was at work the other day asking a mate how his new Golf V was going as he was having problems with the gearbox when the engine was cold (it would change gears really rough etc) anyway... he says that he probably wont have the problem anymore as the other day his son came in from outside saying that the car looked funny through the windows... he went out to look and opened the drivers door... as soon as he did flames leapt out from the console.. he tried to pat them out with his hands but ended up using a fire extinguisher on it and then disconnected the battery. As the car is only a few months old he is getting a new one from the insurance people... funny thing is they keep ringing him asking if he is sure he wants a new one as they can fix his old one.. lol.. as if you are gonna want it back after repairing a fire on the inside of the car.
i felt soooo sorry for him as he loved the car..

Thats bizaare!!! I wonder what could have caused it!!! The gear thing sounds a bit dodgy, too. I reckon he got a Monday of Friday car. I also would change the gearbox oil with fully synth oil as soon as I could with a new car. Nothing like better fully synth oil to smooth out a gearbox.

yeah.. he hasn't been told what they found yet... dunno if they will either i spose.. the gearbox thing he has had looked at a few times... the first time they said they "updated the gearbox programming to a later version" that was supposed to eliminate the problem. didn't do diddly... so he took it back... they adjusted something... didn't fix it.. so he took it back... again and again.. i told him to hassle volkswagen australia.. bypass the dealership.. i think he was chasing them up when the fire happened.. so now he might get one without the gearbox problem..

lol... after they investigate the fire! Sounds VERY sus to me

I doubt that the owner was that desperate !

He had contacted VW Australia to sort out the problems. From experience I have found that once a complaint goes into VW Australia, they are very efficient in rectifying the problem. I had a problem with my windows which the dealership keep giving me the bumsteer on and when I contacted VW Australia, the problem was sorted out the same week and fixed properly without any hassles.

mscabrio

update on replacement..... owner has been phoned by forensics to discuss his driving habits, smoking habits etc... he then got phoned by insurance who said that his claim is through and he will recieve his new car within 3 weeks.

Driving habits?

i think they asked him if he left the car running whilst not in it (what this has to do with how the fire started i have no idea) and if he smoked in it etc
He admitted that he did smoke in it but very rare as he said there is no ashtray and had to use a cup.
He stated that there was noone in it at the time and was early in the morning before he was due to come to work.
So i gather they were satisfied with everything that it was a true fault.

Hi

Talking to people who work in VW dealers, they say that VW have dropped the ball with the newer cars. Also the car running bit, in NSW its a $75 fine for leaving the keys in your car unattended, maybe they were trying to get him to trip up and take the blame.

Steve

been hearing about quite a few different problems with the new mkV's...
this is a new one though...
really bizarre...

I'd personally be a little reluctant about getting another golf after my previous one just spontaneously combusted.. :duh

i agree. would make me think twice, but insurance will replace it with what he had. so i dont think he has a choice.

well i think he is getting a new one in a few weeks... having trouble locating one the same colour and options without a sunroof... so i think he is gonna shell out the extra money for a sunroof so he can get his car quicker. If he wanted to change the colour he could have one this week, but he likes the grey colour he picked originally.

youd think a company as big as vw would shell in for a sunroof just for the inconvience sake!!!

haha... yeah... he had a massive argument the other day with the guy from the vw dealership... guy told him that he would do the sunroof for $1800 (dont know what the normal price is) and then he went and got the bank cheque and was ready to go and give them the money when he rings and says no... i didn't tell you that.. hahaha... so my mate was swearing at him on the phone etc... really gave it to him... i dont know what happened in the end coz i didn't wanna ask!!

ah service aint what it used 2b

nope

poor guy as well as an unrully sales person he also had to deal with(my mother always told me not to swear but here goes) THE BANK

My experience with VW Australia is wholly unsatisfactory. When I rang to complain about a dealer, I didn't get anything resolved nor even an apology. The first dealer I took my car to charged me for a service I could prove at the time that they did not perform (they are required to inspect brake pad levels, which requires removing the wheel. They didn't remove the wheels), and they also did not troubleshoot the bearing issue even though I said that it was a bearing noise. They claimed there was a plastic bag ... on the opposite corner of the vehicle. Bearing noises can be heard by simple rotation of the wheel. They obviously did not do this.

Three months later, when the car was at another VW dealer to have that same broken bearing replaced (took two and a bit weeks), VW Australia would not find me a loaner, and would not re-imburse me for my hire car I had to have to do my job.

If the first dealer had found the problem, the bearing would have been able to be replaced before it had catastrophically failed at age six months, and they would have not had my car for two and a bit weeks. If the bearing had failed when I was pressing on, it could have killed me.

So I think VW Australia owe me an apology, a refund of my first service as it clearly did not happen. I got neither. I also rang them about the excessive number of times the CD head unit and speakers were taking to be fixed. They never authorized the head unit to be replaced for some reason, even though it was the 12th visit to be fixed for the same reason (at nearly every visit for something else breaking, I asked them to look into the farting noises and random volume changes to be fixed).

So in my opinion - and experience - VW Australia are about as useless as tits on a bull as far as I am concerned. I will be steering clear of VWs until Toyota buy VW and sack them all.

Andrew

well i believe the guy has his new car now... dropped in at work and saw a golf in the same colour as his old one and with a sunroof... so presume that it is his new one... fingers crossed that he has no trouble with this one.

Geez Vanderaj you seem a bit touchy with vw . I'll let you in on a secret . Wheels dont need to be taken off to check the brakes . As for the other items , well , thats more the dealers than VW . VW does check on the dealers and they do take into account the amount of customer complaints from various dealers , but they wont give you your money back cause you didnt pay them .

As for the mk5 , I think the radio was incorrectly fitted . The South Africans have real quality control issues :cry

Toyota buying VW ....ha ha ha ha ha. My cousin has worked for several toyota dealerships for the last 15 years and has told me about some of the problems he has had to fix on very new corrollas,camry's,hiluxs,landcruisers you name it! Some people rave about toyota reliability, what a croc!!! So what does a top rate toyota mechanic drive? A twenty year old diesel landcruiser,rusty and slow but was the most trouble free toyota ever.

well... think i spoke too soon... lol... talked to him yesterday about his new car... he loves the sunroof... said he has a couple of niggly little problems... front cigarette lighter not working yet rear one is... he wonders if they disconnected it as they are fed from the same fuse.. and the rear number plate light assembly fell out the other day... lol.. said it looks like one of the clips on the assembly has been broken, probably done when they put it in. and his seat belt rattles unless it is pulled all the way out so that is shitting him when driving.....so he is back to VW to get these things fixed... and so far - fingers crossed for him - he has not heard a peep from the gearbox.. though he says the other one did not make any noises till he'd done a few thousand k's.... will wait and see.

I went for a test drive in the TDI 2.0 the other day. Awesome drive.

I talked to my friend today who has a 2.0 FSI with the auto gearbox, and she has had one problem - there was a puff of white smoke come from the hood and the car wouldn't start. There in started a tale of woe.

She called VW's assist. Cool. They sent a dude who knew nothing about VW's. He "rebooted" the computers by removing the power from the battery. This has two effects:

a) resets all the DTCs so there's no trace of what went wrong
b) All the user presets, including hidden settings which are performed only at PDI were lost

He totally destroyed any chance of tracking down what went wrong unless there was real physical damage.

The car's lights now showed everything was back to "normal", and the engine would start although it was sluggish and lumpy. The assist person left at that point. As VW requested the car to go to a dealer to check it out further, she rang up her dealer and asked them to book it in. The dealer service person she spoke to gave her very short shift.

He demanded that she tell him exactly what was wrong. She's not a car person and honestly, it's not her place to really tell them what's wrong - it could be the magic smoke from the computers, it could be a foreign substance burning off, it could be anything. Only a service with the VAG computer by trained service technicians will tell the true story. He become more and more belligerent saying stuff (and these are her exact words) "What exactly do you want me to do? You need to tell me exactly what non-problems we are to diagnose? We can't do that." and so it went on. He put her on hold for a long time apparently trying to verify that she had indeed called VW's assist line. That's totally unnecessary.

She was so upset with his appalling behavior she didn't take the car in. She reported the dealer to VW Australia, and of course, no response. Now she's driving around with a lumpy sluggish car. I told her of a good dealer I have had good experiences with (I've had experience with most of them in Melbourne) and told her to take it in to them as soon as she can.

With service people like that, VW do not need enemies. Hopefully it'll get fixed.

Andrewnn[ Edited on 7-9-2005 by vanderaj ]

btw, if anyone here is from VW Australia or knows someone, I'd like for them to take extreme action against this dealer's service section. We must weed out these idiots from the service industry.

I will provide all details to them.

Andrew