Jetta FSI Turbo

[neil]

I've joined the VW club and ordered a Jetta Turbo FSI over the weekend

- have only order regular NSW premium plates, not the wide Euro style ones, so I have asked the dealer to remove wide black felt backing underneath the rear plates.

Any help is appreciated

Hey Bitsurfr

Can you let us know what the rear number plate looks like when you get
the car.
I have a jetta on order and have selected the slim line plate, however
after seeing a few with the felt backing still exposed I thought I might go
for the euro plate, but if the felt is removed and it looks ok I will stick with
the slim line.
Keep us informed.

[anarchycamp]

Hmmm...

I am seriously considering purchasing a Jetta (TDI or T FSI), but I have read some worrying reports about poor reliability (VW in general) and high problem rates (like 33% have something go wrong in the first 1000km - incl squeaks / rattles). It strikes me that I might be gambling with $50k?!

I'm after some objective user feedback - though most people here seem to be happy. I haven't driven one yet.

Any clues on costs of servicing and parts? (is it 10,000 or 15,000km services)

Also, any good / bad experiences with dealerships in the SEQ area?

From a hopefully "happy" future VW'er

There has been a few reliability issues reported on this forum and other forums but as with most things, people usually only kick up a stink when things go wrong, therefore you hear more about the problems rather than the good things (even though there is a lot of love going on generally ).

If anyone was able to get the REAL stats comparing VW reliability to other manufacturers I would say they would rate quite well...cough Holden...cough cough cough

[bitsurfr]

Jetta pre-delivery checklist

I've joined the VW club and ordered a Jetta Turbo FSI over the weekend

I'd like to get a list of things I should check when taking delivery of the vehicle (in particular, those functions that have to be set by the dealer as my car doesn't have the multifunction function 'plus' display) and so far I have:

- make sure automatic locking after takeoff is turned on;
- make sure automatic kerbside function when reversing for passenger side exterior mirror is turned on (left mirror dip);
- driver door open on first click of unlock (does this mean all the other doors will need 2 clicks to open? Actually, what is the purpose of requiring 2 clicks to open?)
- have only order regular NSW premium plates, not the wide Euro style ones, so I have asked the dealer to remove wide black felt backing underneath the rear plates.

Any help is appreciated

Welcome and caution

Welcome to our forum! Be careful when you read statistics. "Something goes wrong in first 1000km"... is very open ended. Lots of people are nit-pickers and will return to the dealership with silly requests for repairs/replacements that others wouldn't even notice. So it's a good idea to get a statistical breakdown of the fault types before making a judgment. Also, be sure to target the country in which the problems were encountered and take into account the quality of the dealers concerned. IMO VW cars are no more unreliable than any other and probably more reliable and better constructed than most.

There's been a lot of discussion on this forum regarding service intervals. Do a search on this forum and read it as you'll find it interesting, particularly regarding TDIs. My TDI goes in for it's first service next week and @7500km it hasn't missed a beat, has no rattles despite being driven on rough, twisty, hilly country roads, and gets better with every km.

[dilbert_rocks]

Wary of taking the plunge...

Thanks for the kind words guys.

Definitely a disappointing thing to happen to a brand new car but I was impressed with the service from VW. They were clearly pretty embarrassed.

Hmmm...

I am seriously considering purchasing a Jetta (TDI or T FSI), but I have read some worrying reports about poor reliability (VW in general) and high problem rates (like 33% have something go wrong in the first 1000km - incl squeaks / rattles). It strikes me that I might be gambling with $50k?!

I'm after some objective user feedback - though most people here seem to be happy. I haven't driven one yet.

Any clues on costs of servicing and parts? (is it 10,000 or 15,000km services)

Also, any good / bad experiences with dealerships in the SEQ area?

From a hopefully "happy" future VW'er

[Lima]

Does DSG have hormones?!

Tom, sad to hear of your problems with the radiator fan. In my industry (computers) we have a term for this "early life failure". We actually say this to customers, it is meant to imply that not everything is perfect coming out of the factory. And generally after one or two glitches their machines go on to povide years of trouble free service.

I took delivery of my GTI on 19 Jan. The compliance plate says 01/07 but the manufacture date is 12/06. This could suck in a few year's time should I trade it in (dealers always seemn to go on manufacture date), but then again, maybe I'll never trade it?

Continuing from ealier in this thread, I'm at the other end of the scale, last child (twin girls 21yo) just left home so we are officially 'empty nesters'. We have had family cars for years due to necessity, and always automatics, although I had manuals before we married.
I went for a test drive in the Jetta TDI and I liked it, heaps of torque, lovely on hills. Only problem was I then went for a test in the GTI and it was just love, fast and nimble.
OK, so this is not fair, I should be comparing it to the Jetta FSI Turbo, but the truth of the matter is that the dealer didn't have one at the time.
The other factor in my decision is the DSG. I have always preferred manuals, but my wife has RSI and other complications and finds it painful to operate a manual gear shift. So the DSG is the perfect compromise, and I can't believe how quickly it changes gear.
You can tell that underneath it's really a manual by the way it rolls backwards on a slight incline. In 'real' automatics I tended towards laziness at times and just let the auto keep it stationary rather than keeping the foot on the brake. Can't do that on the DSG, I'll have to relearn the manual way of doing it.
I did try explaining why this was the case to she who, but her eyes sort of glazed over; think it has something to do with the hormones.

Peter

[Lima]

That's great Tom. Always love to hear about pleasent dealer experiences. More important;ly, glad you're back on the road. Excellent news.

[tofo17]

back on the road

Thanks for the kind words guys.

As you know the car was towed on Wednesday night. On Thursday I talked to the dealer and they said they would check the car out but would offer me a courtesy car for the long weekend if they weren't able to fix it. I received a call at about 2:30pm on the same day to inform me that the radiator fan had failed (an electrical fault) but they had the parts, had done the fix and my car was ready to go!

So less than 24 hours later I was back on the road and the car is fine... racked up 1000km today.

Definitely a disappointing thing to happen to a brand new car but I was impressed with the service from VW. They were clearly pretty embarrassed.

Still loving the experience... oh, and they cleaned the car.

Cheers,
Tom

[Dr Spine]

Bummer mate! Hope you've got everything in order to come on the SEQ Number 2 drive next sunday.

[Lima]

Sorry to hear that Tom. Good luck getting it sorted, hope you're back on the road quick smart.

[william]

I noticed the temperature guage start rising slowly. At the same time I noticed the air-con seemed to be ineffective (it was very humid in Brisbane yesterday).
The temperature guage continued to rise until the car decided to tell me to stop. So I did. I checked the coolant level, it seemed fine.

Cheers,
Tom

im sorry to hear of your inconvience aircon has been a problem for later vws they had a major recall on compressors on some early golf 5 models but the compressors are shocking which is strange as golf 3 and 4 a/c units had no issues if sealed. with the temperature issue which seems to me a coolant temperature sensor also common but from factory very strange ,they truely are great cars with excellent dsg gearboxes and the 16v 2.0t gti engine which are pretty fullproof i love them but issues like this turn me off new cars .

[Rod_H]

Don't these GTI engines have a faulty temp sender unit. I have read over at the Tex forums of this same thing happening.
Aircon cuts out with high temp readings from faulty sensor and the gauge goes off the scale and can hunt from cold to hot.

[DubSteve]

Yesterday was the first time I did drive with a little enthusiasm, so maybe this exposed something that was loose... who knows

Cheers,
Tom

Bad news there Tom hope you get it back tomorrow and it all goes well. When you say with a little enthusiasm what do you mean by a little enthusiasm

[tofo17]

bad news

Well things were going well until yesterday. At about 5:45pm I was driving to a friends house when I noticed the temperature guage start rising slowly. At the same time I noticed the air-con seemed to be ineffective (it was very humid in Brisbane yesterday).
The temperature guage continued to rise until the car decided to tell me to stop. So I did. I checked the coolant level, it seemed fine. So I called VW Assist you informed me they couldn't do much except send a tow truck to take the car back to the dealers. An hour later the car was towed.

So 800km on the odo and one week of ownership (today) it's back at the dealers. They're checking it out and should get back to me this afternoon. If it's not simple to fix and can't be done today they've offered to give me a loan vehicly, which given it's a long weekend is a good thing.

As you would imagine, I'm not very happy. Yesterday was the first time I did drive with a little enthusiasm, so maybe this exposed something that was loose... who knows

On a more positive note, I have really enjoyed driving it over the last week

Have a great long weekend everyone. Maybe I'll get lucky and they'll give me a GTI for the weekend.

Cheers,
Tom