My back seat got stuck in the down position because the seat belt pre-tensioner wouldn’t release. I was told it was a recall issue. I took the car in and they said they needed to order the part. The part arrived but I was never told. When I called to check on the status I was told the part was sent back because I never made a follow up appt. I brought it in again and this time they kept the car- when the parts came in they called me at home to tell me they were in. When I called the parts/service dept to tell them, they said it was my job to tell my service advisor the parts were in.

After 3 days of checking I was then told the whole affair would cost me >$1000.00 b/c there was evidence of other damage to the seat. I asked what and they said there was a cracked piece of plastic on the headrest holder and evidence of dog hair. I asked that what that had to do with the seat belt. They said VW corporate would never cover the damage because of the evidence of outside damage. When I pressed them how it could cost $1,000 to fix the seat belt, they finally admitted they could fix it for $99 my cost.

I haven’t had a car for a week. My calls were never returned; I called the dealership everyday with a promise that they would get back to me. I was treated like an idiot by the service rep who said the damage was my fault. When I have called the 1-800 customer service line I was told to work it out with the dealer. Does this service experience sound familiar to anyone?

My “”SUV of the Year”" has spent more time in the shop then all other cars I have owned, combined. My VW experience has been a disaster and I would advise anyone I know not to take the chance of owning a VW, despite the fact that they are some of the most stylish cars on the road.

I fixed my Brake switch and started feeling comfy with my 2002 golf. Until today when the handle on my glove box desintigrated in my hand. THe parts looked melted but realy they were just busted that way, like a bad peice of metal, or wood only this was plastic. Very sad. I dont know if my warranty will cover it yet. Maybe I dont know my own strength. Although Im sure this type of thing was tested by strong young lads at the VW institution where the car making majic happens.

i love volkswagens, but as much as it pains me, there is no question that the existance of the phaeton is a big mistake. now this is not to say that the car is crappy, (and notice not many folks claim that it is, even here) yet the concept that the public would buy it is nutso, and i already know most here agree. i think even v.w. knows its a marketing failure, seemingly they did’nt learn from the passat w8. both cars, though are great deals if you buy them used. an 03 w8 is going for about $25k, while a v6 glx is only about a grand or 2 less, retail. by that same token the v8 phaeton is going at about 40k - 45k for an 04 and 55k for a w12, with decent mileage, so that is a great deal. the non-monetary aspects of ownership of a phaeton are great, the vehicle has magnificent road mannerisms and is well built, nicely refined, uber-luxurious, user friendly, and well equipt (awd) for the $$$$’s. it’s just to many $$$$’s for the brand right now, so customers actually getting to the ownership stage is an unavoidable problem. even i, a huge vw advocate, would buy the 745 if i was inclined to pay $900 a month for a car, for no reason other than the propeller on the grille and a couple horseys, so i can’t be hypocritical and blame anyone else for that line of thought. its human nature, that why i wear nikes over new balance.

a better idea might have been to call it “”phaeton by volkswagen”" with the only vw symbol on the vehicle being under the hood and perhaps on the glovebox mounted cd changer, though even that might not have worked. i think pheaton is a great product, but i cant justify its existance any longer, and neither do the owners of most dealerships, other than maybe autobarn owner dick fisher. kills the hell out of the floorplan budget, and vw has no real scheduled maintenence another dagger to phaetons heart. i think wolfie and pietch know its time to pull the plug soon. even cadillac and infiniti have not dared to go with such an uber luxury sedan, seeing how the new nissan flagship, the “”infinity m”" is some 25 grand less than a phaeton, and caddy as well has not gone that high in pricing, (in a sedan, they have some pricy coupes) and they definitely could pull it off, so the fact that they have not tried says something for the small market.

as for the touareg, i know paul and some others dont like it being a v.w., but i stand behind that one 100%….if paul’s theory of the peoples car not having anything more pricy than a polo is correct, then isnt a pilot too pricy to be a honda? aren’t they also a value-based brand? why not make it an acura instead? isnt a tahoe too pricy to be a chevy, should it not have a caddilac emblem? the sequioa is basically the same as the lexus, why do that? well, nobody is complaining, and its is the same with touareg….hell an rx330 is about 4 grand more, and an x5 can hit the 75k mark. if you have issues with the v.w. touareg, a way nicer truck than those others, then you should have a similar issue with the volvo xc90. same demographic, same pricing, similar vehicle. yet the existance of the touareg is the only one that i ever hear scrutinized.

SPEAKING OF EXPENSIVE VW’S, NEXT ON THE DOCKET, A MERCEDES CLS 4 DOOR COUPE KNOCKOFF, WHICH WILL BE NICE, BUT VW WILL PRICE IT TOO HIGH. SHOULDA STUCK WITH THE CONCEPT R.

IN DEFENSE, IT TOOK LEXUS YEARS TO COMPETE WITH MERCEDES, AND NOW THEY ARE THE BENCHMARK FOR MERCEDES. HOWEVER, VW IS UP AGAINST THE WALL IN THIS PHILOSOPHY, EXAMPLE BEING THE VIPER, WHICH WAS SOLD OVERSEAS AS A CHRYSLER UNTIL A YEAR AGO, FOR NO OTHER REASON BUT BRAND-NAME STATUS. FUNNY TO THINK ABOUT IT, BUT A CORVETTE IS THE ONLY CAR I CAN THINK OF THAT IS AN EXCEPTION TO THIS RULE, WOULDN’T IT BE FUNNY IF THE VETTE WAS SOLD IN EUROPE AS A “”CADILLAC CORVETTE”".

funny, nobody has posted on the entire site in 3 days!!!! come on boys!

Post edited 08/20/05 5:48 PM by jasenm

Post edited 08/20/05 5:50 PM by jasenm

Post edited 08/21/05 12:15 AM by jasenm

stolen from the “”car connection”"

What’s in a name? Sometimes nothing. I couldn’t tell you what Buick means. Perhaps the founder was named Stanley Buick. Saturn was probably chosen as a name because the 750 million miles or so between the planets Saturn and Earth represented the distance necessary to escape the lethal radiation of General Motors Corporate Headquarters. (They didn’t make it.)

But there is no doubt what Volkswagen means and set out to be: “”the people’s car,”" a simple utilitarian car for the masses, affordable and easy to maintain. Now I don’t believe Volkswagen can ever return to the simple air-cooled Beetle, which predates World War II. But they had better do something because the reputation of their cars is becoming toxic.

Europeans have always had a fundamental problem with the understanding of electricity and electrical things. Perhaps because old Ben Franklin discovered it and Thomas Edison figured out what to do with it, they outright rejected it as a nouveau riche affectation from the new world. When the world jumped from electrical to electronic, the German manufacturer’s problems became even worse. The first thing I noticed is the AM radio function in most Volkswagens never works. This is a dangerous warning sign as the AM radio is almost as old as the telegraph, and every American male growing up in the past century learned how to build one using a coat hanger and a copper penny as a tuner, yet this is somehow beyond the reach of Germany’s finest minds. And if you can’t master the AM radio thing, what will happen with modern computer controls?

Open source programming?

If you know anything about auto maintenance, you know we mechanics often have to connect diagnostic scan tools to the cars to retrieve information necessary for repairs. Since 1996, all cars have the same standardized connectors and all manufacturers provide data in the same format. Very simple, very good, nothing to go wrong or mess up - except Volkswagen! Any time you connect to or begin testing a Volkswagen you can easily and quite accidentally change the delicate, carefully calculated operating parameters of the car. The computer is wide open. There is no other manufacturer’s car where you could do this if you wanted to. This is not a good thing.

A fellow called me some weeks ago crying how he had taken his car back to the dealer for routine service, and his transmission shifting - which had been beautifully timed and crisp - was now whacked out and no one could get it right. I know what happened. Someone scanning the computer changed something.

Look, I love the people in this business, but this is above our pay grade. We’re not software engineers. We are guys who turn nuts and bolts and learned some electronics because we had to. Yesterday I was working on a Jetta with an intermittent no start. I had some pretty good ideas about what might be wrong but I was bugged out because I could get no data when I connected my scanner. I called my tech hotline, an excellent service called Identifix, and spoke to a VW tech. When I mentioned the problem with no scan data he asked, “”Does the car have an aftermarket radio?”" (non-factory equipment). Sure enough it did. He told me the computer system interfaces with the radio and often you can’t get data if the radio has been changed.

Once again, that’s just crazy and completely unnecessary. I assure you that Chrysler, Ford, General Motors, Toyota , Honda, Mazda, Nissan, even Hyundai and Kia vehicles come in the shop with hacked-in radios, and the computer diagnostics still work. And since we know from paragraph two that VW radios don’t work all that well, it’s an invitation to disaster.

When doing electrical repairs on these cars you can never get good, accurate, simple diagrams. I used to think this was because they didn’t want non-VW people having them, but after finally getting a good look at some factory information I have concluded that they don’t provide diagrams because no one actually knows where the electricity goes once it leaves the battery.

The metallic clang

I had occasion to work on a 2001 VW Passat with the turbo four-cylinder engine. With less than 65,000 miles on it, the engine had developed a nasty metallic noise that comes from the timing chain on the back of the engine. As we began to disassemble and inspect it, it became apparent that there was a tremendous amount of wasted motion and unnecessary complexity in this engine. In spite of the fact that this car was well maintained (synthetic oil changes every 3000 miles), it had developed sludging in the oil pickup, which starved the timing chain tensioner. Two thousand dollars and some change later it seems to be okay. I won’t sleep well for another year.

Once again, as I worked through this I called my tech service and discovered that this was common. The tech even laughed and told me how amusing it was when the engine, starved for oil, was accelerated - say, to pass another car - it often locked the camshafts, resulting in pieces flying everywhere. Yeah, real funny for the middle-class person who shelled out $28,000 for a fine driving machine. As I understand it, the old “”secret warranty”" is in effect, and if you say the magic words, cry, or know a good attorney, you might get warranty help.

A true Volkswagen story

My buddy Joe gets a lot of VWs in the upper-class neighborhood his shop is in. In the year 2000, a customer came in to show him the great deal she got on a leftover (brand-new) ‘99 VW Passat. I guess he couldn’t hide the look of disappointment on his face because she said, “”What’s wrong, you don’t like it?”" To date, Joe can verify $12,000 in repairs and maintenance to that same vehicle, and there are sure to be some dealer bills he hasn’t seen. At 20,000 miles it required complete four-wheel brake replacement. At 40,000 miles the water pump impeller broke, causing an overheat. (Before hearing the story I would have said that water pump impellers never break.) The power windows failed one by one all the way around. The heater core leaked.

These are just the highlights. Sooner or later the customer will meet a Toyota owner and discover this is not normal. You can only count on those old Sixties kids buying VWs for so much longer.

Repent, ye

I have more people say to me that they will never buy a Volkswagen again and never go to the dealer for service than any other model. The problem is that bad cars breed a callously indifferent service department that loses all sympathy for the customer because they themselves are under such pressure. VW is not a basket case. They have many redeeming features. They have great road feel, great turning and brakes, and when running well are pretty fun to drive. And my wife said to be sure to add that they look good, too. The upper middle class likes them because it’s entry-level European for the kids who wouldn’t want to be caught dead driving a Ford Focus to high school.

Volkswagen, hire some Japanese teenagers to do all your electrical systems. Review and simplify all your components and procedures. I figure you can eliminate at least 150 moving parts in your engine alone. If it takes more than one paragraph in the manual to check the auto trans fluid (currently 14 pages and climbing), you’re doing something wrong. Make your radios easy to remove and throw away. That’s what people are going to do with them anyway. Stop squeezing your supplier so hard they have to make your water pumps from metal that could have been recycled beer cans and your ignition coils from copper wire that could have been stolen from the Mexican telephone system.

And when you have a problem, look at how Toyota handled the head gasket failures on its V-6 truck engines in the early Nineties. They issued a recall, made complete repairs and offered compensation to people who had already paid for repairs for up to ten years or 100,000 miles. No secret warranties, magic words, or threats. It’s a long climb back, but this might be a good time to stop digging the hole.

Doug Flint owns and operates Tune-Up Technology, a garage in Alexandria, Va.

I know that VWoA is EXTREMELY reluctant to buyback a car. If they boughtback every lemon they would be swamped with buybacks. I know that when I sent VWoA A registered mail letter in regards to my states lemon law, they replied that they would continue to work with my dealer to make the car right. In other words ” We know that we screwed you, but we would like the opportunity to keep screwing you”. I see that a number of people have been given the option of trading in their VW’s for a new VW. This seems like a continuation of the “We know we screwed you, but we would like to continue to screw you” mandate. Has anyone actually had VWoA buy their car! If so, who was the law firm that represented you? I think that it would an an extreme service to VW owners to know what law firms are familiar with dealing with VWoA.

JUST GOT OFFERED A JOB WITH BMW….TRYING TO MAKE A DECISION….HELP!!!!

Moonraker group to help VW determine what U.S. customers want
DIANA T. KURYLKO | Automotive News

A band of Volkswagen specialists - named Moonraker, after a 1955 Ian Fleming James Bond spy novel - is traveling the United States in search of marketing insights. The group’s task over 13 months is to determine VW’s vehicle needs in the United States as well as to understand this market. Moonraker consists of 22 Germans and an American.

The group arrived here in April. VW says the group’s goal is “”to draw up a vehicle and business concept for the American market that would boost volume, earnings and brand reputation.”" The longer term results could change the way VW develops vehicles.

VW says it’s too early to have Moonraker members talk to the press. But the company says team members must “”detect forthcoming trends, experience the customer’s demands directly and draw conclusions from them as to the direction project development must take.”"

The team is based near Malibu, Calif., and is traveling through the country making extended stays in various locations. Moonraker is the pet project of VW Chairman Bernd Pischetsrieder, who lamented that VW’s $1.29 billion loss in North America last year was unacceptable. The group is headed by Stefan Liske, director of group product strategy and former head of BMW’s X3 SUV project.

One of the group’s mentors is Len Hunt, who heads Volkswagen of America and assigned one of his sales and marketing specialists to the group. According to VW, team members’ initial comments show Moonraker is quickly discovering the VW brand doesn’t have the appeal in America that it has in Germany or Europe. That is just what Hunt wants to hear.

“”They are really trying to understand what makes America tick and how the market is evolving,”" Hunt says. “”There are a lot of shifts going on, and we are trying to get in front of the curve.”"

Moonraker’s main goal, Hunt says, is to build a cadre of key employees in Germany who understand the U.S. market. That will complement VW brand boss Wolfgang Bernhard’s experience as COO of the Chrysler group.

“”They’ll go back really, really understanding the market,”" Hunt says. The trick, he adds, is to preserve VW’s European character, which customers like, while addressing U.S.-specific needs.

In VW’s internal corporate German publication “”Autogramm,”" one team member says he didn’t realize how badly VW is doing in the United States until he arrived here.

“”I didn’t discover the real urgency of the situation until we experienced the market firsthand once we got here and talked to Volkswagen dealers,”" says Arne Harms of VW’s quality assurance department. “”We are trying to sell products developed for the European market on the American market.”" Other carmakers are meeting U.S. customer demands better than VW - especially since they are developing unique vehicles, Harms says.

Mathias Grosser, who works in VW’s individualization department, says he was amazed that “”we still don’t really cater to the customer’s wishes in America - just as the Japanese didn’t really cater to our tastes 30 years ago.”"

Moonraker still is addressing the basics, especially finding out what customer groups VW must target and what vehicle concept “”suits the North American market so that we can maximize our market effect.”" To understand the VW image, Moonraker already has talked with people in 24 cities. The Moonraker team isn’t just talking to dealers and customers. It also is looking at successful companies such as Apple, Nike, Starbucks and 3M.

Just wanted to see if any one has ever got into their 2001 Cabrio and the brake light and ABS light was still on (although the emergency brake was not up) and the AC quit working, the defrost light would not work nor the button that lets you know that the air is circulating. Ironically I stop to run into the grocery store and came out and it worked. Anyone had this happen?

I recently bought my VW and have been trying to find out why this EPC light is on in my Tach guage. I bought a repair manual that does not even mention it. The dealer over the phone said I would have to bring it in as he did not know, ya right. I dont experience any problem associated with this light. Everything seems tip top, lots of power, lights work blah blah. It is very hot here right now but the temp guage reads halfway, regardless of how hard I push my car, and I have been testing it. Is this light for show or does it actually mean there is something worth investigating?

ReeF

Maybe this will hold our attention long enough to make us forget about any problems with our cars.