don't buy a VW

[cellio]

A nine-month-old car with fewer than 3000 miles should not fail inspection.

A dealership should not have a two-week delay before they can even look at the problem, either. Or if they have that kind of delay, then VW should just pay for someone else to fix it. Nope; doesn't work that way.

The problem with VW goes beyond poor workmanship and annoying dealers. The folks at their national office may claim to care, but they don't. They never responded to my letter of complaint about the dealer that allowed my car to be spray-painted in their care, tried to claim it came in that way, and then refused to warrant the paint job against long-term damage from their ineptitude. (Psst. That would be Rohrich VW on West Liberty Avenue in Pittsburgh. Do not deal with them unless your quality standards are very, very low.)

I've got three months to go under Pennsylvania's lemon law. Go on, VW, make my day. (Sadly, they probably won't -- there have to be multiple failures in the same system; September's fuel pump and December's wiring problem don't both count.)

I wonder what I could get for trade-in on a nine-month-old car. How much value does it lose when I drive it off the lot? (Obviously I'd be SOL for sales tax, which is not insignificant.)

Comments

[kmelion.livejournal.com]

Why do I hear my grandmother's voice saying "That's what you get for buying German?"

I would do research into this car and find out if other people have had problems.

[ichur72.livejournal.com]

How annoying! This sounds terribly frustrating. I am surprised VW has not responded to your letter of complaint. Maybe you need to start calling them every day and pestering them till you can get some sort of action?

[kyleri]

Bwah. That's _shameful_.

Good luck getting something useful out of them...

[ironangel]

OK, so I had to go reasearch the lemon law because I was curious.

http://www.lemonlaw.com/pastatute.html provides a lot of good information, including some variations on the definition of a lemon.

we had such a good experience with the dealership last week (biondi parkway ford), sorry you seem to have gotten such a craptastic one!

[indigodove.livejournal.com]

Yikes! Sorry to hear that.

You might try talking to a consumer advocate of some sort anyway, just to see if there's any recourse out there for you.

[steven.livejournal.com]

Between your car problems and mine, public transport or a rickshaw is starting to seem like not such a bad thing.

Some close friends of mine bought a convertible Beetle last spring, then found out they are having a baby. They decided they would get rid of the car before the baby arrives next month. Well, in November, they got a letter from their dealership that said they are trying to increase their stock of used cars and that they would offer an attractive price for the trade-in. In the end, a car that already has 12,000 miles put on it was bought back for the full price minus $1,000, and they got an awesome deal on a Passat. I wish your experience with VW could be as good as theirs.

I think you might have done this already, but have you thought of contacting someone very high up at VW? Last time I did that with Toyota, they were practically kissing my ass afterward. (The effect has since worn off, as you can see from my trunk-latch debacle.)

[whc.livejournal.com]

The German VWs are actually pretty good. Its the US, Mexican, and Brazillian built ones (along with the entire US dealer network) that gives them a bad name!

I'm sorry to hear about this

[sethcohen.livejournal.com]

I have had plenty of good stuff from my VW, but it does sound like your concerns have been given short shrift. You wanted to know how much it's worth? The Kelly Blue Book can tell you.

[ian-gunn.livejournal.com]

I would put in a call to the sales manager, not the service scheduler, and point out your situation and note that it will shortly be illegal for you to drive your car. Even a bad dealership should get a clue from this and do something for you, either bump you up in line for service or offer you a loaner till they can fix the problem.

If that does not work I would show up in their show room and start announcing my problem to the receptionist there and to anyone else in the area till the dealership got a clue. There is a time and place for obnoxious consumer behavior and this would be one of them. heh.

For warranty service you can get it done at other repair shops but the paperwork is more of a hassle. Other VW dealerships should be able to do this for you as well.

For your car's current value you can check out Kelly Blue Book (http://www.kbb.com//) or Edmunds (http://www.edmunds.com/) online to get you in the right ballpark. What you can actually sell it for may vary but it is a good place to start.

[cellio]

Pre-purchase research was mixed; Consumer Reports didn't like the VW Golf for reliability, but Edmunds did. Anecdotal evidence from people I know suggested that it would be ok; I guess my friends are luckier than I am. (The other car I was considering, after failing to even be able to test-drive a Prius within my time frame, was the Ford Focus, which has historically had many problems but, ironically, appears to be ok now.)

[cellio]

Thanks. I hadn't considered the potential differences in production lines.

[cellio]

Thanks. I found a different summary of the law, but this one is better. In particular, I didn't know about the part where if the car is in the shop for 30 days in the first year, you can claim even if the problems are different. This also implies that if the fuel pump goes again I can claim even though that'll only be two incidents, because it's a major system.

Mind, with my luck on day 364 the car will suffer a complete failure of the braking system instead. :-)

[cellio]

Public transit in Pittsburgh is not what it once was, alas. (I could get to work on two buses by roughly doubling my commuting time, but buses aren't going to help me with a lot of the places I need to go bearing loads, like home from the grocery store.)

Wow, your friends really lucked out with the Beetle!

I did send a letter to VW in October, but it didn't produce any visible results. Time to pester them some more. I'm still looking for someone connected with VW to warrant the damned paint job after their inept dealer potentially damaged it.

Re: I'm sorry to hear about this

[cellio]

Thanks. Kelly seems to think it lost about $3000 when I drove it off the lot, which is not a cost I'm willing to pay.

[aliza250.livejournal.com]

Can you call around to other local dealerships and find one that can help you faster? Nothing says that you have to use a specific dealer for warranty service.

Re: I'm sorry to hear about this

[sethcohen.livejournal.com]

I don't know if it helps, but sometime this year I owed less than the car was worth. Of course, I've owned mine for four years and 8 months...

[cellio]

I just got back from paying a visit to the dealership. Phone calls have not been effective, so I figured showing up in person was the next step.

I spoke with the sales manager (for my notes: Jan), who was sympathetic but told me they've already got more cars in than they can get through today (they're closed tomorrow), some of which have been there for several days. I pointed out that they have a flaw in their scheduling algorithm in that case, but that's out of his hands. He said there was abolutely no way they could help me today, nor could they share an English-language wiring diagram with my mechanic. He said he would try to get me an appointment early next week, but that's the best he could do.

While I was there, I asked if he could help me resolve my paint problem, after pointing out that this is not the first warranty claim and that I'm really pretty sour on VW and his service department right now. He seemed shocked by my description of what happened and said he would look into it. I said that if, as their service people claimed, there was no permanent damage to my car, then they should be willing to write me a warranty to that effect; if, however, they don't believe that, then there's a problem. (Well, more than one problem, but I didn't enumerate them.) Of course, he may blow me off too, but at least that's one more "responsible" person at VW who is aware of the problem.

Alas, there were no customers in the showroom while I was there.

[cellio]

Did that yesterday, alas. No one could see me today. A dealership 50 miles away offered to see me Wednesday; that's the best I was able to do.

Now what does that say about VW? :-) Almost no one goes to dealers for non-warranty service so far as I can tell...