VW customer service - frustrating

[Umai Naa!!]

Long parts ETAs are normal.

We currently have a customer waiting til the end of December for a low pressure air conditioning hose from the compressor to the condensor. It's completely out of our hands, and believe me, we've tried pulling all possible strings with VW, as well as ringing all the bigger dealers to see if they had one. Obviously, VW are waiting for the next batch of them to come through from the manufacturer.

Two days to fit a DSG is a bit of a stretch, but then again there's no harm in being that extra bit thorough.

[Tommy]

Tommy, can I ask which dealer you bought from? I'm pretty sure my dealer would come to the party with loan cars, but they have a good reputation and a huge pool of cars from which to supply a loaner.

hi there

i bought the car from osborne park volkswagen who refused to help in anyway. wouldn't even respond to emails or phone calls. john hughes ended up doing the work and helped me to get a loan car from VW australia. VW australia threatened to sue me if i contacted them anymore and said they would even involve my employer because i was contacting them during what must be my work hours.

i ended up dumping the car at 3 months of ownership. total and utter lemons these so called world cars of the year...

[Tommy]

You had the DSG replaced OR the mechatronics replaced?

the whole DSG was replaced. they supposedly took one from a brand new car and stuck it in mine. would have been easier for them to just give me the new car... the second one was failing too after only a couple of weeks. slipping out of gear...scary....

[Maverick]

i bought the car from osborne park volkswagen who refused to help in anyway. wouldn't even respond to emails or phone calls. john hughes ended up doing the work and helped me to get a loan car from VW australia. VW australia threatened to sue me if i contacted them anymore and said they would even involve my employer because i was contacting them during what must be my work hours.

Unless you were making threats and ranting and raving Volkswagen wouldn't have made threats to sue you and to contact your employer.

Volkswagen aren't going to go out of their way to help anyone in that situation and treating the staff with some respect goes a long way.

i ended up dumping the car at 3 months of ownership. total and utter lemons these so called world cars of the year...

They wouldn't be as popular as they and win all these awards if they were all lemons like you're making out. There are always going to be a few that have problems and that's why you have a warranty. Unfortunately you had a car that had a problem with the dsg.

[Umai Naa!!]

A lot of it comes down to the owner's expectations of what the car should and shouldn't do. The DSG is a very misunderstood piece of gear. Since it's often sold as an 'automatic' people freak out when it goes about doing things that a typical automatic transmisson doesn't do.

I dare say, a lot of DSGs have been replaced for no reason at all.

[Brendan_A]

the whole DSG was replaced. they supposedly took one from a brand new car and stuck it in mine. would have been easier for them to just give me the new car... the second one was failing too after only a couple of weeks. slipping out of gear...scary....

Do you still own the car? If not can you please stop bagging out VW! I'm sure a lot of others are sick of hearing your story. Just because your car is a lemon doesn't mean all VW are. Go buy a $100,000 car and i bet you'll still have problems.

[Umai Naa!!]

Agreed.

Last report I read on warranty concerns in the Australian market, had Mercedes Benz out in front by some margin.

Besides, having one particular problem doesn't mean the car is a lemon. By a Daewoo-engineered VE Commodore and tell me how great they aren't.

[Dubya]

If the car was trouble free for 3 years for everyone VW wouldn't bother offering a warranty.

Wouldn't the warranty a manufacturer is prepared to offer be longer the more reliable the car?

The manufacturer of a really reliable car wouldn't say "Trust me - our cars will be fault free for the first three years!" which would beg the question, they would say "We will rectify any defect in manufacture that occurs within three years." And if they knew their cars would be defect-free for longer, they might even offer a longer warrranty for the competitive advantage such a statement about the reliability of their cars would give them.

Imagine what customers would think, Maverick, if you said "My workmanship is so good I don't guarantee it!"

[Dubya]

Unless you were making threats and ranting and raving Volkswagen wouldn't have made threats to sue you and to contact your employer.

I cannot think of any circumstances short of outright criminality in which it would not be as reprehensible as it is inappropriate and unprofessional for a company to threaten consequences for a customer's livelihood and, even then, it would be the police and not the employer that should be contacted. I am surprised anyone would condone VGA behaving in this way to a customer who, it is quite understandable, would be prone to getting a little hot under the collar - not that I know that they did.

They wouldn't be as popular as they and win all these awards if they were all lemons like you're making out. There are always going to be a few that have problems and that's why you have a warranty. Unfortunately you had a car that had a problem with the dsg.

Most of the car of the year awards have limited scope to assess reliability, so it is quite possible for a lemon to receive a COTY award, take the Leyland P76 for example, Wheels Magazine's 1973 COTY recipient.

[Tommy]

I cannot think of any circumstances short of outright criminality in which it would not be as reprehensible as it is inappropriate and unprofessional for a company to threaten consequences for a customer's livelihood and, even then, it would be the police and not the employer that should be contacted. I am surprised anyone would condone VGA behaving in this way to a customer who, it is quite understandable, would be prone to getting a little hot under the collar - not that I know that they did.



Most of the car of the year awards have limited scope to assess reliability, so it is quite possible for a lemon to receive a COTY award, take the Leyland P76 for example, Wheels Magazine's 1973 COTY recipient.

quite simply i was trying to get some answers about what was happening to my car. it got to the point where I was begging them to replace the car. It had more than $30 000 of repairs done to it in the space of a couple of months. it was hard to live with. at no point in time was i abusive, even after their customer service people sent me the very threatening email. their customer service, or lackof, was disgusting... this was my third VW and I guess i felt i was entitled to better treatment...

[Maverick]

Wouldn't the warranty a manufacturer is prepared to offer be longer the more reliable the car?

Explain Hyundai's and Mitsubishi's warranties than! (referring to the 380 in particular).

These brands increased their warranties to increase the publics perception of them being rubbish.

As far as looking at warranty claims across manufacturers it's actually pointless as a Hyundai with really basic features and an owner that only uses it get from A to B is going to have minimal warranty claims. On the other hand a complex car like the Volkswagen and with generally owners who have higher expectations will have more warranty claims.

The manufacturer of a really reliable car wouldn't say "Trust me - our cars will be fault free for the first three years!" which would beg the question, they would say "We will rectify any defect in manufacture that occurs within three years." And if they knew their cars would be defect-free for longer, they might even offer a longer warrranty for the competitive advantage such a statement about the reliability of their cars would give them.

I don't see Hyundai making inroads with customers who can think for themselves and the 380 suffered from such poor sales nothing could save it.

There's a cost to the manufacturer for warranties and would a 5 year warranty really sell more GTI's or would it just drive up the cost? VW offer a 3 year extension at a low cost and if you consider it's via an insurance company (for around $1400 for the GTI) and assuming $200 profit for the dealer, $300 for the Insurance Company and $100 for Volkswagen that leaves $800 to pay out. So if the average claim in years 4, 5 and 6 for GTI's of which over half are DSG equipped it shows that the car is pretty damn reliable.

Imagine what customers would think, Maverick, if you said "My workmanship is so good I don't guarantee it!"

If the workmanship is that good and you have a reputation I'm sure people wouldn't care. BMW and Mercedes only offer 2 year warranties don't they?

[Umai Naa!!]

I'd hate to break it to you, but there's some borderline-crazy customers out there.

We had one customer that went 'all the way to the top' to have her brake fluid covered under warranty.

[Dubya]

Explain Hyundai's and Mitsubishi's warranties than! (referring to the 380 in particular).

These brands increased their warranties to increase the publics perception of them being rubbish.

I never said car companies wouldn't have other reasons besides reliability to increase their warranties - I was just pointing out the lack of logic in your statement to the effect that if VWs were so reliable why wouldn't VW offer no warranty, which makes no sense at all.

Anyway, I think you just tried to explain it - - - something about "increasing perception of them being rubbish" - - but I know what you mean.

But as you say, there is more than one reason to lengthen the warrranty. And one of them, as I said, is that you have an extremely reliable product. You certainly don't, as you suggested, remove the warranty because you have a particularly reliable product.

I don't see Hyundai making inroads with customers who can think for themselves

So Hyundai owners can't think for themselves? How nice of you to share that with us, especially when your own postings are largely conjecture.

If the workmanship is that good and you have a reputation I'm sure people wouldn't care. BMW and Mercedes only offer 2 year warranties don't they?

You just can't accept the inanity of your comment that there could be a negative correlation between reliability and warranty period or the willingness to offer one.

[Maverick]

I never said car companies wouldn't have other reasons besides reliability to increase their warranties - I was just pointing out the lack of logic in your statement to the effect that if VWs were so reliable why wouldn't VW offer no warranty, which makes no sense at all.

If the car was so reliable that it wouldn't break down in the first three years they would offer something else like a guarantee or a new car swap if something did occur to back it up. Why offer a warranty if the car is so reliable over other manufacturers? You want to differentiate your product from others.

But as you say, there is more than one reason to lengthen the warrranty. And one of them, as I said, is that you have an extremely reliable product. You certainly don't, as you suggested, remove the warranty because you have a particularly reliable product.

Many view cars like BMW and Mercedes to be reliable and they offer only ~2 years warranty and they were still offering 1 year warranties from memory when others were offering 2 and 3 year ones.

So Hyundai owners can't think for themselves? How nice of you to share that with us, especially when your own postings are largely conjecture.

The people that buy Hyundai's are different to those that buy other manufacturers products, look at the demographics for the different manufacturers. Hyundai is cheap rubbish, you can pick up a second hand corolla that's a few years old for the price of one of their eco boxes and the corolla will be running for many more years.

How many old Hyundai's do you see on the road? How many do you see that after a short period have damage all over them?

[Dubya]

I'd hate to break it to you, but there's some borderline-crazy customers out there.

We had one customer that went 'all the way to the top' to have her brake fluid covered under warranty.

No doubt. However Maverick, with no direct knowledge of the surrounding circumstances, appeared to condone VGA threatening a customer in a most serious way.

If true, I can think of very few circumstances in which such conduct on VGA's part could not be considered appalling (but probably the act of a low-level customer service person in need of counselling).

When I complained in writing about the apparent lack of snow chains compatible with the GTI, a low level operative in VGA marketing sent a most unsympathetic and somewhat discourteous reply referring to Australian standards, expressing little sympathy for the inconvenience I experienced on a trip to the snowfields.