Consumer Reports: Golf most reliable TDI!?

gearheadgrrrl

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Buffalo Ridge (southwest Minnesota)
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'15 Golf DSG, '13 JSW DSG surrendered to VW, '03 Golf 2 door manual
'Twas paging through the december issue of CR at the library yesterday and starting on page 60 they had graphs of the various new cars predicted reliability. Now I hadn't seen the data broken down like this online, so I studied it intently, being as I'm in the market for a new one and debating between the current A6s and the coming A7s, with an outside chance of acquiring a Passat instead. The data is presented in bar graph form, so I dug out my little ruler and measured as best I can, and all these numbers are percentages of unreliability above (+) or below (-) that of the average new car.

Golf TDI: +15%
JSW TDI: +10%
Jetta TDI: -5%
Passat TDI: -20%

Hmmm... I could argue that German assembly quality is showing, but IIRC the JSW is built in the same mexican plant as the Jetta. Looking for more data, I looked at the results for the gas versions of these cars.

Golf gas: +35%
GTI gas: -55%
JSW gas: +20%
Jetta gas: +5%
Passat gas: no data

The relationships are pretty similar for the gassers, with the exception of the Golf beating the JSW by a bit wider margin. But the GTI is an outlier- Is the turbo TSI engine that unreliable?

After preliminary digesting of these stats, I'm tempted to believe that German assembly does yield a better product, and maybe I should grab an A6 Golf TDI before as A7 production will be moved to Mexico. Then again, the Mexican built JSW barely trails the German built Golf. Or is their a problem with the A6 Jetta sedan, being that it's recently evolved away from the Golf and JSW?

Discuss...
 

Ski in NC

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These numbers leave alot to be desired. I do not think they differentiate between major problems and minor problems. For example: If two Passats each had a failed cupholder, that would count worse than one JSW with a blown turbo. 2 vs. 1. So what counts as a hit against reliability? Honestly I don't know... It is not easy to boil down failure data into something that can be represented into a single bar graph. Car how old? Cost of failure? Car immobilized? Miles driven?
 

bubbagumpshrimp

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These numbers leave alot to be desired. I do not think they differentiate between major problems and minor problems. For example: If two Passats each had a failed cupholder, that would count worse than one JSW with a blown turbo. 2 vs. 1. So what counts as a hit against reliability? Honestly I don't know... It is not easy to boil down failure data into something that can be represented into a single bar graph. Car how old? Cost of failure? Car immobilized? Miles driven?
x2.I wonder if the -5% for the diesel Jetta is that the interior in these cars are absolute $h1t. i.e. People taking the cars into the dealership for complaints about various rattling items.

I would imagine that those numbers are simply the rate at which a given vehicle is taken to the dealership (not normal maintenance related) compared to the competition. Those numbers are really completely meaningless without the context that they were gathered (i.e. Minor issues like rattling are included).
 
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IndigoBlueWagon

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'97 Passat, '99.5 Golf, '02 Jetta Wagon, '15 GSW
It may not be reliability per se, but if the car rattles, if accessories fail or give trouble, if something (like a fuel door or sunroof) doesn't work, it still requires a service visit and an inconvenience to the owner. So although reliability may not be the right term, it could be that Golf owners have fewer warranty visits to the dealer than other models.
 

Humanaquarian

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I tend to agree that German made Vdubs are of a better quality build than elsewhere. I had the Jetta, assembled in Mexico... Many many problems due to improper installation, wiring etc... My A6 Golf is a solid brick of awesomeness!!!
 

kjclow

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2010 JSW TDI silver and black. 2017 Ram Ecodiesel dark red with brown and beige interior.
I've noticed very little fit and finish differences between my JSW and Golf.
 

TDI2000Zim

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VW hat meinen '14 Passat TDiSE getötet.
It may not be reliability per se, but if the car rattles, if accessories fail or give trouble, if something (like a fuel door or sunroof) doesn't work, it still requires a service visit and an inconvenience to the owner. So although reliability may not be the right term, it could be that Golf owners have fewer warranty visits to the dealer than other models.
RELIABILITY is a design issue.

When a car is only made reliable in one factory, then there is something wrong with the entire design, including the production methods.
 

AlcoC420

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.
... JSW TDI: +10% ... JSW gas: +20% ...
This caught my eye and could be a result of sampling. The last time I looked, 85% of JSWs sold in North America are TDIs, leaving the gassers in a small minority. Perhaps the result is because there are significantly more TDIs sold, hence a greater likelihood of problems with them.
 

KonaJack

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Barrington, IL
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2011 VW Golf
From everything I have read, the soon-to-be phased-out 2.5 gas engine is the most reliable in the VW stable. Probably because it is far less complex than the TDI and TSI engines. It is also far less expensive to manufacture so it helped VW keep prices down on the North American models it was used in. Unfortunately, it is substantially less fuel-efficient, which is the primary reason it is being nixed.
 

03_01_TDI

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Denmark
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Na
Three types of lies:
Basic lie,
Damn lie, (you can keep your insurance plan);)
And statistics.

Many variables at play from demographics of owners to which dealership sold more types of cars.
 

TDI2000Zim

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VW hat meinen '14 Passat TDiSE getötet.
That was damned funny :D!!!!!!!

But, I have the 'funny' feeling that we TDi owners are getting the 2nd Treatment from our favorite manufacturer.

I happen to think it is really Bosch'es Fault (wow, that sounds almost Freudian, but it ain't!!!), but as long as we are kept in the dark, Bosch may as well be the perfect hpfp manufacturer on God's Green Earth.
 

Softrockrenegade

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None...2011 Golf DSG (replaced by VW W/) 2013 Passat SE 6M(bought back) Current 2017 sportwagen TSI 4Motion.
Those numbers don't make much sense from at least this forums perspective. The passat is in its third MY amd I have seen way less problems reported than golfs and jsw's
 

showdown 42

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2016 TDI touareg
I have concluded the CR reports aren't worth the paper they are written on. Saying a Jetta TDI and a Golf TDI are different in performance and reliability makes no sense,same engine same specs. If they are talking about other issues I might buy into it.
 

RebelTDI

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Boston, MA
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I tend to agree that German made Vdubs are of a better quality build than elsewhere. I had the Jetta, assembled in Mexico... Many many problems due to improper installation, wiring etc... My A6 Golf is a solid brick of awesomeness!!!
I have an MK5 (2010 TDI) and anMK6 (Hybrid). Both made in Mexico. I really like both cars, but the I have to agree that the interior of the MK6 is inferior to the MK5. My MK6 has the soft touch dash, but the rest is hard plastic and the fit and finish leave a lot to be desired. I already had the plastic door panel on the driver's side replaced because it was warped up above the window sill. There are other areas where the plastic trim does not fit well. Plus, there is a rattle or tapping sound from the rear passenger side that occurs depending on the road surface. Hopefully, they'll bring the quality up on the MK7s. Sometimes you don't appreciate fit/finish issues until you've had the car for awhile.
 

gearheadgrrrl

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'15 Golf DSG, '13 JSW DSG surrendered to VW, '03 Golf 2 door manual
CR's reliability data comes from a survey of over a million of their members experience with their vehicles. That makes CR's results the best publicly available ones, and in some cases probably more accurate than the manufacturers own warranty stats. That said, this is a self selecting sample (they subscribed to CR and filled out the survey) and the sample may be small, but CRs statisticians are pretty good and won't publish results that aren't statistically valid.
 

gearheadgrrrl

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Digging a little deeper in the ratings...

The recently released CR ratings we're discussing haven't been broken down by year and parts group yet, so I dug out CR's auto issue from last spring which is the latest that broke down the stats by parts group and year. Looking over the 2010-12 years, it seems like the ratings for common parts like the drivetrain are near identical. The differences seem to be in the body areas specific to each body, such as paint/trim, body integrity, body hardware, power equipment, etc.. One sees the expected superiority of the german built Golfs there, but even then the differences aren't huge and in some cases the Golf scores worse. And while they didn't break out the Beetle results by engine, the new models got CRs lowest "black ball" ratings.
 
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