VW California T5 ONLY Roof Corrosion - General Discussion

[Isa Neal]

OMG and I thought T2s were the rust buckets

 

[src67]

After receiving the email about the main roof corrosion I have checked my roof and found a small blister near the back on the top near one of the grooves, i also pulled about six inches of the rubber seal back around the right hand corner of the roof at the back and found a few more blisters, I assume it is like this all the way around underneath the seal.

I had my front panel repaired about 18 months ago now by Imperial Commercials Nottingham before the new agreed repair system was put in place. I was cleaning the van before a trip a couple of weeks ago and have found two new blisters on the front panel, I'm not sure what to do as I've read in an earlier post that if it's been repaired once they will not do another repair, can anyone confirm this please?

I'm gutted as I'm sure all of you who have this issue are, I hope as club we can put pressure on VW to fix these issues, the fact that I've had mine done once already which was a pretty poor experience is bad enough, knowing the main roof is the same and now the front panel is failing is so disappointing, I love my Cali but I really don't want to have to deal with this!

Sorry to be negative but it's hard not too.

I've attached some photos of the blisters on the main roof and the front panel.

src67

 

[malc]

Just checked as a result of survey. I have corrosion all under the rubber seal on the main roof.how do I send a photo? Malc

 

[Martin]

Email it to us please Malc if you want us to put it on the forum for you.

 

[Andy]

src67 As long as you have blistering visible now vw will consider waranty repair

Sent from my GT-I9305 using Tapatalk

 

[malc]

I taken photo of corrosion on the underside of the roof extending about 6inches upwards....this mental ..the van is only 13 months old

 

[stationmaster]

Hello all

Just to say a big thanks to everybody who has stood up for our rights in negotiations with VW over the roof issues - just checked my 2013 registered California and there is bubbling under the rubber.

May i ask if anyone has had the promised solution carried out on their California yet? Was it carried out to a good standard?

Thanks again

Simon

 

[jmg21]

Van back after 5 weeks. New front panel and new roof. Advice to anyone is to ring customer services and ask what solution they are planning for your elevating roof repair.

At first I was told that the corrosion would be repaired. When I reminded them that once corrosion has started it hard to repair and stop and that I didn't pay £40k + on a van for it to spends weeks in a body shop they changed their tune.

Stand your ground. They even denied any knowledge that there was a problem with the roof panel. Excellent repair centre poor customer support from VW.

 

[stationmaster]

Thanks for that.
Would you mind telling me where the repair was done, and who you spoke to at the dealer, and at VWCS, that ultimately agreed to replace the roof and front panel?

Thanks again

Simon

 

[jmg21]

Work completed by Benfield in Newcastle. Kept me up to date with progress and we're very supportive of my point of view especially as they are paintwork specialists. I think the person I spoke to was Kevin. It was numerous people at Customer services. One item that held the process up was that when the roof replacement was approved the roof panel did not arrive colour coded so it had to be prepared and painted. As the panel arrives complete with headlining this proved time consuming. I and also the body shop were surprised by this.

 

[stationmaster]

Thanks.
Very strange - to assemble the roof without painting it first. Not at all ideal!
Did the dealership that carried out the work offer any explanation of why they thought the problem occurred? And did they feel the repair/replacement would be a permanent solution?
Simon

 

[jmg21]

As specialists I asked if in there opinion would the corrosion come back. They suggested that the only way to stop corrosion is to remove it. In this case it be better to have the roof replaced. This is the angle I took with customer services. An expensive replacement but no fault of the owners.

 

[jmg21]

Sorry in advance for grammar and spelling. Predictive text.....

 

[stationmaster]

Thanks. I will make the same case with VWCS and expect the same outcome.
Have a great weekend...i was a little worried about your spelling, but as you seemed so helpful i decided that i it was best to let the odd spelling mistake go without comment!
Simon

 

[calikev]

Thanks to all of you that have completed the survey so far.It is very important if you have found corrosion and not reported it that you do,the more people that report it the more VW will see this is not an isolated issue.
Thank you

 

[peter]

At Tromso with Cali (and wife ) so can't really inspect roof until I return to the UK.
Keep up the good work.

 

[Isa Neal]

Hiya Peter am also in the same area as you heading for Loforten Islands Norway tomorrow in my Cali have to say despite a re blistering vehicle after previous repair am thoroughly enjoying being in Scandinavia. Pity about the weather, I was also in Tromso yesterday and inspecting roofs in this rain and cold isn't going to take place until I get home mid July.(for those of uk people it's down to 4.5 deg C where Imam at the moment.)
DSG 180 Feb March 2012 had previous repair done to front panel blistering via VW and has recurred in the same spot. Roof was a new one due to bellows issues and buckling so is newer than the vehicle-not inspected yet but my understanding is that it arrived in the Uk untainted andSMG got the same workshop to do the paint spray job, as it's newer and painted in UK it may be fine-will know mid July.

 

[Dibz]

The survey seems to be closed, sorry I missed it...

I've found bubbling on the front roof panel, 61 plate

Not reported to vw as yet

 

[777111]

Van back after 5 weeks. New front panel and new roof. Advice to anyone is to ring customer services and ask what solution they are planning for your elevating roof repair.

At first I was told that the corrosion would be repaired. When I reminded them that once corrosion has started it hard to repair and stop and that I didn't pay £40k + on a van for it to spends weeks in a body shop they changed their tune.

Stand your ground. They even denied any knowledge that there was a problem with the roof panel. Excellent repair centre poor customer support from VW.

Good move
This, for me, when the rot starts to appear (and it will) is the only solution I will accept.
I will take VW to court over it as necessary.
There is enough evidence here to easily support such a claim and a repair is only going to have a limited life time.
We still need a declared cause from VW which they are clearly very unwilling to document . I still believe the entire roof fabrication is flawed. A repair on one section of the main roof will perhaps work for a while but corrosion will appear somewhere else necessitating another repair? I think not.

 

[Martin]

The survey seems to be closed, sorry I missed it...

I've found bubbling on the front roof panel, 61 plate

Not reported to vw as yet

Sorry, just a slight glitch - they survey is now all back up and working again

Click Here For The Roof Corrosion Survey

 

[jts46]

Found this corrosion this morning on roof front panel on my 56 plate Cali passenger side am i still covered for the repair as i had a repair done to the front panel on the drivers side whilst under warranty?

 

[Calicanoe]

Hello there,
After finding corrosion on the front roof panel and reading the recent posts about the main roof panel.It was with no surprise that when I removed the rubber on the main roof there was corrosion along the edge of it. Whoopee!

 

[blakeley]

I was not going to check as ours is a late 2013 but on checking this morning while cleaning the Cali I have corrosion under the rubber seal. It may be small but it is there and starting to blister. Will they be replacing the whole roof?

 

[Martin]

Thank you to everyone who is completing this survey, we are approaching nearly 200 responses.

One thing we have noticed so far is we have around 26 vans registered 2013/2014 with the main roof corrosion so if you Cali is less than a year old please make sure you check the entire roof especially under that rubber seal.

Dont forget the survey can be completed here: https://survey.zohopublic.com/zs/IQBW4S

 

[Martybabes]

Thanks to you for identifying the corrosion issue!
I noticed this bubbling in paintwork on the roof of my 2008 VW California.
I'll chase up VW customer services as suggested.
Thanks again!
Marty