Avon calling!

[Exonian]

You say that now but when it comes to the crunch… 

[jon87]

No not before three years are up but I'll be starting the hunt for something new from April.

It's not that I hate the Weasel it's just the niggles cause an unscratchable itch...

We’ll await the shortlist in due course then 

I don't think it's going to be very exciting.

Think I've had my fun with the Weasel. Probably some sort of cheap suv next...

The new Tiguan looks good! it's not cheap by any means though, can't believe the R-line is near enough £40k for the 1.5 TSI 150bhp. A massive premium over the previous generation. Scares me to think what the price of the 8.5 GTI could be.

[Dav3smith]

OK here it goes, this won't be a short post. I've held off writing this as I needed to allow myself to calm down after the issues.

So after 18 months of no issues the warnings (travel assist and SOS mainly) sometimes side assist errors started coming up this was in October 2023. These were initially at the start of a journey but then they would go away and occasionally would come during the journey. This was tolerable however fast forward to December and things started to get much worse with the errors coming on 90% of journeys and happening very regularly sometimes up to 30 times on a two mile journey. It got to the point were it was dangerous to drive as the distractions from the constant error pings was driving me nuts.
Anyway I booked the car in and to my astonishment they said that the diagnostics unit couldn't find any faults. Subsequently I sent in evidence of this in the form of recordings made by my partner showing the constant bongs whilst I was driving. Now here is the annoying bit, I was then told that they could do nothing about it as it was a warranty claim and VW won't pay them as the diagnostics unit shows no faults or errors. They then told me my next move was to contact VW customer care. This I had to hold off doing for a few days as I was so angry, I held off until one particularly bad journey and after a pointless call to customer care I was back to square 1. Customer care told me that they would contact the dealer and then they would contact me. So to some up the dealer said to contact customer care who then in turn told me that the dealer would contact me. The dealer did eventually contact me and told me that someone would call me back. That never happened.
There is some good news here, I took it to another dealer who did a diagnosis and replaced the steering wheel and now the car is as it should be.
I really need to report the way the first dealership handled this. Any ideas?

[Tony Jazz]

That's just awful. Customer service? I would start with the MD of the Dealership. The SMMT website for advice. Then there are the motoring press to consider too. Since the launch of the Mk8 Golf in 2020, the problems associated with the IT system has been well documented but not uniformly resolved.
I do wonder why there are still inconsistencies within the Dealer network as to who will do what. Ridiculous.
My own car is due a dealer visit to resolve the SOS Warning light flashing for the last month.
I told the service reception that I took out the extra 2 year warranty as mine has just passed the 3 year point. "Oh good" they replied. No, not really was my response........ 

[Dav3smith]

Indeed Tony. The thing that most annoyed me was that I had so much footage of the problems occurring but they couldn't care less about actual evidence they were saying if it's not showing on our diagnostics blah, blah, blah.
Basically they couldn't claim on warranty from VW so ultimately I had to suffer with the ongoing issues.
I'm going to stop now as I'm getting wound up again.

[fredgroves]

Yes, anything wrong with your car and they plug it in to get guided fault finding from VW's system.

Its a combination of what the dealer types in as the customer's words about the problem and what the diagnostic log says.

VW will only authorise a fix if that comes up with something and then only the remedy it displays.

[Tony Jazz]

You list 3 VW's that you have bought/owned. That's a tidy sum no doubt. The diagnostic tool seems to rule every decision made regardless of customer satisfaction. Other Posts here are making comments about the forthcoming Mk8.5 GTI. Is this the sort of behavior that rewards loyalty to the brand and results in a new car order? A small increase in BHP and still no gas strut under the bonnet? Don't expect much change from 50k if other manufactures prices are anything to go by.

[fredgroves]

Yes it's terrible. Totally terrible.

I'm only familiar with vw processes for dealing with warranty issues though for the last ten years.

Whether non VAG oems deal with it the same I don't know. I suspect they might too.

I do know that a vw main dealer is not able to second guess the magic computer. They can if they are savvy though use particular wording to trigger a correct answer...

[The_Doc]

I’d say other OEMs are (from my sample size of Mercedes) much worse. 3 years to fix a cosmetic issue, where it was entirely radio silence from Mercedes, my dealer had to hound them for any update at all. Multiple other faults that also took way too long to sort, and way too much arguing to get approved. Fortunately the dealer was good at going to bat for me.

[Exonian]

Crikey Dav3smith, I dread to think what your blood pressure is now like.

Unfortunately all marques and most aftermarket warranties have the same rules as it stops unscrupulous owners and dealers from making false claims. There a set process to go through, but as fredgroves says, there are ways dealers can word issues, particularly common faults well known to the factory techies.
The initial dealer you approached failed you.