Having approached three main VW dealers, A VW specialist and VW themselves, with all the problems below, the one year warranty has proven to be completely worthless on a three year old, 12,400 mile vehicle with a full service history from a VW main agent. The VW main agent who sold me the vehicle is 200 miles away and no other VW garage wants the problem irrespective of the legal theory. It’s just too much trouble and VW head office don’t want to know.
VW head office helpdesk informed me that once a car is over three months old and it has been removed from the forecourt, the onus is on me to prove that any fault that arises is not the result of fair wear and tear including the most basic details of the list of various problems that are listed below. Beyond that they have no involvement.
1. The handbrake does not hold on a hill. (Yes I know that is illegal. The knowledge that this is the case does not fix the hand brake and neither does escalating the matter).
2. VW Dealers want upwards of £52 to adjust hand brake. I was told by a VW main dealer that if the car has a storage pocket around the hand brake, then there is more labour and cost involved in adjusting the handbrake but he could not estimate how much this would be.
3. VW Dealer wants £125 to plug a computer analyser but warns me that if the computer does not detect any errors then all they can do is charge me for the use of the analyser. They have no other method of diagnosing faults.
4. Single reversing light is completely worthless and brings up error light if LED canbus compatible upgrade bulb is fitted.
5. Canbus error message is only displayed for a second and thus is not perceived by driver when reversing the car. However a second error light indicates that some sort of canbus error is occurring, but not what it actually is!
6. Why does the main 134 page owner’s manual not mention in the index that there is a page 17 & 18 on which an explanation of a non-specific warning light exists? It actually tells you to look at another warning which only appears for two seconds! I could find no reference to this on the internet and noticed it entirely by accident after several days when I was about to reverse the car and had not yet looked over my shoulder in order to do so.
7. I note that part of the reason that upgrading the reversing light produces such a poor light output from a bulb that previously produced excellent illumination, is that the single plastic window is far too small to allow the light from the bulb to escape………
8. This car has more lights on the front than any car that I have ever driven and yet the illumination is very poor. The bulbs are not the most common on the market and would upgrading them produce more canbus errors? Nobody can tell me.
9. Average speed on a journey on the central dashboard display is from 14 MPH to 26 MPH has not connection to reality. E.g. 40 mile journey at 70MPH on motorway.
10. The various indicators of the fuel consumption do not agree with one another and are all incorrect.
10.1 MPG on central dashboard display: 60mpg.
10.2 First MPG on display in front of steering wheel: 50 mpg.
10.3 Second MPG display using steering wheel operated menu system: Any random number from zero to 300 MPG with the number changing once a second
10.4 Actual fuel consumption from full tank to full tank is 45 MPG. (Daily local and motorway driving).
11. £43 spent on Forte diesel treatment, turbo cleaner and DPF cleaner and regenerator treatment including DPF cleaner have had no perceived benefit.
12. Why did the front tyres need replacing at 11,000 miles and are already visibly wearing at 13,000 miles? No explanation from any VW staff approached including the VW main agent who sold and serviced the car.
13. Why do the tiny door pockets have an opening at the back which allows anything placed in them to disappear into hole?
14. Why is the central storage pocket so small and why is it so inaccessible? All that is required here is a rectangular box!
15. I approached a VW specialist with some of these problems and he made it pretty clear that he had never come across these issues and did not want to get involved with the electrical problems.
16. This is not a definitive list but does give an indication of why I think that this highly successful vehicle has the most absurd design faults and is, in many very basic ways, inferior to vehicles produced 20 years ago. It’s a continuing source of frustration for me and is the worst financial investment that I have ever made. I did some pretty thorough research before buying the car, and none of the above problems which have slowly become apparent, were revealed. Additionally, I see no reason to suppose that changing the car would improve matters. This is only the second newish car in 45 years driving that I have bought from a main agent and only the second time (The first time was with Ford) that I have had significant problems after buying a vehicle with no responsibility taken by the main dealer seller or the manufacturer. I have put an enormous amount of time and effort into trying to deal with these problems and I have resolved to never deal with a main agent again. I will probably look at commercial vehicles from now on but I note that they are becoming more “car like” and this is perceived as an “improvement”. Good luck with the computer technology on the 2021 VW Caddy!
All this has revealed to me from more in depth research that ideas that are successful in vehicles are often the result of random irrational decisions. Some of the design faults apparent in my 2016 Polo have been addressed in the 2017 Polo but new ones have been introduced. A couple of previous examples that came to my attention recently is that some earlier Polos and Mercedes vehicles required the cars to be jacked up, wheels removed and wheel arch liners removed just in order to change a light bulb. What committee of i****s thought of that?!