I married a guy with his dream car, a V10 Touareg TDI. From the beginning he wanted to brag on it but I could tell he was already feeling a bit sad about his choice. I could go on and on but his dream has really become a night mare and we've had to spend about $15,000.00 on it in the last 6 months mostly turbo problems (alternator, brakes too) which they really couldn't get right and installed a $1,500 part that kept us from actually getting it fixed for another 6 months until they finally realized that the part they had installed was wrong and was actually keeping us from getting it fixed!! Then they told us that there are actually 2 of those parts and that when you change one you have to change them both because of the software. Again, that was going to cost another $1,500!!! Luckily, we had kept the old one and when they put that one back in it worked again!! Go figure! The real problem had been just a little clip that fell off that my husband had told each one of the dif VW mechanics to check first. Instead, they diagnosed it each time with the computer and didn't check the clip and put us through this nightmare and now they won't even take the part back not to even mention the labor!!! To add insult to injury they burned out the alternator when burning off the oil on the sensors so then they told us that there was a recall on the glow plugs so that if they did the work together we could save on the labor for the alternator. We were already really ticked but we reluctantly said ok. When they got the work done they said 'oh, sorry they recalled the recall so there's no discount for the labor and we didn't give you the new glow plugs'!!!! MAJOR MAJOR GYPO!!!! When we called the consumer help line the recall was still being announced on their message even a week after the fix, not sure if its still on there or not. I think this treatment would really anger even the good humor man!! It's been like one slap in the face after another. That whole fiasco was not even 2 weeks ago and now just today the hangar bearing is banging and we'll have to get a whole drive shaft to fix that??!!!???? Another, $2,000+ maybe??? This is not some crappy old car!! This is a top of the line V10 TDI, the most expensive car VW ever made!!! It should have lasted forever like an old diesel Mercedes. Even the service rep told us to 'junk it, its not worth the cost of repairs'!!! We thought he was just trying to get us to get a new one but now we know he was right!!! Just another slap in the face by VW. I'm no authority but my husband did a lot of research for this car and had a lot of respect and admiration for VW and German engineering. I've had VW's all my life. I even learned to drive on a bug. I had a stationwagon and a rabbit, too. I really thought they were a genuine, stand up company but we've been treated so badly and the consumer help line seemed to want to help in the beginning but all of a sudden turned on us and said basically "Tough luck, we're not going to do a thing for you so stop calling us" Really rude, too!! So I've changed my tune, I'm sad to say. I really get a bad taste in my mouth thinking of VW.

 

Sounds more like mechanic issue's than VW issues.

 

We were at 4 different VW dealers and also working with VW Customer Care. One in Canada, one in Wisconsin and 2 in Florida. All of them were relying too much on their computer diagnosis (made by VW), which it seems to me, only diagnoses for the biggest potential problem and not the small ie. (change the ECM $1,000 instead of checking the clips $.05). 2 times we were given the incorrect parts because of their computer data even when we gave them our VIN#. The service center didn't even know that our car had 2 batteries even after referencing it with the VIN.
Customer Care ordered us an ECM that when installed actually prevented us from getting the turbos functioning. Somehow, Customer Care didn't know that when you changed one ECM out you also had to change the other one so that the software were compatable. When the ECM was installed, the service center also didn't know why the turbos still didn't function even after they had put the clip back on at our request. Finally after running the car for 6 months w/o turbo, another service center said to us that we had to buy the other ECM. Luckliy, I had kept the old one and when it was installed again the turbo finally worked. No one will take responsibility for the incorrect ECM we had to buy. Finally, when we had to get a new alternator the service center said that we could do a recall that they had for our car at the same time and save some on labor. We agreed to the repair because of that and when the car was returned, the service center said the recall was recalled by VW and we couldn't get any off on the labor and our glow plugs still had not been fixed. Funny enough, the recall was still being announced on their (VW Customer Care) help line a week after our repair. So I feel its VW who's not supporting their service centers enough with good computer data and well trained mechanics and in the end the customer has to pay.