VW Warranty Problems

Do you have the invoice for the service where you mentioned the problem? Any work or investigation required would be written on the work order and hence prove that the problem existed during warranty.

My Wife bought a VW Sharon from a VW dealer. It still had part of its manufacturers warranty left to run so was supplemented with an approved warranty. While we were still in the approved warranty period the car started to have intermittent trouble reving over 2K (usually when cold or reved high after it has just started). We mentioned this to the dealer when the car was in for normal servicing and they investigated and said they could see nothing wrong. SInce the warranty has expired (February 05) the issue has become more frequent. We have had it back to VW and they have diagnosed turbo issues. The turbo needs to be replaced at significant cost (£1100 p & l).

My question is - if this fault was missed by VW when the vehicle was under warranty should they not be held liable for this? I think this is a long shot, and we need to get the repairs done ASAP as I don't like to think of the missus having it cause issues when we have all of the kids in the car, but I would be very interested in anybodies experiences in this area.

Thanks

Degs

When you took the car in under warranty for investigation, VW should have given you a receipt for £0 warranty work, outlining the symptoms and resolution. VW will have a copy of the details of this visit on there computer if you ask them. You can use this to fight your case. The other option is to create a bit of a fuss at the dealers and insist they contact VW regarding making a contributary payment towards the work.

At the moment they are seing how easy it is to squeeze £1100 out of you without having to go to VW....You need to hastle them some more.

Good Luck.

Andy

Agreed. As the fault was investigated under warranty I believe you have the right to expect the dealer to continue trying to resolve it now at their expense. Evidence is what you need.

How many miles has the car covered? I presume it's a 1.9TDi? Properly looked after turbos in diesels should not fail at low mileage.

If the miles are average and the car has full service history then it would be hard for the dealer to argue that this turbo was not inherently faulty when you bought it. You may also have rights under the Sale and Supply of Goods Act (do a Google if you need more on this) to seek resolution of your complaint at their expense. If the car has covered 200,000 miles and has patchy service history your job will be more difficult!

Exchange turbos are only £300-ish from German & Swedish, plus a couple of hours labour to fit at your local independant garage.

I'd disagree with that myself. When I bought my Passat (OK, so it's a petrol, but stay with me on this one) I insisted the dealer upgraded the warranty to include turbo cover. For a very good reason....

Whilst a turbo in a diesel or indeed in a low-pressure petrol application isn't really under a lot of stress, the life of a turbo is very much dependent on how previous owners have looked after it - if a previous owner revved the nuts off the car and switched off the engine without allowing time for the turbo to cool then it will have a significantly shortened life.

Back to the OP, though, revving a turbo engine above 2k rpm before it's had time to warm up will also damage the turbo. I don't exceed 2k rpm until the temp. gauge is firmly pointing to 90 degrees.

Turbo engines should be run on a good semi-synthetic or fully-synthetic oil, most don't take long to reach operating temperature these days, especially lugging around a Sharran.

Fact is, he did return it to the dealer within the warranty period, with the same symptoms that he was previously told are normal, this type of behaviour is frankly disgusting and in my experience of main dealers very normal. They are simply trying to get out of doing the work under warranty because they will make nothing from it, if they make you wait until the end of the warranty period then they can really cash in.

Indecently, I don't know what access is like to the turbo on a Sharran, but to get a turbo unit re-built normally cost approx £350+ or £650 using titanium bearing seals etc... from Turbo Techniques.

So if you can get an independent garage to take the job on for you, you could have the unit removed and sent away for reconditioning to a higher specification and up the boost slightly. You will find the car more responsive and powerful and the whole lot will be cheaper than getting a replacement standard turbo from a main dealer, with there £100 per hour charges!!!

I know I will get some flack for saying that, as some posters on this group work for main dealers, I am not accusing them all of these practices, but

99% of main dealers I have used I would definitely categorise as 'main stealers'

When the Alarm unit on my VW Touran started doing weird things I was told by the dealer it was 'normal' as was the excessive smoke from under the front wheel arch that looked not unlike a bad engine fire at times. Turned out there was a VW Update for the smoking problem and a replacement control unit for alarm but I had to find this out for myself and confront my dealer with this information, he claimed they know nothing of these VW recalls until I made him phone VW UK. - BREEZE VW (POOLE)

Andy

Whilst I fully agree that treating turbos badly will reduce their life, I still feel that on a TDi with average mileage and a FSH (so hopefully the right oil at the right intervals!) turbo failure should be regarded as unacceptable.

Quite true. With proper attention to warming up and cooling down, the turbo should last the lifetime of the car. However, cooling down time is less critical since most turbos are now water cooled.

I've seen company car drivers kill turbos in less than 10k miles of use just by caning the balls off their car then not giving it a chance to cool down before parking up and switching off the engine.

Unfortunately, you never know if a turbo has been abused in such a way, so when buying a turbo car it's worth holding back enough for an exchange or rebuild turbo.

Thanks for all the replies!

The story now: VW technical have agreed to cover 40% cost of the part and the dealership 20% of the labour. This will leave us with a bill of around =A3700. We aren't moaners but =A3700 is a lot of cash for a fault that if they had looked into it properly at the time should have been covered by the warranty. We have documentation that the fault was reported in warranty and the fact that they are granting us discounts implies they are prepared to accept some culpability.

The vehicle is a 1.9TDi and has done average milage for 4 year old car. We have had other issues with the car, including it locking itself with the car key, house keys and one of my daughters inside! This prooved to be just a little bit streesful for my wife and eventually my daughter (who was strapped into a child seat).

We are chasing this with customer services, but I think we may have to get it fixed soon because the car will fail to accelerate and can be dangerous (pulling out onto our local very busy roundabout). When the main occupants are my wife and our three girls it is not really something you want to gamble with. If we pay and have the problem fixed I suspect we will find it harder to pursue any claim.

Oh well - we will try and I will let everybody know how it goes. If anybody has any more ideas that would be great.

Thanks again

Degs

This is surprisingly easy to do with recent VAG products.

I did it by reaching in for something via the passenger front door, catching the 'lock' button on the driver's door then closing the passenger door with my keys inside.

Degsy ( snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

As was the fact that you admit to flooring it and "revving high" immediately after a cold start.

What's the handbook say? I'll bet it mentions treating it gently until there's some warmth in it.

I'm not sure it does.

Which is what? "Average mileage for a 4yo car" is 40k if you're selling, 80k if you're buying, usually...

Turbos are fragile. They're often excluded from warranties for that reason, although they do seem to be included explicitly in the VW approved used warranty - but that's got a maximum £1,000 claim, so you'd have had to put in anyway.

I thinks thats as good as you will get it, I'd go with that and have the work done, make sure you get a twelve month warranty for the completed works though.

Also, stop driving the bloody thing! - If you drive with a knackered turbo you will kill the rest of the engine and the CAT.....

And treat the new turbo a bit better than the last, it should see he car out.

Andy