Dear veedubbers,

The gearbox/diff on my Mk 4 Golf just died. My mechanic tells me the bearings that support the differential have gone loose and as a result, the diff has come undone and punched a hole in the housing. The car is now undriveable. He says that an identical problem happened with a previous customer.

It sounds like a design flaw that VW are aware of, because VW Australia has SIX replacement gearboxes in stock. Not only are they a replacement, but they are MODIFIED and upgraded to prevent the same thing happening again in the future. There’s obviously never been a recall, because it would be too expensive for VW.

How expensive? Well, they are quoting me $6600 for a new box and $900 for labour - $7500 all up. When’s the last time you heard of a 6 year old, carefully maintained and serviced car – needing a new gearbox!? My car has done just over 100,000 kms, so in my opinion it’s still a baby.

If anybody has experienced anything similar with their Mk 4 Golf, would you please contact me? I’m keen to know what your experiences were and if you had any success convincing VW to help you out.

My email is daryltan@iinet.net.au

Thanks in advance,
Daryl

[ Edited on 15-8-2006 by dazgtx ]

Yeah , if its a 1.6 box the Crown wheel is held on to the diff with rivots , these come loose resulting in the symptoms that u have, you can get replacment bolt sets to rebuild the box without the troublesome rivots.

Thats the story I got, hope that helps.


Ring another workshop , not the Dealer 4 a more sensible price.

[ Edited on 15-8-2006 by johny rotten ]

not vw experience but ...
I had a SS Commodore VT Series II with the Gen3 5.7Litre V8, auto gearbox...(i rarely drove the car hard and when i sold the car at 92,000 km's on the clock it still had the original set of tyres)
I replaced the first gearbox at 50,000 km's.... then the second one was on its way out at 90,000 km's... so it does happen ....i sold it at that stage as it was driving me crazy.
Holden replaced the first one under warranty tho.

Have you contacted VW Australia directly and not through the dealership???
We had some issues with our NB Cabrio windows and got stuffed round with the dealership... a call directly to VW Australia in Sydney and within a week it was booked in with all new parts ready to be installed... the head Maintenance guy also flew down to oversee the repairs.
good luck, be persistent.

What symptoms did the car have leading up to the break?

how many yrs warranty they give ya with these later dubs? Be pretty insulting to think hyundia can give a decade and vw can't...

most manufacturers give 3 years, is sort of going towards 5 years now... but you really have to read the fine print in the warranty stuff as no electric motors or normally wearing parts (like internals of engines and gearboxes) are covered.... unless there is a recognised and widespread fault like holden had with the gen3 v8 oil consumption and piston slap issues.

Hi all, thanks for your replies.

I had a few odd mechanical sounding noises but they came and went at really random times, so it was really hard to pin point it. I couldn't even bring it to a workshop and say "that's it there" because it hardly happened.

In the end, VW has agreed to pay 70% of the cost and I now have a reconditioned (and upgraded) gearbox. All a bit of a relief that VW came to the party, but the workshop did say that's virtually unheard of.

Anyway I have to sell the car now - going overseas soon. At least this happened to me, instead of to the next owner - what a bummer to buy a car and have the gearbox die! I'd feel quite bad about the whole thing :\

Cheers,
Daryl