Another dealer rip off

Fans fail. Did she get the old fan back? At least where I live, they would have to offer it. That would have told the tale. If she failed, then I guess you can't really blame the dealer.

Now about the $400 labor. That does sound high, did it include finding the problem by chance?

Dealerships are soaking the public on service and parts due to poor vehicle sales. This is happening to other OEMs too. There isn't much you can do about it except that they should have called you first to get approval to work and then you can say no. You should start educating your wife about these things or you will stay in the poor house when it comes to servicing a vehicle. There comes a time when you have to put your foot down and let the other half know who is really boss. Now if she really needed the vehicle for work reasons, then she should have paid for it out of her own pocket and then you wouldn't have had to write this post. I bet your wife doesn't work and so there lies the problem with her poor judgement and poor priorities.

OH BTW, parts fail all the time. There is no logical reason for this and therefore you can't blame it on that peticular part.

People that don't know how to wrench themselves are slaves to others that do the wrenching for them. They should continue their way of living by trading the car in and getting themselves a new one when the old warranty runs out. That is what the dealership wants them to do.

Us practical people are amused and even entertained be those who are impractical. Keep the posts coming. :-)

The fans usually get noisy but I haven't seen one go dead yet. At least in my part of the Northeast USA. But I guess if one lives in a hotter climate it could go bad. The price is only $20 more than the last one I replaced on a customers car. The labor is just about twice what our dealer would charge unless your dealer charges over $100 per hour. Figure the time should only be 2.5 hours tops. When in doubt, "ASK FOR YOUR OLD PARTS BACK!"

Mine started making noise at 52k miles on my 99 GLX Passat and my daughters make it to 75K miles on her 99 1.8t Passat.

Well she paid from her own pocket, but WTH, it is our money anyways. I'm just pissed because it was a very hard earned money to be wasted like that. I could have, at least, tested the fan and replaced the thermoswitch should that was the case. Anyways, I still drive my 1990 Corrado, working on it every other month :-), but still running strong, never had to do anything on it on the first 10 years, and so far, just minor problems. I think VW has built a bad reputation in the past years, their cars used to be great, I also owned an 97 cabrio and never had any problem. Now I read so many stories about dealers rip offs and it is trully a shame. Bottom line, VW's are to be driven by people with some knowledge about basic mechanics :-)...well I guess that applies to all cars.

thanks guys.

If they did not charge you for a new switch, you can bet, they did not replace it. If they did not replace it and the fan is working now, then it would sure appear it was the fan and not the switch to start with.

That is a good point, Im going to check if the old switch is still there. I just thing it is outrageous to pay what we paid for such simple repair.