A friend of mine at work, came to me puzzled.

In short, he got screwed, royal style

He has a humble 99' Jetta with 40k miles on it.

First, he asked me to pick him up cause no loaner is provided after he dropped his car for 40k miles service... cost of regualar 40k miles service izzzz $450 fucking dollars ... I thought he was out of his mind to pay so much for an inspection with even no loaner.

Now hear this, he came to mumbling that I have a problem, I need your help... he said could you talk to this VW service guy... I need to know why I have to pay more.. he said $575 more

The service guy went and said that the engine check light is on, Computer scan indicated tha MAF is faulty, the ambient temprature sensor is erratic,... cost is $375 for the MAF sensor and $40 for the ambient temprature sensor and $160 for extra labor cost.

The guy has to pay more than $1,000 now to fix his Jetta...

I advised him to refuse the repairs, pay the inspection cost and shop around.

No way, I will never buy a VW what so ever...



[ 07-27-2001: Message edited by: Nashua_Night_Hawk ]

 

That sounds bad. However, I had an 89 Golf Wolfsburg that I loved. Ran it for 9 years and 145k miles without any real issues. Pretty simple car. I simply got bored of it and then bought the CLS - although I guess it took me 3 years to decide which car to buy...I'd recommend a VW to most people...

 

When my check engine lite came on in my old bimmer, the dealer wanted 500 dollars to fix it. Just to replace the O2 sensor. HA!

I took it to an independent shop specializing in european cars and they said my O2 sensor was not the problem, fixed some other minor repair (can't remember what it was) and charged me 90 bucks.

I think that check engine light on european cars means "time to pay the dealer some bucks!"

My advice, find a reputable non-dealer shop to fix anything that's not covered under warranty. I was saving at least 50% off dealer prices and getting better, more honest service. My shop even replaced things for free (labor) and showed me the replaced parts each time.

[ 07-27-2001: Message edited by: Dacat ]

 

VWs come with 4/50k warranty now. Just FYI

They dropped free scheduled maintenance to push the warranty out longer.

 

i can't say anything, i work the mercedes service desk, the bills on those cars can run in the thousands for some repairs, you can shop around but your not gonna get that stuff for free, its still gonna be expensive, so what are the alternatives? i mean ya gotta have a car, or i guess it can be traded, i dunno

 

I've got a New Beetle and there is ALWAYS something falling off of it - door handle,wiper blade (which they claim are free under the the "free maintenance" - but only 1 set!), windows falling off track, dash board middle section flys out over bumps. I didn't mention that these cars drink oil like water! It's hard to get an appointment because the service bays are always full of other ones with the same problems. I'll take a nice easy Japanese car over the German "precision" ones any day! My 24K "bumper to bumper" is almost up - I think I need to dump the bug soon - I think it's going to be REALLY expensive in repairs! Oh, and the free oil changes are only at 5K, 10K and 20K - who came up with that - Hitler?

 

the fss on mercedes is 10-14,000 mile intervals (hitler also)