Shoofin

I took my car in to service last week but this time to the dealer I got my car from. I figured I was close to 5k, so may as well let them change the oil, and address the few issues I have with my car. First issue was the unusual urge for my car to drink the engine coolant like it's a cocktail. The second issue is the bad vibration from the doors when listening to music with bass. There's a really annoying distortion coming from the door speakers that, when pushing in on a certain part of the door, goes away. The last issue was a satellite radio swap I did with someone. I had Sirius and traded for XM, and so far, 4 months later, still can't get the XM receiver to connect. I only have the same 4 preview channels (that is, when it's in the mood to give me those channels, otherwise is just says "antenna" or "loading").

He gave me a brand spanking new 2008 Passat 2.0T Komfort with 55 miles on it as a loaner car to use in the meantime.

I spoke to the dealer on Friday. They did 2 vacuum tests for the coolant, and found no leaks (no surprise there, I had it done once before at a different dealer and they had the same result). I told him to give me a bottle of coolant so I can just top it off every time it happens, because I expect it to continue to happen). We'll see what he does when I pick it up over the weekend.
The bass distortion, he says the bulletin doesn't include the VIN on my car, but there was a software update for my radio, in which the bass goes all the way up on my radio, causing heavy bass and distortion. I thought it was just the songs I downloaded/listened to had the bass going all the way up, I didn't know it was the radio doing it all along, so I paid no attention to it. He said it's fixed now..
Lastly, the satellite radio issue, he's going to see what he can do to resolve the problem (either swap out for an XM unit, or go back to Sirius, which at this point I don't care what he does, as long as I can listen to SOMETHING other than the preview channel).

Soooo, he said if he gets a new sat radio module, he should have it by Tuesday, so that's when I should be picking up my GTI.

I'm driving home on Friday from work, a few minutes away from my home, all of a sudden, the car bucks forward, scaring the crap out of me. I looked in my rear view mirror to see if I ran over something, and there was nothing. I get to a red light to notice all the lights on the dash are on, and the engine is off. I start the car up, it sputters and dies. I continue to do this a few more times, but by giving the car some gas to keep it running, when I let go of the gas, the car sputters and dies again. I did it once again, but in neutral and put it in drive and gave it gas immediately ( I wanted to get off the major road and onto a service road, away from traffic), the car jumped forward, hesitated, jumped forward again, then hesitated again, doing this a few times until all of a sudden, it's running normal again, but the engine sounds a bit noisier than usual, and there is no power whatsoever, it feels like the turbo is shot, or the car is running on half it's cylinders. I can count the mph out loud faster than the car is accelerating to get to those numbers.

This car now has about 250 miles on it. Yes, two hundred fifty miles on this 2008 Passat. I call my service advisor and tell him what happened, he told me if it dies on me again to call roadside and try to get them to tow it to their dealer, but he's not sure if they will tow it that far (they are about 30 miles away from my home). At this point I made it home in one piece, and told him that I'll try to drive it on Monday to the dealer carefully so they can give me another loaner car. I haven't driven it since yesterday, but it seems like it's driving normally with the exception of the engine sounding like a weak 4 cylinder, and feels like it has the thrust of a 50 horsepower 2 cylinder. No lights on the display at all. Oh well. Ok, carry on..

keg1997

LOL....that is VW in a nutshell...at least in my opinion. You have to take your car in for some random crap and their brand new 30K loaner is a lemon...

Costco

What a shame.... great cars but their reliability these days is

I would hate to bring home a brand new R32 and have it spontaneously combust while parked. I seriously wanted a Mk. IV GTI while I was looking at cars, but the horror stories of the Mk. Vs setting fire and having one electrical problem after another (the one area I don't know how to troubleshoot/fix) was just too much, so I passed on them.

Going to take a long time for them set things straight and give me peace of mind in their products.

stangg172004

my Touarag and Rabbit are just fine. Its been 4 years with the truck and 1 1/2 with the rabbit. Only problems have been pads that wear out too fast (the trucks like 5k lbs). My aunt has an 05 passat and an 06 jetta both bought new. The Passats been in for service a half dozen times and is currently sitting in their driveway with a dead alternator. The Jettas so far is just fine. My neighbor (gocubsgo55 here on the forums) has had his GTI since summer and as far as i know its been perfect....

stangg172004

^i guess the point of that post was that VWs, like most german cars, are hit or miss on reliability. Except for passats, they will always always die on you!

phil2

Wow. I had no idea they were that quirky.

is300eater

I think I've told this at least a couple time already... but oh well... The year the Touarag came out, I really didn't know a whole lot about it, didn't even know how the name was pronounce... one of my clients asked me for my opinion on SUVs cuz she was in the market for one. I briefly mentioned a new SUV by VW... and told her she should go check it out... I think I remember saying something about it being a cheaper version of the Porsche Cayenne... She ended buying one... a V8, THAT DAY! I swear, to this day, that car is in the shop/dealership every other month for something... I feel kinda bad...

nokiaman

^It's Touareg guys not Touarag.

is300eater

I copied and paste from stangg172004's post... I thought it looked wrong, but figured since he owns one...

Osamu

my dad has a 2003 passat wagon. I think he bought the wagon specifically because it was made in Germany. (or am I thinking of the jetta wagon, he was looking at that too)

No major problems, that I know of. I think he had a few minor issues like the rain gutters on the roof keep popping off. It has 75k now, and he's thinking of trading it in pretty soon and says it feels kinda worn out already though. But I think it may be that he just wants a new car.

AZuser

Wow. I was under the impression that VW's were getting better in the reliability department. But from reading the above, guess not.