Aircooled VW South Africa

after owning my T5 transporter for 4 years now from new...i had a problem that i thought VW should sort out without question
but they just don't seem to give a shit once they have your money.
my bus started losing a bit of water from the radiator bottle...sporadically...and with intervals.
at the last service i asked the mechanic to please check why this problem occurs...there were no leaks..so the only explanation
was that it could be the bottle lid. i bought a new one and the problem seemed to stop.

till last week....on our month end trip to East London my bus used some water on the way there...then again the next day..
and on the way back i had to stop and top it up 4 times, using at least 3 liters.
now the only good thing about this is that the bottle has a float type warning system that warns you when the water level drops in the bottle which in turn saves the motor from overheating due to lack of water......
so when i got home i decided to google this problem.....
i found at least 30 mentions of the same thing...and they all said the same...go check your oil filler cap....i did it looked like
ice cream !!
now this is the same motor as the Toureg has the R5 128kw 5cyl tdi motor...and it seems that the clever German engineers made kak droog when they designed the engine.
the water pump is driven from inside the engine with the impeller and housing on the outside..so when the seal goes it pumps the water into the sump with the oil !
because i had my car serviced with an "external" establishment which i thought gave me a much better personalized service after the warranty was up..i am on my own and must pay R6500 to have the engine flushed, new water pump fitted and oil changed.
they wont pay squat towards any of it...luckily the dealership doing the job gave me a fair discount on parts and labour as they know me quite well and i did purchase the bus from them.
i was told there was no goodwill for the claim....so pay up buddy !
makes my confidence a little shaky in a product that i have loved and supported for almost 30 years now....
i love my bus and have test driven the facelift..which did nothing to impress me...the fact of the matter is that if there is a problem with your product fix it without question....your name is worth a lot more.....OR NOT ?
thanks VW.....for nothing.
and NO...none of my buses are for sale because of this either!!

I am not sure if its true. But i have also heard that if the side window in the passanger cabins's clip breaks off you need to replace the whole window which costs like 10K.

I agree that should have been a free of charge call back...

Sadly, another examply why I (now, after several similar experiences), only buy ACVW's

That doesn't help your problem though unfortunately. Are they sure the engine would not have suffered any damage due to all this water? I am thinking about gaskets and the like?

This is just another reason why I will never go near a turbo diesel. I friend of mine also bought a T5 a while back and it's engine virtually disintegrated while on a trip up to Johannesburg with only +- 70 000km on the clock . They bought it brand new and had to spend somewhere in the region of R80 000 for a new engine, they were told new injectors, turbo etc. etc. had to also be replaced to keep the warranty on the new motor.

These instances are not only for VW, I have heard of such things happening to other brands as well.

I think I will also stick to my ACVW.

Hello Peter them. Prob won't help. But you might find others with the same issues and help them out maybe.

Being a VW nut my whole life, and having had many waterpumpers, I have come to hate stealerships - they just dont give a rat's ass about after sales service once they have your hard earned money. I will never ever buy a new VW, just because of them.

Look at it from a different angle.........

Motor car manufacturers have a large work force.....

A large number of other firms also supply these car makers..........

Together They employ a large number .........

To be able to sell a lot of cars, and to make sure these cars do not last to long, these poor guys have to employ very expensive design engineers.......

These poor guys work day and night to build in redundancy's, perfectly calculated time orientated breakages, JUST to make sure that you have to buy a new car.........

And WHY do they do this.......

To employ lots of workers......

so that they can feed their family's......

so that their wife can go down to P & P for food......and so on ...and so on......

So THANK YOU Jacques.... ..... You are keeping our economy going..........



Moral of the story, take revenge...............Kick the Dog.....

I'll never buy a new VW because of this attitude, which I've seen over and over. But it's not just VW. All cars nowadays are built to last only five years/100,000km. As soon as the motorplan expires, SELL IT.

I'll stick to my ACVWs and old Mercedes, which were all built to drive for 30 years and are still going strong 40-50 years later.

if you guys are active on twitter and have a fair amount of follwers, you can cause them headaches by continuously complaining and tagging them each time.

bad news gets around.
a friend of mine has a gripe with Vodacom, and made it well known. They in the end resolved the problem within a day just so that he stops complaining.

i did the same thing when i was having issues with MTN's 3G. I complained like a spoilt brat and they got hold of me, trying to see if they could help me out.
but it was their service that is the problem and not my phone. they apologized profusely and said they are planning in building a new 3G tower to near where i live. Pity I am moving in the next few months

MINCE wrote:they apologized profusely and said they are planning in building a new 3G tower to near where i live.

...that is pretty much the default answer for ANY GSM-related queries in SA

ya

The 944 porsche also went through a patch where the oil and water would mix due to oil cooler seals.... most say flush fix the leak and the engine should be ok if it didnt run like this for days. Note to self those seals are on the list?
Armand

Just to add my two cents...I also had a some bitters with VW here in Potch with poor service but the thing that really ticked me off is when I tried to trade my beloved VW product in on a brand new one...and stupidly enough I tried it twice and on both encounters they offer me trade, less almost all of what it's worth. The first time they complained about the shape of the polo that changed and offered me about 30% under trade in. I ended up trading it in for trade plus 15% at a second hand dealer. The second time I wanted to trade my 4 year old (still this shape) diesel Jetta which was in perfect condition, in the middle of the km range, no accidents, etc etc, and they offered me trade less 40%. I was very upset and for the first time in 14 years changed brand on my daily runner. I grew up on the backseat of a VW and so did my kids up to now. I am very upset with VW cause you can get a decent product these days elsewhere for the same price or even cheaper. Brand loyalty and all that warm and fuzzy stuff kept me a VW fan but they have managed to eventually break that down as well. What happened to the original dream..." People's car..."

My father had a similar problem with agents when he tried trading in our 65 kombi on a new model in 1975. They offered next to nothing for the old one. (It was still in excellent condition.) The salesmen had a rude attitude as well. My father still wanted a new kombi, but after this episode did not want to buy through Barnes VW in East london. (Where we stayed at the time).

The friendly owner of the "all make servicing" garage in Beacon Bay then sold the new kombi to my father. (Via the VW dealership in Queenstown). New kombi was delivered to our house, and my father got an excellent trade in price on the 65. I still have the kombi and it's service record book with delivery inspection stamp from Gateway VW motors in Queenstown.

Think it is more a case of S.A. salesmen being greedy and arrogant. Happens at dealerships of other makes as well. A family member once made the mistake to pay cash up front for a new car. Salesman then lost interest, and it took a month and may phone calls and threatening to persuade him to actually supply the car.