Never buy a Volkswagen

[UberGoober]

Here's something I learned after it was too late - Never buy a VW.

Its a long story but here you go.

I bought my TDI Golf brand new in the spring of 2002. It was a nice car, I liked it a lot.

One day about a year later my friend closed the passenger door and the window glass suddenly went "chunk" and fell down into the door. They had a shitty design and some little plastic clip that held the glass up broke. I had to take it in and have it fixed- it was a hassle, but shit happens right?

A few months after that I was driving it and got an odd warning light on the dash. I was close to home so I went on home and then tried to figure out the code. It turns out the brake light switch just failed - again it was a shitty design. The car couldn't be moved once it was shut off because of the brake/transmission interlock that wouldn't allow it to be shifted from Park. That was a bigger hassle because no dealer anywhere had the part (they were doing a recall on VW Beetles at the time so the parts were all out stock) My car didn't move for 2 weeks while I waited. That just pissed me off...

A year or two after that another window fell down into another door and I had to go through the hassle of getting it fixed again.

The battery went shithouse on it after I'd had it for about three years. One day the car started shooting me weird warning lights about my ABS and I spent a lot of time looking over that system and cleaning the wheel speed sensors. Finally someone online posted something about a voltage problem causing ABS warning lights and I went to have the battery tested. After a lot of frustration I replaced the battery and resolved that problem.

This week the head gasket took a shit and the thing is pumping more steam out the back than the Chatenooga choo choo.

Now, I know what you are thinking - this thing is like 7 years old now, but the car only has 26,000 original miles on it. The worst part is, living in Okinawa, the local dealer won't touch it. I bought it in the USA and brought it here when we transferred in a couple of years ago and they never sold TDIs in Japan.

I'm pretty much screwed - no one can really work on it even if I get the parts because there are no Japanese rebuild manuals and no mechanics have ever seen one, never mind had any training on how to fix one. I could take a shot at it, but I haven't done any serious engine work in a decade and, truth be told, I never had the best results when I was doing engine work, I just don't have the patience for it.

Those are the serious things, but there are other things that bother me about the car - all those nice soft touch plastics on the interior turned to sticky shit a couple of years ago. The look like shit and feel even worse. They seemed nice when I got the car, but at this point I would rather just have hard plastic. I've spent a fair amount of time taking off the interior pices and scrubbing them in the sink to get rid of that shit.

So - long story short - VW sucks ass, save your money and buy something else.

[LaurenOE]

Okinawa? Heck, toss the VW and buy one of those motorcycles we can't get here in the states! Do they still sell the Kawasaki Zephyr 500cc over there? I would KILL to have one of those over here!!!

[acalliste]

I used to have a VW Rabbit that I drove all over creation for several years, destroyed one engine, put another one in, then sold it to a kid who just learned to drive and he promptly burned up the clutch.

I don't think I'd buy a new one though. Lately I have been hearing more bad than good about them.

[Rhetorik]

I wouldn't buy a new VW - when things start getting made in Mexico, the quality tends to go down the shitter and VW is no exception. We had one VW a number of years ago, a Passat TDI - very nice car to drive. Thennnnnn the timing belt snapped, the pistons smashed the valves to smithereens, and we had to get a new car. Family was pretty damn pissed about that - we are very good about maintaining our vehicles, and the belt should have been inspected whenever we brought it in for work at the dealership. But no, they didn't notice it was wearing, and it fucked us over.

[Gaolee]

A friend had a VW GTI which started taking the occasional crap on him about a year ago. It think it was a 2004 or so. At one point, he got towed to a repair shop, and rode in the cab of the truck with the driver. The driver asked how many miles, and when my friend said 70,000, the driver said sell it now. Apparently he was towing a whole lot of VWs, and their problems start at about 70,000 miles. The driver said BMWs do the same thing, but he had never towed a Honda unless it had been crashed.

Beats me what it all means, but I'm pretty happy my wife has a Civic, since I really don't want her stranded anywhere.

[UberGoober]

One of my best friends was a VW guy. He had a beat up old diesel Rabbit all through college and when he finally got a good job stepped up and bought a top of the line Passat. It was a nice car - not sure if he still has it or not, but he gave a lot of money for it.

In 2004 I visited him when I was home on vacation and he had just bought his wife a sexy little red GTI. Last time I talked to him (which was a couple of years ago) he was complaining about all the shit that was going wrong with it - stories just like mine. His wife is in her mid thirties and is not an aggressive driver at all, its amazing that the car had so much trouble with someone so genuinely gentle behind the wheel.

Last I heard he dumped the thing (the car, not the wife) before anything else could go wrong with it. His whole faith in VW is gone and he'll never buy another one either.

I know no car is perfect, but crap they've been making practically the same car for thirty years an they still haven't got it right. They should give the hell up.

[jschmidt]

Yea, my wife had a company car Jetta. We always said how glad we were that we didn't buy this piece of shit.

[bzb]

Er, are VW TDI's no longer cars? Are they some sort of mythical object from Germany?

Makes no sense that a local VW dealer wouldn't work on it, especially if you can acquire the parts for them. They're not THAT much different - as long as you have the computer to hook it up to that can read/program the codes you're golden.

Sounds to me like some lazy fuckers just don't want to work (which is kind of odd for Japanese folk).

It's like when mechanics are all touchy about Ducatis - they're just motorcycles. Sure they have model specific parts, but the only thing "weird" about Ducs is the valve clearances - but even that isn't Ducati-specific. A good mechanic should be able to work on anything to at least get it running again.

[UberGoober]

Well that's what pissed me off. There is one VW dealer on the whole island and I had to brow beat him into even opening the friggin' hood. He didn't even want to touch it until I told him that "VW is an international brand and I expect that no matter where in the world I am a VW shop would at least show me enough respect to look at it"

He did a radiator pressure test, which helped convince me it wasn't a leaking EGR heater (another common problem for these cars.) He wouldn't do an actual compression test though.

I'm going to run it over to the base repair shop and see if they would take on something so serious. I think they are going to tell me to screw off though, they mostly do oil changes and other simple bs. Barring that I might just tear into it myself - I'm basically going to have to throw it away one way or another, if I have a 25% chance of repairing it, those odds are still better than they are now.

I will say, however, that I have worked around Japanese people for a long time and have found the myth of them being hard workers up to any challenge is bullshit. the second you step outside of their normal zone of operation and ask them to do anything different they get glassy eyed and start dreweling. They'll also fuck you over in a heart beat - they're polite while they do it, they are fucking you just the same. Nothing pisses me off more than having someone smile and look me in the eye while they are screwing me.

[bzb]

Ahaha

One thing I've learned about ALL Asians (anyone from Asia as a continent, really) they're generally very polite, but backstabbing assholes when it comes to money. Haggling is part of their culture - my mom (Taiwanese) haggles at Wal-Mart and Best Buy... and frequently gets her way.

Most Japanese people I know here (stepmom is Japanese) are workaholics, but they don't seem to ever get anything done. It's like they just hate their families, or something. The women are far nicer than the men.


That's insane that the VW stealership was being such cockmongers about it. It's one of their cars, regardless where it was made. That's almost like me bringing my Tahoe to the Georgia dealership and them saying: "Sorry, this was made in Texas, we don't know what to do with it."

Anyway, it's a car. Base repair shop should at least be able to provide you with tools. I'd doubt there's many specialty tools needed for a VW outside of a computer that can scan/program the computer - but even that can often times be circumvented somehow.

Just remember, the technology of a gasoline engine hasn't really changed that much over the last 100 years And cars haven't changed all that much, mechanically, in the last 40.


Edit: Gaolee - the nice thing about buying a BMW new is the maintenance program, and you'll never really be stranded with most of the pricier brands (BMW, MB, Lexus, Acura, etc). There's a reason for the premium price on luxury vehicles that most people never use!