The Rattle Wagon

[2009fsi]

I must say I'm a bit astounded at so many rattle problems. Are you sure your kids aren't planting something in hard to get at spaces, just drive the old bloke potty! My Superb FSI sedan is now 3 years old & there is not one single noise eminating from the car, that shouldn't be there. That's even though I've driven it on some pretty rough gravel roads. The absence of squeaks,groans, rattle etc, is one of the things which has impressed me about the car.

I'm left wondering about the maintenance schedules owners are adopting for their cars. I know it's popular for lease companies to only do those services scheduled in the owner's manual. One good reason not to buy a used lease or fleet vehicle. Scheduled servicing 10k kms to a ridiculous 50k kms apart are just a recipe for ensuring you're back in the showroom looking for a other one far too often. Long services intervals is just a low cost sop for fleet buyers who don't even hold onto vehicles as long as warranty anyway.

I know Skoda have 15k kms intervals, but I could never leave a car that long. Despite all the advertising claims, oil simply doesn't deliver for that long. One only has to look & feel the oil out of any late model BMW, which run their engines now at very high internal temperature, for performance & emissions reason, to know you'd never want to buy one second hand, unless you can afford the big repair bills.

5k really is the limit if you value the engine & DSG in a car you own & want to keep longer. One can add regular Haldex diff fluid changes too for that matter, if it is a 4x4. I don't know what others do, but I service my car for fluids every 5k & do a whip around of all those little things, like rubber & latch lubes which most local garages don't really do anyway.

I'd be very interested to know how many only service a vehicle they own themselves, at the intervals in the book.

[anthony]

Rattles deive me INSANE,my previous Jetta had a few,and it took ages to get them all sorted out,with 2 dealerships being involved,VW who could not care less,and much blood,sweat,and tears.

I now have an Accord Euro,and the best thing about it is NO rattles,zero,ziltch.Superb build quality and finish,which gives me the ompression its going to last me a LONG time...

[zei20t]

don't be too sure about your euro.

Japanese made ones were fantastic, build quality went down after production moved to Thailand.

yes, I owned one, my wife had one and a friend of mine has had 3 now. great car, but TBH the skoda (Octavia) is miles ahead

[Twin_Dad]

Any car from any manufacturer can rattle. You can have two cars go down the same vehicle assembly line on the same day and one with be silent and the next will have a squeak or rattle. Most manufacturers test each and every car post assembly, so squeaks and rattles from new are rare however, as plastic wears and everyday stresses apply (basically) random forces on parts, noises can occur. Prior to a vehicle beginning production numourous pilot builds will be run with each of these vehicles being run for 10's or 100's of thousands of km to simulate our everyday driving.

Manufacturing is an art form, tolerances exist, and can be caused by anything, even variations in season / temp / time of day can influence parts.

However, how a marque deals with the rattles once the customer has taken delivery of the car makes all the difference (which is really what this thread is about) and on that I have zero experience with the VAG group.

And before anyone thinks I'm just ranting, I was a Production Engineer for an Australian car manufacturer and was able to see both local and overseas manufacturing first hand (and hopfully helped to improve it if even ever so slightly).

[brad]

I know Skoda have 15k kms intervals, but I could never leave a car that long. Despite all the advertising claims, oil simply doesn't deliver for that long. One only has to look & feel the oil out of any late model BMW, which run their engines now at very high internal temperature, for performance & emissions reason, to know you'd never want to buy one second hand, unless you can afford the big repair bills.

Surprisingly, the 504/507 really hangs in there. I had my 15,000km oil tested just before the 60k service as I was somewhat dubious & the level of degradation was negligible. Despite the good results, I'm doing 7500km changes at the moment because I had 20 litres of 502.00 sitting on the shelf that I wanted to use up. The car has 108,000km on it & I intend keeping it until it becomes uneconomical to repair.

[Jake02]

don't be too sure about your euro.

Japanese made ones were fantastic, build quality went down after production moved to Thailand.

Euro is still Jap-made, with the normal Accord being Thai.

[zei20t]

wow I stand corrected. good news for Honda fans, there might be an accord coupe.

I thought they shipped off all their production to Thailand.

[anthony]

don't be too sure about your euro.

Japanese made ones were fantastic, build quality went down after production moved to Thailand.

yes, I owned one, my wife had one and a friend of mine has had 3 now. great car, but TBH the skoda (Octavia) is miles ahead

All Accord Euros are built in Japan for all global markets,except China,where they are made locally.

Its the daggy Accord which is built in Thailand.
Sorry,just noticed Jake02s reply...I am confirming whay he said them...

[zei20t]

its ok im married, Im used to being told multiple times when im wrong