a design defect and VW is paying for the repair. I was further told that the coolant had come into contact with the temperture sensor contacts and traveled the wires to destroy the entire electrical system.

The entire wiring harness had to be replaced. (2 weeks repair.) Upon replacing the wiring harness and before returning the car to me, i was informed that the catalytic converter melted on the test drive, that the O2 sensors are burned out, and that all the sparkplugs were toast. This sounds very bad to me. They explained that upon testing the car, the computer was sending a 80% fuel /20% air mixture to to the engine, causing engine to flood and sending a ton of fuel to the catalytic converter. Thus explaining the spark plug and catalytic converter problem. The repair for this is to replace the sparks, the catalytic converter and the O2 sensors. In the process they broke and air return nipple which is now being replaced.

1. Is this believeable? Do the explanation fit the problem?
2. What is going on here?
3. How can i be sure that they haven’t destroyed my car? I am worried that the engine, valves, pistons, cylinders, etc. have all been compromised.

HELP.

check out this beast….

http://www.vwvortex.com/artman/publish/volkswagen_news/article_1108.shtml

I have been told that there are certain problems such as the mass air flow sensor , the windows etc will become a problem. I drive an absolutly beautiful Aquarius Blue Beetle cabrio I really hope that it doesnt fall apart like my friends tell me it will. Maybe you can give me some help jason, you beast

I have a 1998 Passat station wagon that I bought as a certified vehicle in New York state. I bought it in March of 2003. The timing belt broke December 17, 2004. The certified warranty was for 24,000 miles. It was 1,500 miles past warranty. The timing belt is supposed to be changed at 105,000 miles. I suspect that VW has major problems with their timing belts and makes lots of money on those problems. I want to ask the NY Attorney General’s office to look into complaints about VW timing belts. Anyone else want to get together and take it to New York state?

I have a 2000 Jetta with a 2.0L engine manual transmission and like many others it is consuming about 1 quart of oil/1000 miles. When adding more oil today, I noticed that the cap to my oil reservoir is RUSTING!!! Has anyone noticed a similar problem? If so, what did you do about it.