Climate Control playing up

[dopey]

Hi All,
Just wondering if anyone else here has had issues with their Climate Control? Our 2 week old 118TSI's Climate Control has stopped working correctly - it will not pump air through the centre air vents on the dash and constantly pumps air through the footwell vents even if I have the footwell set to off. I've tried time and time again - cycled through the different buttons for each vent setting and even cycled between temperatures and recirculating/fresh air to no avail. Oh, and before you ask, no the individual air vent adjustment is not set to closed!

Will book the car in to get it fixed but it's a big inconvenience to have to take it back so soon. So much for German quality...

Regards,
Ryan

[neil]

Hi All,
Just wondering if anyone else here has had issues with their Climate Control? Our 2 week old 118TSI's Climate Control has stopped working correctly - it will not pump air through the centre air vents on the dash and constantly pumps air through the footwell vents even if I have the footwell set to off. I've tried time and time again - cycled through the different buttons for each vent setting and even cycled between temperatures and recirculating/fresh air to no avail. Oh, and before you ask, no the individual air vent adjustment is not set to closed!

Will book the car in to get it fixed but it's a big inconvenience to have to take it back so soon. So much for German quality...

Regards,
Ryan

When you state the "individual air vent is not set to closed"
Are you referring to the vent on top of the dashboard? that can be manually opened/closed?
Is this the same as the Mk5 with the vent ontop.
Try closing this vent and see how you go as this has been a problem with Mk5
The vent needs to be closed to get full air to front vents.

[dopey]

Well I took it past VW service this morning, they had a quick look and said it's definitely not working correctly. Unfortunately they want me to book the car in and leave it for most of the day so now I have to wait 2 weeks until they can fix it. I know it's only a small issue but I'm quite annoyed about it, I've had 0 faults with the cheaper Japanese cars we've purchased in the past yet the expensive German car has little niggles from the get go. This better be a one off...

[soogs]

Have you tried the disconnect battery trick? Like a PC reset. This person seemed to have luck fixing random problems. http://www.vwwatercooled.org.au/newf...ad.php?t=35966 Just a stab in the dark.

[Maverick]

Well I took it past VW service this morning, they had a quick look and said it's definitely not working correctly. Unfortunately they want me to book the car in and leave it for most of the day so now I have to wait 2 weeks until they can fix it. I know it's only a small issue but I'm quite annoyed about it, I've had 0 faults with the cheaper Japanese cars we've purchased in the past yet the expensive German car has little niggles from the get go. This better be a one off...

Expect to be disappointed if you expect the Golf to have no problems just because it's made in Germany.

The Golf is a not a bland Japanese car with few features but a far more complicated car that IMO is far more fulfilling to drive and operate. Give me the Golf with a few problems any day over the boring Japanese cars.

[gerhard]

Given that your Jap cars probably didn't have climate control, then they couldn't have failed in that part.

Get over it. You have a warranty. It will get fixed.

[VW Convert]

Expect to be disappointed if you expect the Golf to have no problems just because it's made in Germany.

The Golf is a not a bland Japanese car with few features but a far more complicated car that IMO is far more fulfilling to drive and operate. Give me the Golf with a few problems any day over the boring Japanese cars.

I'm with you Mav. I've spent many, many weeks over the last few months driving Toyota loan cars after the two accidents I had. No doubt Japanese cars are reliable, but no doubt they are the most uninspiring, bland, boring things on the road. I felt such a sense of relief at being able to hand them back and step into a car that makes me actually want to drive it.

BTW, I'm not saying that VWs do have problems, my Jetta had no more or fewer issues than any of my previous cars, including the Japanese ones.


Cheers

George

[cme2c]

Expect to be disappointed if you expect the Golf to have no problems just because it's made in Germany.

The Golf is a not a bland Japanese car with few features but a far more complicated car that IMO is far more fulfilling to drive and operate. Give me the Golf with a few problems any day over the boring Japanese cars.

We traded in a Honda Accord Euro Luxury Navi on the 118TSI The Honda had satnav, dual zone climate control, 6CD stacker,heated electric seats, sunroof, 6 airbags, stability control, abs, ebd, VTEC(variable lift and valve timing on both camshafts) . Hardly a car with few features. Total problems? Nil. Prior to that, a Peugeot 307. Don't get me started on the problems. The final straw was when it became a 3 cylinder while a truck was bearing down on my wife

The only problem with the Honda was that my wife found it too big.

There is no excuse these days for a car being less than perfect when it leaves the factory.

That said, cars are (mostly) made by human beings and the after sales service is what's really important.

[cme2c]

I'm with you Mav. I've spent many, many weeks over the last few months driving Toyota loan cars after the two accidents I had. No doubt Japanese cars are reliable, but no doubt they are the most uninspiring, bland, boring things on the road. I felt such a sense of relief at being able to hand them back and step into a car that makes me actually want to drive it.

Amen to that. I look forward to driving our European cars.

I share the driving to work with a workmate. She is an older lady and doesn't like driving on expressways and the like, but insists I drive her car half the time to share expenses. It's a Proton Satria. Makes a Yaris seem exciting...

[gerhard]

I've had my GTI for 15 months now, not a single problem. Thousands if not millions of VW owners have the same experience.

I'm pretty safe in suggesting that some owners of Honda Accord have had problems but most do not.

Doesn't matter what you buy, the story is pretty much the same. Except French cars, of course.....

[coastie]

The customer service is where you want them to excel now. This probably should have been picked up on dealer delivery checks but its now up to the dealer to rectify. Be pedantic to get it soughted correctly without tool marks left on trim and the dash fitting correctly.

We had a trim issue on our Multivan with the left hand vent not fitted correctly at delivery took 3 months to get the trim replaced. Be persistent but polite.

Good luck

[PassatB6]

We traded in a Honda Accord Euro Luxury Navi on the 118TSI The Honda had satnav, dual zone climate control, 6CD stacker,heated electric seats, sunroof, 6 airbags, stability control, abs, ebd, VTEC(variable lift and valve timing on both camshafts) . Hardly a car with few features. Total problems? Nil. Prior to that, a Peugeot 307. Don't get me started on the problems. The final straw was when it became a 3 cylinder while a truck was bearing down on my wife

The only problem with the Honda was that my wife found it too big.

There is no excuse these days for a car being less than perfect when it leaves the factory.

That said, cars are (mostly) made by human beings and the after sales service is what's really important.

No offence to Honda but what new adventurous technology like DSG etc did it have? If you use old tried and true stuff little goes wrong. VW has placed all its eggs in the hi tech arena which sometimes comes with teething problems.

[thamwk]

I used to drive a 2009 Honda Accord Euro and the one issue that they are facing now is that a knock sensor needs to be replaced. The symptom of this is a weird sound when the car is accelerating, and I had this. And to be honest, I wouldn't be driving a VW today, if not for the fact that the car was stolen.

What I'm trying to get at is that every single car will have an issue, no matter whether its a new model or old. Go look into a Porsche forum and you will see that they have issues as well. I'll even bet that he Bugatti Veyron has issues as well. This shows that even the big boys have such issues, though the only difference is that they get top notch customer service that sees these things just go away.

I'm not saying that we need to lower our expectations. What we need to do is be realistic about it; a car with more than a thousand moving parts is never going to be problem free. And lets be truthful about it, most people are not annoyed about the build quality of the car, but are frustrated by the customer service at their local VW service centre.

[Spook]

Question on the dual zone cc: if you can set different temperatures for the driver and front passengers, what do the rear passengers get from the centre vents?

[mfl]

This is my first VW, and the ac compressor stopped working after 2 days, the trim panel on the hatch was also replaced and the only remaining issues are rather annoying rattles in both front doors, but having said that the quality of the VW is still significantly better than my previous car (not mention a lot more fun to drive)

My previous car was a 2008 Subaru Liberty Heritage, no problems what so-ever, but so boring to drive I sold it after 2 years and bought the GTI.

My previous cars a Vectra, Commodore SS and Berlina, had so many issues that my service records at my Holden dealer ran for many pages.