I have heard stories like the following non stop...
"The VW Jetta wagon that my wife and I purchased a year and a half ago is a piece of junk. It's the worst case of buyer's remorse we've ever had. It's given us no end of trouble. Recently, for instance, the catalytic converter is going bad (we believe), and that's still under manufacturer's warranty, but there are a variety of things that could also be causing that particular error code which turns the "Check Engine" light on. Volkswagon will not replace the catalytic converter until all of those others are checked and/or replaced."
Why do VW's suck so much? They are jazzy looking cars, but it looks like all they have worried about is superficial. Everyone I know says that they fall a part like a piece of bread in a duck pond.
"So, we have to replace one thing ($80 for the engine scan, and $70 for a sensor for some pump whose function is a mystery to me). Then we have to drive the car 50 miles or so to see if the check engine light comes on again, which it did, so the sensor was not actually the problem, which means that we replaced a good part in order to try to find the bad one.
So now we have to go through the same process again, paying another $80 each time for another engine scan and replacing stuff until we rule out everything that causes that particular error code except the catalytic converter, despite the fact that we received a notice in the mail that the factory warranty on the catalytic converter has been extended an extra year because they seem to have a lot of them going bad.
In the meantime, the driver side window fell down into the door. It just came out of the inner mechanisms and was rattling around free inside the door. So we had to get that fixed, which cost us about $380.
We're so ready to be out of this car, but we still owe more than it's worth (and from what I can tell, it's value is going down faster than the loan on it). Grrr."
I don't know *why* they suck so much but I know that they *do* suck. We owned one. It was a great vehicle to drive (a van with *great* road feel? Hard to believe but true!) but VW made some weird design decisions which made the car difficult to use in some ways and parts of it were totally unreliable. Like the brakes. Total brake failure is soooo inconvenient.
Gee, I don't know. If I got stuck with a lemon like that, I think I would paint some info the car with the problems the car has had, and park it right in front of the dealer. They can't do a thing about it. Other than agree to fix the car right in the first place.
What happened to the attitude that built the Beetle? My fear is that eventually such a decay of attitude will hit Toyota.
Could be worse, I guess. We could still be driving 100 year old technology (Model T) that got about 20 miles per gallon of gas and something like 80 miles per gallon of oil, and topped out at 40 - 45 miles an hour. With three pedals (low, reverse and brake from left to right) and the throttle under the steering wheel.
Their advertising is excellent, and they are carefully crafted to appeal to young people who haven't had any experience with being boned by a car company. Around here, for every 10 I see, 9 are driven by young women. The ads apparently work well.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I wouldn't buy a German car with YOUR money. (Been there, done that.)
And yes, I "get" German cars. German cars are the expensive, pouty, and high-maintenance mistresses of the road. Damn, they are a fine, fine ride...
....but then the maintenance and pouting kicks in.
At some point, without unlimited funds, you are at a decision point: continue the high-priced, high-maintenance fun, or go back home and enjoy your reliable Lexus wife of a car, patiently sitting there waiting for you to get over the midlife crisis.
Oh sure, she's not as sexy as the German car, and she doesn't handle at the edge like the German car. She's also not as fickle and high maintenance and pouty, and she agrees with you much more of the time. She's always there and never complains, and you come to realize there's more to life than a high-maintenance relationship with a pouty, high-maintenance woman--no matter how sexy she is or how fun the nights out with her can be. Because when she lets you down and demands more of you than you have to give, and treats you like dirt, you're standing there all alone outside the club, looking and feeling like an idiot.
Your Lexus wife would never, ever do that to you.
And the occasional fun night out isn't worth what you end up paying for it, both financially and in time wasted while you wait for the German car mistress to be in the mood to play.
Do this: start paying attention to cars with tail light and headlight problems. What brands of cars are you seeing? That's right--VW, M-B, and BMW. And pay attention to how old, or rather how new, those problem cars are.
The reality of electrical issues with German cars make Lucas electrics look reliable.
Now *try* to find a Honda or Toyota, either low brand or high brand, no matter how old, with non-working tail lights. Good luck.
It's a small thing, but it represents the reality of the situation. You want to buy a German car? Just buy a GM car. At least the money you're throwing away stays more inside the country--and you get just as reliable a car.
So you are saying these people don't check out Consumer Reports reliability ratings or look at JD Power surveys on number of defects? Then they deserve what they get.
My car before the current Camry was a 1990 Passat that had this habit of locking up in limp mode (3rd gear) every week or two. The service manager decided at about 15 K miles that it had an intermittent short in the wiring harness. VW said no, it was a defective controller card. They replaced 7 transmission controller cards eventually as well as a couple of engine controller cards, as well as a valve assembly for the tranny, and the tranny, itself. Along the way, they offered to buy the vehicle back for book value, which would have left me in a hole for a (new car) replacement. I suggested that they keep working on it. It even produced an error code on the diagnostic computer that Germany said didn't exist. When it (the vehicle) was able to duplicate the error code, they threw in the towel and replaced the car's wiring harness (three days and a loaner for me)at 64K. The car went another 96K for me til I sold it and it was still going two years later which is the last I saw of it. Why VW in Mi. and Germany were so resistant to replacing the wiring harness is one of those little mysteries that lead to the current Camry. Also ironic that the dealer's service manager had the problem ID'ed 50K miles before VW would do the job (all of this was free to me under warranty)
I was looking at buying a VW Passat about 10 years ago. I went into the dealer and started looking. After I told the sales people that I am going to get a loan check from my bank and they politely suggested I start shopping for my VW *after* I got the check, I decided to continue my shopping elsewhere.
Stories like the above make me very grateful that I don't have a VW.
I remember someone on Car Talk had a VW Passat or Jetta. The lady had to replace the steering linkage or something. Every 50k mi or so. Gee, that also makes me glad I don't have a VW.
If I were into buying cars and selling them after 3 years or so, I would consider a VW. However, considering that I have held on to my car for about 150,000 mi, I don't think so.
Something is wrong with this story. Either it is stale (5 years old or older) or the participants are getting rooked. VWs since 2002 have a
4yr/50,000 mile basic warranty and a 6yr/60,000 powertrain warranty. If the car was only 1.5 years old, it seems unlikely it would have exceeded the 50,000 basic warranty, much less the 5 yr/60,000 powertrain warranty. And, although I have not read the VW emissions warranty, I suspect the emissions components are actually covered up to 8yr/80,000 miles (see
formatting link
). On the other hand - you don't have to warn me about VWs. I have two Sisters, each bought a VW (1 Jetta, 1 Passat). Both were nightmares. I had to replace the transmission in the Jetta. The Passat had to have a new head after the timing belt tensioner locked. Both had power windows that didn't work, body hardware that just fell off, etc., etc. I told both Sister if they ever bought another VW and had problems not to call me. Ironically the SO bought a Jetta for her daughter a couple of years back despite my warnings (the Jetta had very good safety ratings). More than once I have heard her say she wished she had bought a Toyota instead (the SO really likes Toyotas).
When I was in the car stereo biz, mid 1970s through mid 1980s, I had a boss who called BMW "BM Trouble You". He had choice names for a few other German cars, too. If I recall, it was one of the Audis whose underdash panels were designed in such a way that reinstalling them was sort of like putting sofa cushions back in place. Mushy. We'd have to press on either end of the dashboard frame to get the pieces to drop into place.
Toyotas had (and may still have) the kind of problem you want: I'd pop a panel back in place, and the phone would ring before I could put the screws in. Maybe a customer would walk in, and an hour could go by before getting back to the car. The panel would still be in place, and we'd have to check if we'd forgotten to put in the screws. Everything fit.
The biggest problem with the German cars was the wiring harness plugs. They'd use a pair of plugs which was so hard to assemble or disassemble that you had to use two pairs of pliers to be successful. That's fine, as long as the plugs aren't buried in the middle of other stuff which makes the use of a tool impossible. But of course, they were often buried, which necessitated so much extra nonsense that we hated working on these cars.
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