Yes sadly this seems to be standard main dealer performance for some German makers.

The thing is they don't need to improve as no matter how poor the product or dreadful the after service they can sell/rent them by the shipload, again and again to people seemingly willing to pay through the nose to be treated with contempt.

Blowed if i know what the answer is there, but they won't have to worry about me darkening their doorstep, and i wouldn't entertain one of their cars out of warranty as a gift

The ONLY reason i have stayed with my used MB's and would consider another is because of my make specialist indy, if i'd had to rely on the main dealer i'd have got shot of it long ago, or gone broke.

Edited by gordonbennet on 04/09/2013 at 20:58

Sorry to say but that is VW for you, a corrupt company swindling its customers on a daily basis.

The USA is chasing them for a BIG fine for the lies they made about their car emissions. It will damage VW.

I note that the UK and EU wont chase VW for their ongoing lies and deceipt about the quality of their cars. I wonder why that is?

I'm in the camp that VW are no better (or worse) than any other manufacturer these days. I just don't buy this 'quality' image anymore, unless I'm missing somthing the quality of the few VWs I've had are similar to the equivalent Fords and Vauxhalls, or worse in a couple of cases! My 2008 Passat had the creakiest dashboard I've ever heard on a car, a replacement DSG box and two failed rear calipers on a 35k miles car - my prior car to that was a much maligned Vectra which took 85K miles with a broken spring to its shame.

And the biggest disincentive for me to buy another VW is the utterly hopeless local VW dealer, who were incompetent at best and corrupt at worst. And that isn't just bluster as I had the fraud team from the bank involved in their dealings with a finance package.

Well you know the answer Toyota/Lexus.

Quite, the OP had 29 years of good service from proper Japanese cars, and we presume their dealers too, who in the case of Mr T actualy seem to give a toss...if they don't then Mr T's head office will soon want to know why.

For the life of me i can't get the sheer number of people who unthinkingly buy German basic to mid range cars and then tempt the ticking timb bomb of keeping them out of makers short warranty, the more specialised faster or larger German cars are understandable because there really isn't any great list of competition.

What Japanese car available here could compare to a big engined Merc or BMW or Audi estate, Toyota should have replaced the Camry estate when they had the chance 20 or more years ago, stuck a Lexus 300 sized body on it with proper wheel drive and a big 6 pot Diesel under the bonnet (the 4.2 from the Landcruiser was virtually indestructible, together with its big TC autobox), and they'd have given the Germans something to think about, and it would have outlived all the competition.

According to Clarkson in last week's Sunday Times "Ask me anything and if I have my sensible hat on ,you'll get the same answer "The Volkswagen Golf".

Ask any ten people which car they would buy and eight would say the Golf.

Its simply can't be beaten whether its a mk 4 for the daughter's first car or my favourite the Mk 5 TDI with the PD engine.

In Clarksons words if you drive a renault crossover or a hyundai saloon or a Vauxhall hatchback, what you have got is a box. a tool you buy by the yard;a tool with no personality, no character, no soul. and if thats all you want , why diddn't you buy a Golf?

If all my motoring life had been spent in Golf's Mk 1 to 7 I feel i couldnt have made a better choice. But when Major Arthur Mallock who I worked with, and designer of the Mallock U2 turned up at work in a mk 1 Accord, I knew he had discovered the Holy Grail and that was my all time favourite car!