GolfGTIforum.co.uk
Model specific boards => Golf mk7 => Topic started by: Bill_the_Bear on 26 April 2013, 19:36
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So, this thread (http://www.golfgtiforum.co.uk/index.php?topic=252525.10) got me thinking. Has anyone ever actually done a quantitative study into the effects of buying a car early in its production cycle? Many people, even us here on this forum, may have various experiences. One might say they've never had an issue with a first batch car, another might say they've had several and each had problems. But what does that actually mean?
On their own our personal experiences don't tell us much unfortunately. Sure the guy down the pub says he has had trouble every time he bought early, but then perhaps he just didn't look after the cars well? What about others who bought the same vehicle 2-3 years later, did they have the exact same problems too? How much of a hassle is it? A lose button on the dash is completely different to your engine overheating. Would the dealers arrange repair for free, or should you expect to be paying out X% of the price you paid for the vehicle in fixing issues related to it being an early production batch?
Google has nothing! Which had a vague article which suggested *some* people *might* have issues related to early production batches... but offers no evidence that this is actually the case. I don't want to settle for that so I emailed all the major UK online car review sites, eleven of them in total. I asked if anyone had a study that looked at the rate of issues related specifically to the vehicle being an early batch (i.e. issues that were fixed later) and the level of cost this resulted on the customers. I asked if they had looked into it before or planned to in the future.
Almost immediately I got this very nice reply from the editor of AutoExpress:
Hello,
That's an excellent idea. The problem may well be digging through data, as manufacturers clearly wouldn't let us have access to any. However, we've just published our driver power report for 2013, so I'll have a chat with our research team to find out if it's something we can do.
So watch this space, and thank you very much once again.
With best regards,
Steve Fouler
Editor-in-chief Auto Express and Carbuyer
Here's hoping they can get their hands on some data!
I'll post back if any of the others reply.
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This will be the first car i've had so early in the production run so can't comment really but i'll watch this space with interest for sure! That's a great reply from Auto express though, good on ya 8)
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This will be the first car i've had so early in the production run so can't comment really but i'll watch this space with interest for sure! That's a great reply from Auto express though, good on ya 8)
It seems like it will hinge on if they can get access to the data easily or not. I'm encouraged that they think its worthwhile though!
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I had a MK1 Ford Focus which was one of the first of that model, I bought it off my Dad, he'd bought it new in 1999. It was plagued with stupid little niggles! Rattles, squeaks, recalls, you name it. It never actually broke down but it had so many damn annoying gremlins, needless to say I got to know the Ford service manager too well.
I later replaced it with another Focus in 2002 and that was totally trouble free. Clearly all the early issues were sorted out.
I hope history doesn't repeat itself with my new GTi!
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I had a MK1 Ford Focus which was one of the first of that model, I bought it off my Dad, he'd bought it new in 1999. It was plagued with stupid little niggles! Rattles, squeaks, recalls, you name it. It never actually broke down but it had so many damn annoying gremlins, needless to say I got to know the Ford service manager too well.
I later replaced it with another Focus in 2002 and that was totally trouble free. Clearly all the early issues were sorted out.
I hope history doesn't repeat itself with my new GTi!
But thats my point, how do you know if your experience is typical or unusual? Its not clear that these issues you experienced were directly caused by the vehicle being an early production batch or that they would be avoided if your dad had waited a year or two. May be or may be not. It would become clear with a bigger sample of data because it is only the averages that are important (unless the population has a extremely low variance, but you need a real good reason to make this assumption, strangely enough us humans tend to assume all our experiences are part of a population with a variance of basically zero, cause we are weird like that).
Remember, mk1 Focus was a complete new design to replace the Escort. I don't think thats quite the same as moving from mk6 Golf to mk7 Golf where the differences are significantly less. VW in particular is standardising a lot of its parts and features so even new equipment on the mk7 Golf is far from seeing its first ever real world use.
In case I come across negative I don't mean to at all, but I'm not good with words. I've heard many experiences like the one you describe having, but I want to understand if what the average effect is so I know what the risk of buying new really is.
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Typical is easy.
Trade talk information + forum posts on many forums world wide.
Do a search for VW recent car issues.
Here's a few off the top of my head.
Mk5 golfs,
Rust issues, wings, rear door sills, hatch badge hole, front of sills on early cars due production robot gripping it.
Cam issues,
DSG mecatronics unit failures.
1.4 TSI mk5 engine failures see below as well.
TDI mk5 turbo failures.
1.4 TSI polo, fabia, a1, cupra
chain tensioner issues, = new engine
Fueling issues, = new engine.
DSG 7 speed box issues. = new gearbox or mecatronics unit.
Early cars paint issues and panel fit issues.
Mk6 GTI golfs
Chain tensioner issues
Water pump issues
Diverter valve issues
Turbo issues,
Breather pipe issues,
Waste gate issue,
TDI turbo failures.
DSG mecatronic unit failures....
I could go on but I think you may get the point I get to hear about things from people who work in the motor trade...
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I vaguely remember one of my old Uncles working for British Leyland and he would tell us about things going wrong on the production line with models, especially the new lines. The workers would flag it to the supervisors but rather than fixing it there and then they were encouraged just to get the car out and sold, as it was preferable for the new owner to bring it back to be sorted rather than hold up the production line!!
How many pre production cars like the MK7 Golf will VW make and test prior to them churning them out of the production line?
I'm not saying they do this but surely there is nothing to stop them putting them into production thinking they are well put together only to find several owners complain about "a" particular problem and then altering the design once a problem has been highlighted.
They can have as much research & development in place as they want but actual real drivers driving the cars in every day situations will be the ones who finds the real faults!!
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Forum searches are not a controlled test though so its impossible to draw any conclusions.
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I vaguely remember one of my old Uncles working for British Leyland and he would tell us about things going wrong on the production line with models, especially the new lines. The workers would flag it to the supervisors but rather than fixing it there and then they were encouraged just to get the car out and sold, as it was preferable for the new owner to bring it back to be sorted rather than hold up the production line!!
Went bust didnt they? :grin:
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Indeed but I doubt its much different today. Why stop a production line when they know the customer will simply bring it back!!
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I'd say we are lucky many of the niggles should have been worked out with the early base Mk7 Golfs. My 2008 and 2011 Scirocco where as good as each other. The 2008 model was the first batch off the production line...
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Forum searches are not a controlled test though so its impossible to draw any conclusions.
so why ask on a forum :rolleyes:
I get 95% of my info from family and friends who work in the motortrade who have freinds who work on these cars day in day out. When they tell me something I go and see how wide spread it is by searching the net.
It's often far more wide spread than they are lead to beleive.
VW don't want people to know they are accountants, they want people to think there still engineers.
People still beleive the brainwashed notion of the reputation of VW and quality.
It's rubbish, they don't care about customers, they don't care about quality. It's a white goods to them now and some silly brainwashed sheep will come along and replace any customer lost. As long as they keep magazines adverrtisment up so pay for there good reviews......
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Cars do a number of runs down production lines before they go into live production.
Yes your going to have operators who going to take a bit longer to fit parts.
You always get issues with all the first models that come out, hence the recalls and common issues.
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so why ask on a forum :rolleyes:
Errr... I didn't. I asked the car mags, post here was just to inform you guys as I thought it was interesting.
Don't get me wrong, please post your experiences, that's still interesting. I just don't think that we can use experiences to make predictions, the sample is uncontrolled and way too small.
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Auto Express do a pretty good investigative job. They ran a piece a few years ago about BMW's and warranty work and I had a call out of the blue from them after reviewing forums. They were after facts and not shock horror stuff. I was quite impressed with the article they wrote as a result. It centred around TSI bulletins to dealers and how they thought they should be public knowledge. The TSI in question was cheese turbo's on 335 BMW's.
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so why ask on a forum :rolleyes:
Errr... I didn't. I asked the car mags, post here was just to inform you guys as I thought it was interesting.
Don't get me wrong, please post your experiences, that's still interesting. I just don't think that we can use experiences to make predictions, the sample is uncontrolled and way too small.
Do you really think car magazines really know what's going on?
Do you really think they want to risk there existence by telling you the complete story?
Do you even think someone with a degree in English and is a journalist even knows how anything mechanical or electronic even works?
How many people do you think are constantly told by vw dealers its a one off we know nothing about it, its never happened before. So say nothing and do nothing about it, the general public won't bother. This happens daily, once you have worked in these enviroments for years you realise what's actually going on. We owned a large dealer chain, I worked for many years in a dealership, I know what goes on, I've been there and done it.. Still get to hear it daily..
Sorry you can quote statistics all you want you will never know the truth unless your on the inside.
Some of us get information about issue from the grassroutes. Your right I don't have the full statistics but I do know what the techs say and are regular fixing as I'm told it..Some of the issues get published but mainly in stronger magazine sales market countries. The TSI tensioner & other related issues was published in a Single page article in a German magaine for example.(the wording was quite interesting ;) VW pr responded as they would. Has it been fixed years later? No.. why because the article is past history and forgotton. What's VW currently doing about it? Replacing engines or gearboxs when they go bang if under warranty otherwise you may get a good will guesture payment and a bill for thousands...
If its not a saftey issue they will not do any preventative corrective action due to a poorly designed part or manufacture issue. Any real design engineer that looks at these parts that's failing can see why. It actually frightens me seeing the standard of engineering that's been produced nowadays, the worlds run by statistics and accountants.
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I ran a fist off the production line mk6 GTI for two years and it was faultless.
I had a very early mk5 GTI and it was faultless.
I had a first off the production line mk5 GT TDI and it was faultless.
Mind you on all of those cars I let someone else do the running in for me and take the big first hit on depreciation!!! :kiss:
I risk eating my words!!
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Exonian: If you bought nearly new for all of your recent VWs then you don't really know how good it was from the factory. If there were any build niggles i'm sure they'd have been sorted before you took ownership and you'd be none the wiser.
I had an early 2.0TDI 170 Golf MK5 and it was plagued with DPF and economy issues which VW thought were injector leaks, then cylinder head casting issues (cylinder head replaced when they found a minor burr after checking the injectors out). Finally a software update on the fuelling system sorted it out. I've had a Polo 1.9TDI that had a raft of warranty issues including a new turbo, new clutch master cylinder and a new clutch (within 4 months of ownership).
Both my 1st (140TDI GT) Scirocco and the current one had issues with boot rattle that were common faults with the Roc from day one, easily fixed by the dealer, but the factory have never eliminated it in 3 years of production since my 1st. My 2 Sciroccos have been the most reliable VWs I have owned from a warranty work cost perspective (I have owned 6 VWs from new), although I have never had a VW to break-down on me and require recovery.
With the GTD and GTI they have no equipment to my knowledge that is completely new and untried, all of the equipment (GTI/GTD styling cues excepted) on them is speccable in the lower trim levels or on other VWs. The biggest unknown for me is the newer versions of current engines in a higher output form. These shouldn't pose any massive engineering issues, because both the GTI and GTD have only modest power gains over their predecessors.