I wouldn't call myself a loyal VW owner. I have owned 4 VWs including my current 2013 Jetta TDi. I always equated VW with German engineering and quality. Unfortunately, this car has been the exception and with the emissions cheat on top of all the other issues I'd had. I think somewhere along the way the culture at VAG changed for the worse.
I had previously owned a 914 (Yes it had a Porsche nameplate, but it was build by VW and had a VW flat 4), an 81 Rabbit and an 83 GTI. The GTI was likely one of the best cars I ever owned. It would run 65 mph all the way to the tunnel in 5th gear when that was something not a lot of cars could do. The car was easy to work on and maintain, it was dead nuts reliable and fun to drive on top of that. At one point I owned 2 cars, the GTI and an Audi 4000 Quatro. I sold the GTI and kept the Audi. That was a mistake.
When my truck died, I bought this car for the performance and fuel mileage. I work 8 hours away from home and the Allegheny mountains are in between. It is nice to be able to pull those hills in 6th gear. Plus the cost for fuel dropped by a 3rd. Performance is not an issue.
Then the fun started. The driver's door lock is intermittent when locking the car and when the auto lock kicks in at 10 mph. it double clicks as it locks and unlocks. Worst of all when you "lock" it and it doesn't lock you can open the drivers door without triggering the alarm even though the alarm is set. It sucks to have to check to see if the door locked every time you walk away from the car. Then the door lock cylinder got to where it would not lock and unlock the door. It's not mechanical, it'a all electric. That was $400+ to replace the lock cylinder and I've been quoted $700+ to replace the door lock actuator. IMHO, this is a huge design flaw. How the heck are you supposed to get in the car if this fails and where is the security if it doesn't lock the doors and arm the system properly. Where is the security in keeping the doors closed in an accident if the doors don't lock.
Next, the exhaust flap died at about 50K miles. You would think this would be covered under the power train warranty as the the exhaust system is part of the motor, hence, part of the power train. At least that is the way I see it. But no, it's not. Another $800.
Lastly, there is an issue with the wiper motor taking a crap. It's loud and it's slow. Likely dying a slow death due to the erector set wiper linkage being made of dissimilar metals that cause the linkage to lockup and burn up the motor, strip the gears, etc. (Another design flaw? Did the engineers fail basic metallurgy?) Anyway, another $250 for the motor, $200 for the linkage and another $200 to install.
So, $2550 in repairs for faulty designs on a car that is only 2 years and 2 months old. What happened to the VW I knew back in the 80s? When did the culture change from producing good designs with good engineering to not standing behind the product, and now this? On top of that all evidence shows that this episode with the emissions cheat is likely a culture issue too. In fact it highlights an internal culture of corruption and dishonesty. My car lost $2-3K in value over night on top of all that. For all the good will VW built with me in the 80s, they just killed it.
Nothing to do in the short term, but ride this out. I was actually thinking of getting an Audi S3 in a year or 2, but now I'm not sure I could even consider buying anything in VAG. All I can say is it's going to take a long time to rebuild the trust VW destroyed.
Yes, I'm pissed.
I knew that jumping on the class action lawsuit wagon was not going to benefit me. No one is working for us, not VW, VWOA, or the dealerships!! If I would have taken my 2010 Jetta Sportwagon TDI into the VW dealership as a trade-in I would have gotten a crap deal!! I was not willing to trade in my TDI because the only choice they are going to give you is to put you into another VW which is total BS!! I wanted to get out from under VW completely. The road ahead for owners of the affected VW's seems bleak at best. I had to take action into my own hands to get something REAL done about it. It was hard work to sell it privately but I definitely gained a better profit than the dealership would have even considered giving me...
