Joesav545

Cheers mate. It’s got to the stage where I just want the car back, even though my love for it has diminished somewhat. i don’t thing just over £2k is bad. Even pursuing with VW, if, and it’s a gigantic if, they offered a good will gesture it would not bring the £6,300 down anywhere near £2k. And 21k miles on a gearbox isn’t a great deal. It comes serviced with a warranty too.

No I haven’t contacted the motor Ombudsman as you have to give the dealer a minimum of 8 weeks to resolve the issue or come to a decision. I have found a second hand gearbox which has done 21k miles for £1,500 and it will be around £600 for it fitting and coding plus the cost of new oil. I think this is the route I am going to go. I just want the car back.

It was the Leeds office that I have been speaking to. Thanks for the email address, I will get something written and sent tomorrow.

Finally received the call from the VW Customer Support ‘Manager’ today. What an absolute joke. Opening question, ‘have you taken your V5 and two forms of ID to your dealership yet?’ I had taken these the day I recovered the car to them. Next question ‘What is the issue’ i proceeded to explain the whole situation AGAIN and expressed my frustration with the dealership and stated that they have asked me to call you to discuss why there will be no warranty or good will gesture to assist with covering the costs of the repair. His response, ‘it’s the dealerships choice whether they cover this under the warranty or good will, not ours’. Exactly the response the dealership gave to me on Friday, saying it was VW’s choice. ‘Even if they offer good will it might only be about £150’. Wow! His response, ‘well it’s up to them so what do you want me to do?’ I asked him to put himself in my situation and asked how he’d feel with the responses I’m getting and he said ‘not particularly happy’. After a 30 minute discussion trying to make him understand my frustration and stress caused by this situation which is clearly a component fault, he made me feel way better by saying ‘well there is no warranty on your vehicle so I don’t know what you want me to do’. f*****g arseholes! So I asked what the next step is. He said ‘I’ll speak to the dealership to find our what is going on and ring you back within 5 working days’. At this point I asked to speak to someone else. Someone who is knowledgeable, understanding and willing to resolve the issue not just tell me that there is nothing they can do. This is when the lack of professionalism got even worse and he said ‘what will they do that I can’t?’ ‘It will be another 48 hours until someone gets back to you’. I then said, ‘ok, do that then please’ and he said ok and hung up. what a complete disgrace of a company VW is. since the call I have come to the decision to speak to a few DSG specialists and get some prices together to get the work done and get my car back from that hell hole. I have washed my hands with the pile of shite that is VW and I will be hounding them at every opportunity spreading the word of how they deal with things like this. Right now, the stress and upset this is causing is not worth it. I know I am not going to get anywhere with them. Do not buy anything from Volkswagen again, I know I never will.

This is the route I am taking initially and I hope to god that it results in a positive outcome. Surely someone from VW CS has to see the situation from my point of view and does the right thing.

I don’t know the answer to that and without collecting the car and gearbox from VW I don’t know how else to find out. They for sure aren’t willing to tell me anything.

I have the information which was given to me over the various phone calls written down with dates and times. VW have escalated it to their CS manager which will hopefully get the ball rolling. I hope it is the right type of person who deals with this case as I have spoken to quite a few incapable people over the last week or so. Once I hear from the CS manager i will decide on the next step. I have quite a few friends who I have shared this situation with and all are willing to stand along side me to fight this battle which is encouraging. If I have no luck with VW CS I will be sure to release the hounds on social media. I do honestly believe that the main dealership is responsible for the turn this case has taken and VW will see that and rectify the issue.

Amazing, thank you for this information. It is all helping massively as I haven’t been in this situation before and to be honest I never thought I would. I am going to speak with the VW CS manager on Monday/Tuesday next week and hopefully I will have a better idea of what to do next. My main worry is that VW still have the car and the gearbox. is it completely crazy to think they could cause some damage on purpose to make it appear that the gearbox fault is somehow down to me? The last thing I wanted is to drag this on but luckily I have another car and for the costs involved, I can wait.

Yeah that’s what I told them. I said I noticed a small oil patch on my drive in June (when the warranty was still valid) and as I wasn’t working or leaving the house and the country was still in lockdown I never even thought to take the car to a garage as it wasn’t a necessity. I think the warranties which expired in March and May were extended. Although I thought we were advised not to travel anywhere well into June...

Wow! Absolutely brilliant! Thank you so much. That is the exact route I will be going down once I have spoken to VW CS manager on Monday/Tuesday. The thought of a claim in the small courts is a little daunting but just another learning curve and first experience. I aren’t going down without a fight. I’m pretty stubborn and my better half even more so. We’re going to give it our best shot. I really appreciate the help, giving me the information and plan I need to nail these fuckers.

I thought so too but apparently not. Not according to VW anyway. I’m sure I can get it sorted cheaper elsewhere I just want to pursue VW until I know there is no chance. But the longer that drags on, the longer I don’t have a car.

The car is almost 2 months past warranty, which so happened to be during lockdown. I explained that to them also but they weren’t interested. I will see how I get on with VW directly and let you know. Im going to have to keep this car until I am 95 to get the money back the car is going to owe me 😂

Update from VW: The local dealership told me that as it is out of warranty VW cannot cover the cost under warranty or good will. That was their actual opening statement on the phone. Wow! What a set of plonkers. I asked them what has actually happened to make the hole and what was the cause of said incident. Their answer ‘we don’t actually have technicians here qualified to take the gearbox apart so we don’t know’. Again, a shocking statement. I said to them that this is clearly a component failure and should not happen on a performance vehicle of any age or millage never mind 3 years old and 30,000 miles. Their response, ‘I understand where you are coming from but VW have stated they won’t be covering the repair work costs’. I asked what are our options now. ‘The only option is a new gearbox which will be £6,800. We would need £4500 paid today to cover the cost of the new gearbox and the remaining amount before the installation.’ I asked to speak to the manager of the dealership who was absolutely no help with the situation. The best he could do was to reduce the price to £6,300 and offer a 0% finance on the remaining £1800 after the initial £4,500. I don’t know if I am okay to swear on this forum but the service I have received from VW has been f*****g shite! As you can probably guess I am immensely disappointed with this outcome. I have spoken with VW direct to put a complaint in about the dealership and to escalate the case further. They seemed pretty understanding and their ‘Customer Support Manager’ is going to ring me within 48 hours (but this doesn’t include the weekend). I am certain that nothing more will be done. All faith has been lost in VW. A component failure in the gearbox which they don’t know what it is, they don’t know why it has happened but are happy to take £300 from me to ‘find out’. I am exploring other alternatives to get a gearbox from elsewhere and try to keep the costs down, or at least less than £6,300. Wankers.

Yeah for sure. I’m curious as to whether there were any strange readings prior to the gearbox deciding it wanted a rather large hole in it.

Another update from VW. Their technician has been back and forth with VW with bits of information and more photos. They have requested the ECU data to check. This has been done and sent so we are back to waiting to hear from them which should be some time tomorrow. I’ll update you guys once I receive the call 👍🏻

Oh god! It’s heartbreaking if it happens at all, never mind on the way to trade your car in! This just makes what has happened with my car even more strange, all the oil emptied and it has a hole in the casing yet it drove fine and even drove onto the trailer the following day. 🧐

All fingers crossed mate 👍🏻

Another positive to keep in mind, hopefully VW see all the points you guys have made and it leaves them no option other than to cover the costs. Cheers for the positivity 👍🏻

Yes to that list of thing, which means they can’t really use anything against me. Definitely no impact under the car, I would have felt that. Is it actually possible to hit that area on something on the ground? Surely it isn’t exposed? Thanks for the comments guys, I’m feeling much more confident and positive. 👍🏻

I suppose it must be difficult for them to actually admit something has a known fault, they are better off offering free replacements to those it affects to avoid having to replace countless other people’s components which haven’t yet failed. This is a make or break situation for VW in my eyes. If they do the right thing they will have restored my faith in them, if they don’t, I certainly won’t be buying or advising anyone to buy from them again.

To be fair to the people at my local VW they are being very helpful and communicating well, just not revealing the details I want to know. They handled my visit to the garage to have a look today pretty well, I just can’t help but think they know something I don’t. All will become clear soon. I’ll keep you posted 👍🏻

Yeah you would expect some failures. I’m just feeling very unlucky at the moment that I had to be one of those failures. They have said they will ring me tomorrow so hopefully I will have some more news for you guys tomorrow.

Yes full VW service history which should help the situation. as the gearbox service is recommended at 40k miles I think I should be okay. No matter what the age or mileage of a performance car, this shouldn’t happen. I agree, it looks like something has come into the gearbox rather than forced its way out.

Cheers mate, fingers crossed VW do the right thing. In my eyes, this can’t be anything but a manufacturing defect!

It is a tough time, but I’m trying to stay positive and I go to sleep at night thinking about driving it once it’s sorted, it will be like the first drive all over again! I have always owned VW’s, as have all my immediate family. I hope they do the right thing as I would hate to have to find another car manufacturer to switch to. Thanks mate, I will certainly keep you updated when I hear of any developments.