VW, Audi Group Reliability - What's your experience??

[Stu]

The ongoing thread here regarding the roof edge corrosion and then some of the other failures and problems kinda got me thinking about how I've been affected lately. Like many of you I've spent some serious money within the group in recent years.

Bought a new Skoda Fabia vRS - Turbo outlet pipe blew off at < 500 miles.

Bought another new Skoda Fabia vRS - No problems.

Bought a new Skoda Octavia vRS - No problems.

Bought another new Skoda Octavia vRS - Both front hubs replaced to cure excessive rumbling. Eventually traced to unsuitable tyres (Dunlop SP Sport Maxx).

Bought a nearly new Audi S3 - No problems.

Bought a new Audi S3 Sportback - Delivered with 4 defective Bridgestone tyres which were replaced under warranty. RNS-E Navigation unit replaced under warranty due to defective volume control knob. Entire open sky roof assembly replaced - twice!! Unable to cure rattling from roof assembly. Car sold back to dealer.

Seat Leon (Co Car) - Turbo failed at 77k miles

Bought a new Audi A4 3.0 quattro - Brake pedal assembly replaced to cure excessive noise on release. 3G MMI Navigation system mapping years out of date (almost a £2k option!!) unable to fix with newer updates, maps remained woefully inadequate. DAB Radio Unit replaced following failed routine software update. Window rubbers on drivers door replaced. Car Rejected.

Bought a new VW California - Steering column replaced (defect remains outstanding), awning replaced due to uneven closing, passenger side door card faulty (defect remains outstanding), Control Panel replaced following failure. Pending for this week is gear change cables to be replaced due to notchy gear change, Berghaus badges to be replaced due to chrome effect bubbling, tailgate door handle paint coming off, seat cover to be replaced due to stress tear. Then I find I have the dreaded paint bubbling.

....... and then to cap it all I find what I believe to be a serious manufacturing defect on my new (2 months old) Audi A1.

I recently noticed a couple of dents on the roof towards the rear and thought oh bugger someone has bounced a ball off my roof, although it looked a little odd as it was two dents side by side. Pretty pi$$ed off I thought I'd get a dent man on to it when I have the time. Happened to be browsing another forum and found a thread which goes along the lines of "dents in my roof .... ". Hmm, interesting I thought. Well would you believe it, with the recent warmer weather a string of owners are reporting these same dents in their A1 roofs. This prompts me to think a little more about mine and as sure as VAG cars are unreliable I noticed that my roof is perfect when cold and like the surface of the moon when hot from sunlight. This prompted me to visit the local dealer on Sunday afternoon and of the 5 cars they had on site 3 of them had the same dents as mine. It appears that these dents appear in the vicinity of the rear interior light so I now wonder if there is a metallic bracket or support of some type near the light which is of a different grade of steel and unable to expand and contract at the same rate as the roof material.

So now I find myself going through the whole process of rejecting a car again. What makes it worse is this car was partially subsidised by Audi CS following the A4 Navigation debacle.

So what's are all of your stories?? Will you remain loyal to the brand??

I for one am beginning to wonder if Audi and I have a future.

 

[BerndRos]

It's modern life......

When I got my Cali from new the dealer got an agency to conduct a follow up satisfaction telephone survey.... The Q's were couched in such a way as to lead to a positive outcome for them with NO notice taken of any negatives.......

They want to sell you a vehicle that will either lead to continued profit from high repair bills OR sell you a new vehicle. This is what all these finance and balloon payments are about.....to lock you in.

In the meantime the way their customer surveys are carried out......they get a positive result.

In my view the business world is far more dishonest than its ever been.....masked by false customer service.......

 

[gatvol]

Cali in 18 months - electric window fault, new stereo, bubbling paint on roof, drivers door misalignment scratching sill, new instrument binnacle, new water gauge, rattles under dash and with trim around driver' seatbelt

Audi s5, In first three years warranty - intelligent key reprogramming, sunroof reprogramming, new air con unit fan, new seatbelt assembly due to rattling, new solenoid on fuel cap, new clutch release bearing. Out of warranty. Xenon bulb, radiator cooling fan, water pump, intelligent key sensors, starter motor relays, plus pads and discs at a respectable 60k miles. These cost around 3k in the space of a year and led me to sell it. 6 hours labour for a water pump is a very, very bad joke

A mate has a 57 r8 which needed 2 new rear wheels below 30k miles as they were cracked. Audi even surprised my low expectations with this one.

My mark 1, 2 and 3 golfs and jettas and Audi 80s were all much more reliable and built the brand loyalty that my s5 and Cali have destroyed. None gave any trouble at all until 80k miles or so

The independent repairer I ended up at told me that vw Audi stopped producing reliable cars in the late 90s. He also gave me some horror stories about guys who paid 5k or so for 5 year old cars who could not afford the epic costs of jobs like the auto hill hold handbrake etc so had to sell

The Cali will probably be the last vw Audi I buy for many years. The Japanese cars are much more reliable these days. See below, even cars that were traditionally rubbish for reliability like the French ones are more reliable than vw Audi these days

http://www.reliabilityindex.com/

I believe that the German premium manufacturers follow a policy of making superbly designed cars that have forecourt appeal. They are stuffed with gadgets and do look great. But German costs are high so the quality of the components is compromised to keep purchase costs in line with the competition. Once the car is sold they make the profit on the extensive maintenance the cars require. I don't think that vw Audi is any worse than BMW, Porsche, Mercedes - they have all gone downhill.

My 1994 merc sl cost about 70k when new and was superbly engineered. They cost about the same today. Cheapo components are how the costs have been kept down despite the passing of 20 years. The sl that replaced it in 2002 was one of the least reliable cars made.

 

[Hubert]

Had an Audi A3 in silver which suffered from shadowing in the paintwork so that the paintwork appeared blotchy in certain light conditions, a common fault on silver cars, I have noticed a lot since seeing it on this car. I am convinced the dealer was fully aware of the problem when supplying the car. After attempts by the dealer to polish out the fault :crazy I finally managed, through Audi C S, to get a new A3. After 3 faultless years, when it came time to buy another new car, the dealer by his part exchange offer made it clear he didn't want my custom.
I switched to VW Golfs then and had two which were faultless before buying my first Cali.

Hubert

 

[KernowLad]

Had loads of Golfs up to mk4 which were super reliable but the Cali has had more issues than expected. I think quality has dipped.

 

[calikev]

2010 Cali. Replaced egr valve replaced tailgate struts,replaced blind over sink,new electric mirror switch, new oil sender and wiring loom to dash. So far

 

[James]

I think if you are comparing cars of the past to now, you can't actually compare like for like. You could argue that cars were bad in the 1970's (and a lot were).

I think the issue here is around the complexity of modern cars and the fragility. I think sometimes people take it for read that, because it is a modern car it doesn't need to be looked after perhaps you could argue because of the complexity it needs more.

That doesn't justify unreliable vehicles or bad dealer service but if I take the California I do wonder about some of the issues reported and if it isn't a mix of VW building them and how the owner treats them.

We are the people who buy cars and we demand an every increasing amount of toys and the more you put on, the more that can go wrong and a lot of those components have nothing to do with VW, so how do they ensure the quality of those?

I think a QI style noise should have been introduced to this thread for every time some says, 'cars were better made years ago', whilst I accept certain car makes like Mercedes went from almost 'over engineering' to a state where profit and the accountants matter, I don't buy the idea that inherently VAG build quality is actually any worse. I think the issues more complex then that.

James

 

[beardie]

vw passat estate S reg, 92 K miles, no breakdowns, 1 air mass flow sensor replaced out of warranty

vw polo tdi 58 reg, traded in for a cali at 30K miles, no problems

vw golf mk6 59 reg, currently 60K miles. Minor trim issues only, still own it

Cali mk 5.1 11 reg 180, blind problem, fresh and waste water sensor problem, waste water tank leak, heated seat problem, front roof panel corrosion, kinks in roof, battery charger problem - went back to dealer (permanently in exchange for Cali No 2) when they couldn’t solve the above despite having it for 4 weeks.

Cali mk 5.1 60 reg 180 fresh and waste water sensor problem, front roof panel corrosion otherwise minor trim problems so still have it !

No Audis, Seat’s, Skoda’s or Bentleys!

Prior to VW's owned a couple of Peugeot’s, Vauxhalls a Ford and a Citroen that resulted in moving to VWs

 

[muttley]

Like most Cali owners it seems, I have owned plenty of VW group cars - including 3 currently.

<touch wood> the newer cars don't seem to be any more unreliable than the older ones.

I have owned 4 assorted Mk3 and Mk4 GTis - no faults on any of them.

Audi A6 for 3 years - only fault was a seized rear brake caliper (I hate those electronic parking brakes)

My wife has a new golf - not one problem in a year of ownership.

I now have a V6 4motion Mk IV as a daily runabout, and had to replace the rear springs & shocks which I would consider more to be routine maintenance on such an old car.

No faults on the Cali either <touch wood again>.

The most unreliable car I had by a mile was a Mercedes C Class which cost an absolute fortune to maintain over a 6 month period before I gave up on it. Hardly a week went by without a new, expensive fault showing up.

Simon

 

[Stu]

Wow there is some serious brand loyalty appearing here.

I think there must be a serious chance of that dwindling as things continue.

 

[HistoryBob]

I've had eleven VW cars over 40 years. In that time I've never looked at another brand. But here's the rub. Calis are made by a completely different arm from the cars. The whole ethos of the Commercial vehicle side is a shadow of their car making cousins. This was demonstrated to me when I contacted VWCS. Firstly they say sorry we need to pass you over to the Commercial vehicle section and then when I raised an issue with the Commercial Vehicle Customer Services their man had the cheek to say " we'll it is only a van". Well it's only a van costing £55,000.
Following my contact with VWCS Com. Vehicles I was contacted by an agency carrying out a survey on VWs behalf. The questions were loaded towards me being a satisfied customer, which I was not. It took great effort to change the tack of the questions and to convince the interviewer to add an explanation as to my disgust.
If you look at the video of the cooker unit being installed one can tell that the conversion is being carried out by a second rate outfit. Probably under a railway arch in the back streets of Berlin.
Have Fun
Bob

 

[KernowLad]

Our BMW has been faultless in five years ownership yet has a very complex engine. I'd say they are now the reliable German marque.

Maybe the Internet amplifies things but VAG group cars definitely seem to be slipping; a mates 2011 S4 has had all sorts of trouble for example.

 

[Freeley]

Our BMW has been faultless in five years ownership yet has a very complex engine. I'd say they are now the reliable German marque.

Maybe the Internet amplifies things but VAG group cars definitely seem to be slipping; a mates 2011 S4 has had all sorts of trouble for example.

Our BMW is only 2 years old but has had nothing wrong with it at all so far so you could be right.
We had an a4 2.0tdi prior to that for about 4 years which had a few niggly faults but nothing too annoying.
Our cali has had a number of things which were seen to under warranty which I won't bore you with now but has been fine in the year since.

I'm on my second transporter now which is 18 months old and has had the exhaust temp sensor replaced and continues to have a pretty poor notchy gearchange despite having the cables adjusted at is first service recently.
My last transporter had the odd minor problem until it was about 6 years old when first the driveshaft went closely followed by the intercooler, resulting in me losing confidence in it and getting rid.

Despite this I think they're probably no worse than anything else reliability wise so would continue to buy them as I love everything else about them. Even Toyota have had their problems of late.

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[Barryjm]

Hmmm... I also have doubts about VW group reliability.

2001 Audi a4' water pump failed in year 4 damaging head gasket leading to £850 bill from a VW specialist, since found out that this was not an unusual failure! However policy was not to replace it as part of cambelt change, which would have avoided this problem! Same year the aircon broke another £200 bill, however Audi diagnostic claimed it was the aircon compressor and wanted another £800 to change. Specialist aircon company found problem elsewhere.

VW touran... I do not know where to start! Water leaks, faulty rear heater exchanger, gearbox problems needing replacement gears, numerous window failures, door locks, boot lock, whistling noise through door seals, and more. I think we actually beta tested the first Touran for them!!! Most of these problems were across the range and most were found during warranty.

Had my BMW 1 series for almost 5 years from new, done 70k miles and it has been pretty much perfect. Audi, VW, SKoda, Seat are not high on my buying list anymore especially when my Beemer has been so good.

But I do love my Cali, and this has been pretty good to date, though we only use for holidays.

Touch wood!








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[Calincolnshire]

Hi think I side with James and like many on here have had a host of VAG products with little issue. It's funny that Skoda come top in many of the motoring press satisfaction surveys, when it is a VW with a different badge with parts manufactured by the same people in the same factories just assembled in another country. We do expect higher levels of reliability, however I suspect that people will always tell you how bad things are on forums but there will be a greater percentage who have no issues who stay silent.
Don't get me wrong new cars should not be faulty but comparing one brand with another based on personal ownership is a lottery at best. My Audi a1 has been faultless ( touch wood) , my Mini before that also had no issues , a passat I had also had no problems and all these vehicles passing the 80k miles mark ( I covered 100k in 2 years in the passat), my BMW blew a plug out of the head . Would I buy a BMW again based on this , yes I would. Am I happy with the Cali reliability well the window switch on the drivers side is poor fitting and the interior lights blew fuses till I fixed it and the heater has blown constant hot air on a trip till I turned the ignition on and off, but overall I am happy as the vehicle lets me do what I bought it for .
So as James says SOME issue are owner induced and depend on how we treat our vehicles ,how we drive them and the type of journeys we do , some are caused by 3 rd party suppliers that VW should be on top of , some are design issues and some are due to sloppy assembly.
So I'm not defending VAG but saying they are no worse than anyone else.
I suggest we enjoy our vehicles don't worry about issues till/if they happen and look after it . If after all that we are unhappy we can always buy a Mazda Bongo .

 

[James]

I think it's dangerous to go on any forum and state that because of some experiences all California's will suffer from this problem and therefore should be recalled. Clearly there are common issues but I think it's a bit irresponsible to sight your experiences as speaking for all.

As an aside google 'BMW bad reliability' - what happens - lo and behold another forum where people complain about BMW's and how their reliability is appalling.

Personally I would say modern cars are more reliable than they have been, business and money demands that, particularly for VAG however the ever increasing complexity of modern vehicles which is part comes from consumer demands does mean they can be problematic. It's also worth noting that you can test a vehicle to death but many issues only come up when they are on the forecourt and on people's drives.

I don't see anyone rushing to buy cars with no sat nav, no electric windows, no electronic aids etc etc.

As an aside here at COTF there are many owners who are happy with their vehicles. I am not defending or turning a blind eye to VAG but the simple answer is not to buy their vehicles if you feel they are not up to scratch.

James

 

[Calincolnshire]

Every forum I've been on has these threads and all have issues. Mini steering racks, Ford dual mass flywheels etc. etc. the list is endless. What it is good for however is the second hand buyer to be aware of potential issues.
It's worth remembering that any forum membership are a minority of the owner numbers . We are a group of like minded ( Cali minded) individuals who want to share our experiences and if we have issues we want to know who else has had this problem , what are the solutions . If all is well why would we write about it.
If VAG vehicles are bad then why do we keep buying them and why have we not had Anne Robinson telling us they are rubbish . Just image the headline " if only everything was as reliable as a volkswagen - NOT " . They were quick to tell us about Toyotas recall issues ( so much for Japanese quality) . So the news is full of murders , disasters and problems and not full of how well people get along and the Forum concept does not escape this problem. Information is good but has to be taken in context.

 

[James]

Every forum I've been on has these threads and all have issues. Mini steering racks, Ford dual mass flywheels etc. etc. the list is endless. What it is good for however is the second hand buyer to be aware of potential issues.
It's worth remembering that any forum membership are a minority of the owner numbers . We are a group of like minded ( Cali minded) individuals who want to share our experiences and if we have issues we want to know who else has had this problem , what are the solutions . If all is well why would we write about it.
If VAG vehicles are bad then why do we keep buying them and why have we not had Anne Robinson telling us they are rubbish . Just image the headline " if only everything was as reliable as a volkswagen - NOT " . They were quick to tell us about Toyotas recall issues ( so much for Japanese quality) . So the news is full of murders , disasters and problems and not full of how well people get along and the Forum concept does not escape this problem. Information is good but has to be taken in context.

Absolutely agree