Theres a simple solution for the UK, stop buying their cars!
If I did that I would probably end up buying inferior cars that I did not like. Before I joined this forum and read all the posts from the adoring Toyota/Honda fans we tried an Avensis Tourer and 2 Honda Civics. On paper both appeared to be perfect for our needs. But the Avensis was a slug with a electronic handbrake button in the daftest place imaginable and the Civics were noisy, hard riding with front doors so large getting in/out in tight spaces was far more difficult that in should be in a medium car.
But remember that we do not buy VAG if they don't do what we want. We walked away from a Polo 1.2 TSi because it was a slug and we have walked away from 3 Octavia estates because of the noise/booming from the rear.
One VW dealer was a total idiot, we went to look at and hopefully drive a Passat estate but he did not have one on fleet. Instead he offered us a drive in a Scirocco since in his words "its the same car underneath". We walked away in shock.
VW just seem careless, produce cars with questionable reliability and treat customers with contempt or like idiots. Fills you with confidence?
All the VAG cars we have bought have been perfectly reliable and with the exception of the Seat dealer who had clearly failed his customer services course and another Seat dealer who had not given the technician instructions to tighten the sum plug we have been satisfied. In the 2 above cases Seat Customer services gave us £200 compensation and the dealer gave us a complementary service after the sump plug issue (we never used it).
Will continue to buy VAG cars when they meet our needs, just like other on here (including Avant).
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Likewise I've had a string of great VAG cars with very little trouble.
Currently have a 2014 1.4tsi petrol Superb II which has had nothing go wrong in its 72kmiles (thus far) , it fits my tall and ample frame (many cars don’t), is very quiet and comfortable, performance is pretty good considering its size (it is a 127mph car!) and it usually does over 45mpg (sometimes over 50!).
One factor that may help reliability (many on this forum won’t agree!) is I never have long life servicing set, oh and I rate my local Skoda dealer (Hull).
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VW just seem careless, produce cars with questionable reliability and treat customers with contempt or like idiots. Fills you with confidence?
I'm with Skidpan on this. Surveys show that VAG reliability is okay, not the best, far from the worst, and in general modern cars are reliable anyway. I bought a VW Polo as it did what I wanted, no other car in its class had the features I wanted e.g. space, comfort, performance, mpg. That is why German cars sell and have a certain prestige value.
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I have owned 12 VWs all bought new. I have liked them all, I liked their looks the way they were put together and how they drove. Any problems that I had were dealt with satisfactorily. I am very reluctant to buy another for lots of reasons. Firstly they have ruined hundreds of thousands of peoples cars applying an emissions fix and are walking away from the horrendous problems people are having.
In an attempt to convince people their exhaust gases were safe they set up a test feeding the exhaust fumes to a battery of monkeys, the twelve monkeys all died but the thing I can’t take is the test was rigged with the car doctored not to emit normal levels of pollution.
The cars are not as well built nor have as good quality materials as they used to have. Paint is 30 to 40% thiner than it used to be. Lots of general skimping and cost cutting.
Reliability is poor on many models, the Passat was the worst car in What Cars used car reliability survey and they never say a word against VW due to their advertising revenue.
They seem to be in such a hurry to get cars to market before being fully developed they have a whole string of technical problems and are very reluctant to address the problems for customers leaving they with a lemon.
All car makers have their problems but VW seem to be particularly lacking in any morals or conscience. Skoda and Seat I have less contempt for as I suspect they have much less say in things like cheating emissions tests.
Edited by CHarkin on 15/04/2019 at 15:53
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If we worried too much about the morals of our suppliers, we'd severely restrict our choice. Amazon and Google spring to mind. Particularly if you're making a major purchase such as a car, it needs above all to be one which suits your needs. Mine are that a car is reliable, fun to drive, comfortable and with enough but not too much space.
Of my last eight cars, six have been from VAG, and I've greatly liked all of them. The other two were a Mercedes B200 CDI (voted a miss on many counts - my fault for not insisting on a longer test drive) and a Volvo V60 (I respected its solid virtues but never enjoyed driving it). SWMBO's have been six Mini Coopers (she liked them but I was never enamoured with the way that all the performance happens at the top of the rev range) and two Audis (A1 and now A3 convertible) with whch we've both been very happy.
As always, the proviso is that we've been lucky enough not to have kept any of these for more than three years, so I can't comment personally on whether VAG cars are more or les reliable than other after that time. If I knew I was going to keep a car long-term, I think I'd go for a Toyota. The ones I've tried have been much better to drive than the road tests would have you believe. With a 5-year warranty and countless stories of Toyotas soldiering on forever - not least my neighbour's 2000 W-registered RAV-4 - they would seem a safe bet.
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As always, the proviso is that we've been lucky enough not to have kept any of these for more than three years,
I do keep for longer than 5 years and the following have been reliable. I have a buy cheap and throw away after many years strategy to cope with my longish commute - gets rid of worrying about depreciation.
Mrs BJ owned a 1984 1.0 Polo from new and kept for 19 years and about 140k miles.
I owned (my son now owns ) a 2001 1.4 Octavia from new now over 18 years old and about 130k miles. Just passed MOT and being used up and down the motorway between Yorkshire and Gloucestershire.
I also owned a 2003 1.9pd Superb from 18months for a further 10 years - still going strong under new ownership with about 220-230k miles on the clock(orginal battery, exhaust and clutch although it's had a few front balll joints).
Edited by Big John on 15/04/2019 at 20:46
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Clearly most forum members seem to have been extremely lucky with their VAG experiences or are driving older cars which were better built and more reliable from day 1. The lack of problems also seem contrary to the weekly Qs in HJ's Answers.
But do some deep research away from diesel gate, and you'll find a myriad of VAG issues such as DSG problems, Teves ABS module issues (which affected BMW and Volvo too), excessive oil consumption on TSI engines, timing chain issues on several engines, EGR issues and now problems with cars with the new 1.5TSI engine too. And that's skimming the surface. Is it down to pressure to keep ahead? Pressure to cut costs or what? A friend spent £30k some years ago on a highly specced Golf which had paint runs down two doors, so was QC done on a day after a party?
I came close to buying a Golf R once, but only the greed of the salesman in refusing any level of negotiation and insisting on £599 extra for sat nav that saved me.
TBH, reliability of German cars is a myth. I currently own one and had a diff replaced after 9k miles which is something I'd not expect nor experienced on any car I've owned in 45 years. Certainly not expected on a car costing £50k, but hey, it was fixed under warranty in 48 hours, and 6k miles later, it's looking good.
I've a company car too which is Japanese, and had one new battery under warranty, replacement air con pipes (originals chaffed due to poor design/no rubber spacer), usual wear & tear items and after 67k miles, it's a very reliable car. Bit like my old MX5 on reliability.
There's good and bad in all marques, some seem to have a greater number of niggly faults than others, and depending on your level of OCD depends on whether you can live with these faults dealer fob off as 'characteristics of the car'.
My most reliable car was, surprisingly, a 1988 Mk 3 Vauxhall Cavalier 2.0i. Did 150,000 miles in it, and only replaced the battery and alternator. Never used oil, just kept on running. That was a time when cars had fewer electronics, and were just a better design and build.
Edited by Miniman777 on 16/04/2019 at 01:14
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My most reliable car was, surprisingly, a 1988 Mk 3 Vauxhall Cavalier 2.0i. Did 150,000 miles in it, and only replaced the battery and alternator. Never used oil, just kept on running. That was a time when cars had fewer electronics, and were just a better design and build.
I also found the early mk3 Cavalier's the best for reliability and economy - no Cat so less CO2 than later models - 40mpg brim-to-brim on long motorway runs - all mine had was a fractured engine earth strap in 90,000 miles - used to eat front tyres though!
Edited by RT on 16/04/2019 at 09:48
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The Cavalier was a great car, the Vectra that followed was not
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The Cavalier was a great car, the Vectra that followed was not
That's why minicab drivers loved the Cavalier
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I think I'd go for a Toyota. The ones I've tried have been much better to drive than the road tests would have you believe.
Its a medium estate Im looking for, and the short list is down to Toyota Corolla and Kia Ceed. I really liked driving the Corolla 2.0L hybrid its very good but has a few features I don't like, the dark headlining on all UK cars makes the interior a bit gloomy and the keyless entry. One of the biggest boxes for me that needs ticked is do I actually like the car and will I enjoy owning and driving it. I don't mind spending a bit more to get that.
If VWs reliability was the only issue it would not put me off, though reading HJs the good and the bad it makes you think.
Edited by CHarkin on 16/04/2019 at 00:48
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If 6700 seems a shocking number, how about the 300,000 VWs sitting out in places like this to be, erm, "repurposed"? tiny.cc/w1u94y
These are the ones that have been bought back from dissatisfied customers, so should naturally never find their way back on the road, but are destined to be stripped down for parts. Let's see how that works out, assuming that security is 100% watertight and someone is keeping a very close eye on 300,000 ignition keys - or are we talking keyless entry here?
Edited by Bilboman on 16/04/2019 at 11:03
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My opinion of comparing VAGs with, say, the best of the Japanese makes (and soone South Korean brands) is that if you do your homework with VAGs, both for the car and the dealership, and keep them well-maintained, you can get a very decent car and ownership experience. If you just buy based on what looks nice or the sale pitch and don't do your homework, you can, in my view, more easily come acropper.
With the best Oriental brands, for normal (i.e. not specialist/very high performance) cars, there's less of a need for doing detailed research, with issues more likely being related to the driving experience being what you want, rather than reliability-related. This is especially true if you stick to petrol-engined cars (including hybdrids). I suspect it also has to do with these makes being more conservative than the Europeans in bringing through new tech in a short period.
Far less need to have engineering knowledge for the Oriental makes, in my view.
One thing to note about the new 2.0 Hybrid Corolla is that the boot across both models (it's sadly not available in the saloon, which annoys me personally as someone who would like to buy another saloon to replace my 13yo Mazda3) is smaller than the one for the 1.2T and 1.8Hybrid, as it requires more batteries and thus takes up more space below the boot area, reducing it in size. More of an issue with the hatchback than the bigger estate though I suspect.
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I have a VW Transporter as my daily driver.
They are very expensive to buy (especially for a van), but when trade-in time comes, you are no worse-off that if you had bought a heavily discounted Ford Transit.
They are also easy to sell, at least it should be when I get my rear bumper fixed, (famous last words)!
Edited by nick62 on 17/04/2019 at 17:51
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One thing to note about the new 2.0 Hybrid Corolla is that the boot across both models (it's sadly not available in the saloon, which annoys me personally as someone who would like to buy another saloon to replace my 13yo Mazda3) is smaller than the one for the 1.2T and 1.8Hybrid, as it requires more batteries and thus takes up more space below the boot area, reducing it in size. More of an issue with the hatchback than the bigger estate though I suspect.
The boot in the 2.0L hatchback is very very small and it has the battery in it, that is the normal car battery. The boot is a good bit larger on the 1.8L hatch. I understand this is because the 2.0L has something like 60% more hybrid battery and more electric motor. The 2.0L estate version has no obvious signs of being a hybrid, normal boot like the Ceed or Golf estate, if it looses out anywhere is maybe in the underfloor storage which is smaller than the others.
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