Avon calling!

[Adam T7]

If you think German ‘prestige’ marques have build quality issues, try owning / driving Land Rover / Range Rover products for 13+ years.

[SRGTD]

Also not wishing to tempt fate, mine has been silent over the warmer months and not so much as a bong since the new steering wheel was fitted (touch wood)

https://youtu.be/sDO6l8MqPsg this says it all

So true. I have a 1994 S2 Avant with zero rust, a 1999 A4 Avant with zero rust. My wife's 2010 Passat is riddled with rust and VW refused a warranty claim when it was 9 years old saying it was "through rust"!

‘Through rusting’ should be covered under the corrosion warranty, assuming the cause of corrosion was a manufacturing defect - e.g. insufficient protection applied on the production line when the car was built. It’s surface corrosion that generally isn’t covered and VW will probably decline a warranty claim for surface corrosion on the basis that it was caused an ‘external influence’ rather than the result of a manufacturing defect (e.g. an unrepaired stone chip removing paint down to the bare metal, leaving the bare metal exposed to the elements).

Having said that, IMHO most car manufacturers’ corrosion warranties aren’t worth the paper they’re written on, and VW have a history of trying to find a way of wriggling out of fixing legitimate warrantable corrosion damage.

This is from VW’s website;

Body protection warranty
All current Volkswagen vehicles are fully protected during manufacture against through corrosion for 12 years from the date of first registration.
The only preconditions are:

• The defect must be reported to a member of the Volkswagen Authorised Repairer network as soon as it is discovered and within the warranty period.
• The perforation must not have been caused originally by damage, neglect, insufficient care or maintenance or by external corrosion (rusting).
• A member of the Volkswagen Authorised Repairer network must be advised about any rusting as soon as it is found.
• All body repairs will be carried out promptly in accordance with the manufacturer's specification and procedures, using only approved parts and materials, so the original level of anti-corrosion protection is maintained.

[monkeyhanger]

Also not wishing to tempt fate, mine has been silent over the warmer months and not so much as a bong since the new steering wheel was fitted (touch wood)

https://youtu.be/sDO6l8MqPsg this says it all

So true. I have a 1994 S2 Avant with zero rust, a 1999 A4 Avant with zero rust. My wife's 2010 Passat is riddled with rust and VW refused a warranty claim when it was 9 years old saying it was "through rust"!

‘Through rusting’ should be covered under the corrosion warranty, assuming the cause of corrosion was a manufacturing defect - e.g. insufficient protection applied on the production line when the car was built. It’s surface corrosion that generally isn’t covered and VW will probably decline a warranty claim for surface corrosion on the basis that it was caused an ‘external influence’ rather than the result of a manufacturing defect (e.g. an unrepaired stone chip removing paint down to the bare metal, leaving the bare metal exposed to the elements).

Having said that, IMHO most car manufacturers’ corrosion warranties aren’t worth the paper they’re written on, and VW have a history of trying to find a way of wriggling out of fixing legitimate warrantable corrosion damage.

This is from VW’s website;

Body protection warranty
All current Volkswagen vehicles are fully protected during manufacture against through corrosion for 12 years from the date of first registration.
The only preconditions are:

• The defect must be reported to a member of the Volkswagen Authorised Repairer network as soon as it is discovered and within the warranty period.
• The perforation must not have been caused originally by damage, neglect, insufficient care or maintenance or by external corrosion (rusting).
• A member of the Volkswagen Authorised Repairer network must be advised about any rusting as soon as it is found.
• All body repairs will be carried out promptly in accordance with the manufacturer's specification and procedures, using only approved parts and materials, so the original level of anti-corrosion protection is maintained.

The above only really covers you if something perforated from the inside out and gave no indication that perforation was imminent. In the guarantee terms above, if you see signs of corrosion and don't take action to stop propagation to the point of perforation, they won't cover it. Pretty useless as a guarantee.

[Tractor Dave]

Thanks for that. Interesting. We did appeal and VW sent an engineer who inspected the car. They agreed 'some' of the rust was covered by the warranty and as a good will gesture offered to cover 50% of the £6k the repairs and 're spray would cost. The car was at that time worth about £3k so we declined. My wife intends to run it into the ground. She has had it from new. Mechanically it's quite good with the 1.9tdi. 180k and going strong. I do all the servicing.

[Rudedog]

When I had my 2006 Mk5 TDi (only brand new car I've had) I successfully had both front wings done because of 'sponge gate' (about 8 years in), then I had the rear tailgate done when there was a bubble by the VW badge (not long after the wings), lastly I had all four 'Grand-Prix' alloys replaced after white-worm (within the first two years of ownership).

Didn't really have to fight for them.... dealership has changed quite a bit since then (as has VW) so I suspect it won't be easy now.

[Carlosfandango]

When I had my 2006 Mk5 TDi (only brand new car I've had) I successfully had both front wings done because of 'sponge gate' (about 8 years in), then I had the rear tailgate done when there was a bubble by the VW badge (not long after the wings), lastly I had all four 'Grand-Prix' alloys replaced after white-worm (within the first two years of ownership).

Didn't really have to fight for them.... dealership has changed quite a bit since then (as has VW) so I suspect it won't be easy now.

It will depend a lot on how willing a particular dealership are to push for repair, many simply cannot be bothered once VW inevitably decline to help.

[gavinl1967]

I’ve had my car 10 days and had the first bongs on Monday of this week - travel assist and SOS.  This was on the way in to work, whilst it was pouring rain.  Sun was out on the way home and it was a bong free journey 

[Carlosfandango]

I’ve had my car 10 days and had the first bongs on Monday of this week - travel assist and SOS.  This was on the way in to work, whilst it was pouring rain.  Sun was out on the way home and it was a bong free journey 

This would in part be down to the travel assist needing the forward facing camera to function, if rain obscures it’s view it fail safes to being unavailable, my 2020 BMW used to do the same when rain was anything other than light, it seems to me that the SOS part of the notification is simply a consequence of an overlap in the coding of the information, the BMW used to actually bring up the warning when the sun was low in the sky too, which resulted in many notifications during the winter months.

[Lewb]

Are these bongs still an issue? I can see there hasn't been a post here since August so I'm hoping it's been solved with the new steering wheels.

3 months ago I got a second hand 2020 model and am on the list for a new steering wheel hoping that will fix it.

Also I'm now getting rear parking error and a parking manoeuvring error when I start the car up sometimes. It I turn the engine off and back on it seems to go. Is this an issue with the steering wheel too? When I check the error on the car screen it shows the four wheels as the error. So I'm thinking a new steering wheel won't fix the issue.

Thanks.

[Lewb]

I have parking manoeuvring, SOS failure ( or whatever it is ), rear parking error and a few others this week

Still get the screen blackouts/re-boots

Tend to ignore them now as most sort them selves in 10s or so. The only one I’ve found that doesn’t is when the clima “button” doesn’t respond..

Do you know what is causing the parking issues. Have you had a steering wheel replacement?