I finally made the decision to get rid of my 2010 Golf after almost 4 years of ownership. I just couldn't take the chance of any more problems. Although there were things I appreciated about the car, overall I would say I was highly disappointed with it. I need RELIABLE transportation and Toyota is it.
I was very enthusiastic when I first purchased the Golf. I had never owned a diesel or a VW before but knew many people who had over the years, including relatives in Europe. I was always amazed by tales of great MPG and long life. I am also a diesel mechanic by trade and know the advantages of diesel engines so when the time came to buy a new car the TDI was the only car I considered. I bought the car with the intention of owning it for LIFE. Hell I know guys who had over 500,000 miles on 80's vintage Rabbits. Needless to say things didn't work out that way.
I had problems from DAY ONE. The car was delivered with a missing interior trim piece. Big deal, right? That's what I thought but in retrospect I should have taken it as a sign. That little piece of defroster trim took 4 months to get. During those 4 months my radio made a daily decision as to whether or not it was going to work that day, but of course it always worked when it was at the dealer. It took 5 months to get the radio replaced. Yes it was under warranty but it was still an annoyance. Also during this time I started to notice an annoying clicking coming from the windows, which I came to find out is the known "ticking window" issue on these cars due to thermal expansion of the exterior trim, but not before my dealer decided it was a maladjusted striker plate, decided to "fix" it without my OK, and then proceeded to charge me because "it wasn't a warranty issue". He screwed up that door so bad I finally had to rehang it myself. The windows were still ticking as I drove it to the Toyota dealer to trade it in.
First winter I had a few hard starts, a couple of incidents of the car sputtering and dying on me. Thanks to TDIClub I found out about the frozen intercooler problem, even got a copy of the actual TSB VW had for this issue. Turns out that was not enough for the dealer. "Car is running fine, no problem found" according to them. Gee even VW corporate was able to issue the car a clean bill of health over the phone. DENIED. Fast forward to the next winter, more hard starts, and finally a locked up solid hydrolocking. VW dealer, second VW dealer and VW corporate all agreed there was nothing wrong with the car. TSB fixed DENIED. I finally, FINALLY got the new intercooler installed in the spring of 2013! THIS WAS OVER 2 YEARS FROM WHEN I STARTED HAVING PROBLEMS, well after VW knew that this was a MAJOR design problem with these cars. I can not count the number of hours I spent arguing with VW and the dealer over this issue. All the time they were denying there was a problem which their own technical people had already indentified! This one issue, and the way VW dealt with it, more than anything else, is what has soured me on VW. I will never own another Volkswagen.
A short aside concerning the new intercooler that was supposed to fix the issue. IT DOESN'T. It improves it, yes, but I was still having hard starts and sputtering/surging issues at idle this past winter. Also I noticed a decrease in MPG since it was installed, one of the main reasons I bought the car in the first place was being negatively impacted. Good job VW. Oh and I forgot to mention the atrocious job the dealer did installing it. Well they did get it right the second time.
I will just touch on a couple of other issues:
Window regulators that don't know the difference between up and down. Yes you read that right. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. Hey we all have our off days.
Interior lights that really, really wish they were at a disco. "Hey let's rapidly switch back and forth at varying intensities." "No let's just shut off completely."
ESP ERROR alarms that show up every now and then. (Yes I read that whole thread. No it is not the battery but it is something electrical.)
"DING-DING" alarms that sound at random, sometimes even constantly while driving down the road. Perhaps VW considers this a safety feature as you will never fall asleep while driving.
Random stalls at stop lights.
Now to be fair not all of these issues presented themselves at all times, some showed up for a while and then never returned, but they all made their presence felt at one time or another. It was the randomness of it that was truly frustrating.
I also found the fit and finish and quality of materials to be subpar. My seats were fraying, my SEAT BELTS were fraying and the paint was horrible. If I wanted to spend all my time fixing paint chips or buffing out scratches I would have opened up a body shop. Just really low quality paint. For those who think I am being too harsh, I am using a 1987 Plymouth Reliant and a 2000 Dodge Grand Caravan as my frame of reference. I purchased both new, subjected then to the same environment, driving conditions, etc. and yet 10 or more years later both of them were in better shape cosmetically than my Golf was after less than 4 years.
There were things I liked about the car. I loved the road feel and handling, loved that diesel torque. The MPG was good, certainly better than a gasser, but it was not GREAT, and with the price spread between gas and diesel widening the economic case for it was getting weaker and weaker. Factor in the significantly higher maintenance costs and it's a wash.
I just never could bond with the car. Every time I was on the verge of falling in love it seemed to throw another fit. Reminded me of an ex-girlfriend (notice I said EX), fun to ride but when she was in a bad mood...WATCH OUT! Given the many other known issues with these cars that have been well documented here I figured it was time to cut my losses, the Golf had to go. Now my mind is clear of worries about HPFP, DPF, EGR, turbo, timing belt, and God knows what else. I never actually had any of those problems but with the car's track record I didn't want to take any more chances. Car was actually behaving itself for the last couple of months so at least we did break up on good terms. Oh and by the way these cars are not holding their value like the TDI's of old. I shopped this car around at several dealers and "We Buy Cars" places and the best offer I could get was $13,000. This is for a less than 4 year old car with less than 40,000 miles. Seems the CR TDI's reputation is well known in the industry. I eventually took a lower trade-in offer because it worked to my advantage when considering new car price and sales tax calculations. There was no way I was going to sell this car privately. I would be worried the new owner would come after me if it started a new round of fit throwing.
I have replaced it with a 2014 Toyota Yaris SE. I wanted a small hatchback, not exactly a major market segment here in America, but I live in NYC and the hatch is a perfect fit. Given what was available in this class I felt the Yaris was my best bet. There were too many negatives for me with some of the other competitors. The Honda Fit was a close second but I just liked the Yaris better overall. Throw in Toyota's legendary reliability and the decision was made. The Yaris is one of the mechanically simplest cars out there. Its engine and transmission and many of its mechanical and suspension components have been in production for almost 2 decades. It has stood the test of time, and is consistently ranked as one of Toyota's most reliable models. After VW this fact had strong appeal to me.
I have owned it for a little over a month now and find that in many ways it compares quite favorably with the Golf. Although smaller outside the interior is as large, plenty of room up front and my regular back seat passengers tell me it's "just as good" back there as well. There is enough space in the hatch for the stuff I regularly carry too. It is just as maneuverable as the Golf in the city but of course it does fall behind on the highway. Still there is enough power to keep up with traffic, I've never felt in danger, just plan your passing maneuvers carefully. Handling is surprisingly quite good but road feel / ride comfort is not up to VW standards. Yes the interior is all hard plastics, and no I don't have heated seats anymore but so what, these things just aren't that important to me. The audio system on the Yaris is superior to the RCD-510 I had on my Golf, both in terms of sound quality and functionality. The Bluetooth actually works. Fuel economy is lower though, I'm averaging 32 MPG right now but it is a new engine and I've been driving it hard to break it in. I expect to pick up 1 or 2 MPG once it is fully broken in and I tone down my driving style. For comparison I averaged just over 38 MPG lifetime on my Golf. Given the lower price of gasoline, fuel costs should work out to be only very, very slightly higher. I do wish it had a bigger tank however. Maintenance costs figure to be very low, as they basically consist of an oil change every 5,000 miles. So far, so good, fingers crossed but I am expecting good things from the Yaris.
I would like to thank my fellow TDIClub members for making this site such a wonderful resource. All that combined knowledge helped me while I owned the car and ironically helped me make the decision to get rid of it. I wish you all many more miles of happy TDI ownership but for me that door is closed. I will still be checking in here every once in a while. Even though I will never own another VW I'm interested to see how the next gen Golf works out. Also I can now take perverse pleasure in reading the myriad VW horror stories and secretly laughing. (JOKE)
Oh, and if anybody from VW happens to be reading this and doesn't want to see any more posts like this here's what you have to do:
FIRST, and foremost, properly design cars for the environment in which they will operate. Then TEST, TEST and TEST again. Don't release half baked products into the wild.
SECOND, when you screw up ADMIT IT and FIX IT.
THIRD, get your dealer service network in order. The level of incompetence I witnessed there was staggering. The level and rigor of training for service personnel must be drastically improved.
FOURTH, and finally, common courtesy goes a long way. Rude behavior by service personnel and corporate "customer care advocates" is remembered long after the issue that prompted the exchange is resolved. I don't want to be talked down to by technicians whose demonstrated abilities were often well below my own or by corporate representatives reading from a script. The customer may not always be right, but he is still YOUR customer. I am now TOYOTA'S customer. I won't be back.
I was very enthusiastic when I first purchased the Golf. I had never owned a diesel or a VW before but knew many people who had over the years, including relatives in Europe. I was always amazed by tales of great MPG and long life. I am also a diesel mechanic by trade and know the advantages of diesel engines so when the time came to buy a new car the TDI was the only car I considered. I bought the car with the intention of owning it for LIFE. Hell I know guys who had over 500,000 miles on 80's vintage Rabbits. Needless to say things didn't work out that way.
I had problems from DAY ONE. The car was delivered with a missing interior trim piece. Big deal, right? That's what I thought but in retrospect I should have taken it as a sign. That little piece of defroster trim took 4 months to get. During those 4 months my radio made a daily decision as to whether or not it was going to work that day, but of course it always worked when it was at the dealer. It took 5 months to get the radio replaced. Yes it was under warranty but it was still an annoyance. Also during this time I started to notice an annoying clicking coming from the windows, which I came to find out is the known "ticking window" issue on these cars due to thermal expansion of the exterior trim, but not before my dealer decided it was a maladjusted striker plate, decided to "fix" it without my OK, and then proceeded to charge me because "it wasn't a warranty issue". He screwed up that door so bad I finally had to rehang it myself. The windows were still ticking as I drove it to the Toyota dealer to trade it in.
First winter I had a few hard starts, a couple of incidents of the car sputtering and dying on me. Thanks to TDIClub I found out about the frozen intercooler problem, even got a copy of the actual TSB VW had for this issue. Turns out that was not enough for the dealer. "Car is running fine, no problem found" according to them. Gee even VW corporate was able to issue the car a clean bill of health over the phone. DENIED. Fast forward to the next winter, more hard starts, and finally a locked up solid hydrolocking. VW dealer, second VW dealer and VW corporate all agreed there was nothing wrong with the car. TSB fixed DENIED. I finally, FINALLY got the new intercooler installed in the spring of 2013! THIS WAS OVER 2 YEARS FROM WHEN I STARTED HAVING PROBLEMS, well after VW knew that this was a MAJOR design problem with these cars. I can not count the number of hours I spent arguing with VW and the dealer over this issue. All the time they were denying there was a problem which their own technical people had already indentified! This one issue, and the way VW dealt with it, more than anything else, is what has soured me on VW. I will never own another Volkswagen.
A short aside concerning the new intercooler that was supposed to fix the issue. IT DOESN'T. It improves it, yes, but I was still having hard starts and sputtering/surging issues at idle this past winter. Also I noticed a decrease in MPG since it was installed, one of the main reasons I bought the car in the first place was being negatively impacted. Good job VW. Oh and I forgot to mention the atrocious job the dealer did installing it. Well they did get it right the second time.
I will just touch on a couple of other issues:
Window regulators that don't know the difference between up and down. Yes you read that right. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. Hey we all have our off days.
Interior lights that really, really wish they were at a disco. "Hey let's rapidly switch back and forth at varying intensities." "No let's just shut off completely."
ESP ERROR alarms that show up every now and then. (Yes I read that whole thread. No it is not the battery but it is something electrical.)
"DING-DING" alarms that sound at random, sometimes even constantly while driving down the road. Perhaps VW considers this a safety feature as you will never fall asleep while driving.
Random stalls at stop lights.
Now to be fair not all of these issues presented themselves at all times, some showed up for a while and then never returned, but they all made their presence felt at one time or another. It was the randomness of it that was truly frustrating.
I also found the fit and finish and quality of materials to be subpar. My seats were fraying, my SEAT BELTS were fraying and the paint was horrible. If I wanted to spend all my time fixing paint chips or buffing out scratches I would have opened up a body shop. Just really low quality paint. For those who think I am being too harsh, I am using a 1987 Plymouth Reliant and a 2000 Dodge Grand Caravan as my frame of reference. I purchased both new, subjected then to the same environment, driving conditions, etc. and yet 10 or more years later both of them were in better shape cosmetically than my Golf was after less than 4 years.
There were things I liked about the car. I loved the road feel and handling, loved that diesel torque. The MPG was good, certainly better than a gasser, but it was not GREAT, and with the price spread between gas and diesel widening the economic case for it was getting weaker and weaker. Factor in the significantly higher maintenance costs and it's a wash.
I just never could bond with the car. Every time I was on the verge of falling in love it seemed to throw another fit. Reminded me of an ex-girlfriend (notice I said EX), fun to ride but when she was in a bad mood...WATCH OUT! Given the many other known issues with these cars that have been well documented here I figured it was time to cut my losses, the Golf had to go. Now my mind is clear of worries about HPFP, DPF, EGR, turbo, timing belt, and God knows what else. I never actually had any of those problems but with the car's track record I didn't want to take any more chances. Car was actually behaving itself for the last couple of months so at least we did break up on good terms. Oh and by the way these cars are not holding their value like the TDI's of old. I shopped this car around at several dealers and "We Buy Cars" places and the best offer I could get was $13,000. This is for a less than 4 year old car with less than 40,000 miles. Seems the CR TDI's reputation is well known in the industry. I eventually took a lower trade-in offer because it worked to my advantage when considering new car price and sales tax calculations. There was no way I was going to sell this car privately. I would be worried the new owner would come after me if it started a new round of fit throwing.
I have replaced it with a 2014 Toyota Yaris SE. I wanted a small hatchback, not exactly a major market segment here in America, but I live in NYC and the hatch is a perfect fit. Given what was available in this class I felt the Yaris was my best bet. There were too many negatives for me with some of the other competitors. The Honda Fit was a close second but I just liked the Yaris better overall. Throw in Toyota's legendary reliability and the decision was made. The Yaris is one of the mechanically simplest cars out there. Its engine and transmission and many of its mechanical and suspension components have been in production for almost 2 decades. It has stood the test of time, and is consistently ranked as one of Toyota's most reliable models. After VW this fact had strong appeal to me.
I have owned it for a little over a month now and find that in many ways it compares quite favorably with the Golf. Although smaller outside the interior is as large, plenty of room up front and my regular back seat passengers tell me it's "just as good" back there as well. There is enough space in the hatch for the stuff I regularly carry too. It is just as maneuverable as the Golf in the city but of course it does fall behind on the highway. Still there is enough power to keep up with traffic, I've never felt in danger, just plan your passing maneuvers carefully. Handling is surprisingly quite good but road feel / ride comfort is not up to VW standards. Yes the interior is all hard plastics, and no I don't have heated seats anymore but so what, these things just aren't that important to me. The audio system on the Yaris is superior to the RCD-510 I had on my Golf, both in terms of sound quality and functionality. The Bluetooth actually works. Fuel economy is lower though, I'm averaging 32 MPG right now but it is a new engine and I've been driving it hard to break it in. I expect to pick up 1 or 2 MPG once it is fully broken in and I tone down my driving style. For comparison I averaged just over 38 MPG lifetime on my Golf. Given the lower price of gasoline, fuel costs should work out to be only very, very slightly higher. I do wish it had a bigger tank however. Maintenance costs figure to be very low, as they basically consist of an oil change every 5,000 miles. So far, so good, fingers crossed but I am expecting good things from the Yaris.
I would like to thank my fellow TDIClub members for making this site such a wonderful resource. All that combined knowledge helped me while I owned the car and ironically helped me make the decision to get rid of it. I wish you all many more miles of happy TDI ownership but for me that door is closed. I will still be checking in here every once in a while. Even though I will never own another VW I'm interested to see how the next gen Golf works out. Also I can now take perverse pleasure in reading the myriad VW horror stories and secretly laughing. (JOKE)
Oh, and if anybody from VW happens to be reading this and doesn't want to see any more posts like this here's what you have to do:
FIRST, and foremost, properly design cars for the environment in which they will operate. Then TEST, TEST and TEST again. Don't release half baked products into the wild.
SECOND, when you screw up ADMIT IT and FIX IT.
THIRD, get your dealer service network in order. The level of incompetence I witnessed there was staggering. The level and rigor of training for service personnel must be drastically improved.
FOURTH, and finally, common courtesy goes a long way. Rude behavior by service personnel and corporate "customer care advocates" is remembered long after the issue that prompted the exchange is resolved. I don't want to be talked down to by technicians whose demonstrated abilities were often well below my own or by corporate representatives reading from a script. The customer may not always be right, but he is still YOUR customer. I am now TOYOTA'S customer. I won't be back.