What exactly makes modern Volkswagens unreliable?

On our second TDI, see my previous posts in other similar threads. Cliffs notes: No major issues, love the cars, have no plans of jumping ship, this board has a groupthink negative bias towards VAG.

stuart in mn wrote: I suspect a lot of it is rumor - people read about it on the Internet so it must be true.

Nope.

I repost my same 2012 TDI lemon law story every few months on here. This was a year BEFORE the scandal came out. There is no reason that a $22k car had $15k in parts replaced under warranty on it in just over a year. EGR, DPF, trunk leaks, IC icing, fuel pump....everything. When it ran it was just spectacular but it just never lasted more than a few months. I drove a rental from every model in their lineup over the course of a year.

It's not just "groupthink" or whatever you WANT to call it. VW has major quality control problems in their organization and I wanted to love that car.

My Jetta (2.0), my brother's jetta (tdi) and my parents phaeton (v8) all had multiple electrical failures. On mine, all the engine electronics needed replacing in the span of a single summer. Granted the 2.0 in a MKIII jetta was pretty bare bones and simple, but all of it? it functioned perfectly fine, unless it was wet out. Or cold. I live in Wisconsin, those 2 happen a lot. Also 2 of the power windows failed, one fell into the door, the electric sunroof failed, the door locks stopped working once... Never had a mechanical problem with that car, though.

My parents' phaeton had pretty much all the dash screens/computers replaced at the 3 year mark (under warranty) and right now they are looking at 3 warning lights... The car has like 70k on it, and has been in a climate controlled garage since new. Still probably the most reliable phaeton in existence, though

My mkiii gti vr6 was far and away the worst car I've ever owned, followed closely by my 1.8t b5 passat. Both were hideously unreliable and the golf left me stranded multiple times. The passat I was able to escape before it came to that but it had constant issues. Fix one thing, 2-3 more fail. Just the automotive version of quicksand. Berkley these cars.

I diagnosed an air injection code on an 02 jetta yesterday. Well, kind of. Couldn't find anything wrong with the whole system. But you know what other cars have? No air injection to break/post codes.

I own a 2011 Accord and it's boring. But I can't complain about the original brakes still have meat on them at 127,000 miles and the tires lasting 81,000 miles. Except for a squeaky blower motor - I just bought a lot of oil, filters, and fluids.

Boring.

Does answer question?^^

Datsun310Guy wrote: I own a 2011 Accord and it's boring. But I can't complain about the original brakes still have meat on them at 127,000 miles and the tires lasting 81,000 miles. Except for a squeaky blower motor - I just bought a lot of oil, filters, and fluids. Boring.

Eh... I went over 200K on the original front pads on my '03 TDI. Over 100K on the rears.

Ditto the comment about "appliance treatment". Unfortunately, that's how most US owners tend to be. It's also one of the reasons I bought my TDI new - so I'd know the maintenance history from day one.

Electrics can be flaky. Mine is better than most, but still had some strange issues. Wonky turn signal lever that would cause the relay to randomly click, but not with enough current to power the lights - just the clicker noise. And only when it was cold outside. Drove me insane for a couple of winters before in inexplicably fixed itself. Then there was the sunroof that would open and close by itself. I don't like the sunroof (only have it because it was required to get leather), so I "fixed" that by pulling the fuse.

I've had a saying ever since my ex had a '93 Passat and a '97 M3 (and then her '73 Volvo, '03 MINI, my TDI and later the '88 E30): "Lucas engineers didn't die; they crossed the Channel to work for Bosch."

In 2013 after 10 years and 329K miles, I decided to finally replace the turbo since I noticed a fair bit of oil in the output hose when I did the 300K timing belt. Unfortunately, that was 2.5 years ago. It's been sitting on the lift in the garage half apart ever since.

Parts for a TDI are easy - idparts.com

Older cars like my '03 (last year for the ALH "super-fund-emissions engine") are fairly easy to work on as modern cars go. Emissions controls are little more than an EGR valve and a single cat. No o2 sensors.

Sorry anecdotal people, my experience is not with heresay or groupthink. Again, I'm a sales rep for parts for all brands, and my stock of modern VW parts is both massive, and has a turn over rate that makes the CEO cackle with glee. This is across almost every year and model.

In reply to chiodos:

2010 Jetta 2.5: 3 different plastic hose connectors, crank sensor, cam sensor, temp sensor, purge valve (VERY popular!), fuel pump assembly, window lift motors, ignition switch, clutch master, and radiator all are on the high hit list.

Take it from a 2001 Jetta vr6 owner. Run away and spray gasoline on the trail behind you, turn around and light that trail on fire

I've known 3 people that owned modern VWs from the 05-2012 era. 2 Jettas and a Touareg. All 3 of them were eager to move on to other vehicles. None of them are what I'd call "car people". I don't think they were ever stranded by a massive failure, but they all complained about how regularly they had to buy expensive parts to keep them on the road.

Vigo wrote: This isn't really VW specific but i kinda hate german wiring diagrams. But then, maybe if it wasn't a VW i wouldn't need to read them?

VW wiring diagrams are also in a very different format from any other German wiring diagrams. They're probably the most annoying wiring diagram format I've had to deal with.

I personally would love to drive a VW GTI - seems like the perfect balance of driver's car and comfortable highway cruiser.

But decades of driving Hondas have ruined me.

Ian F wrote: Ditto the comment about "appliance treatment". Unfortunately, that's how most US owners tend to be. It's also one of the reasons I bought my TDI new - so I'd know the maintenance history from day one.

Why is that unfortunate? It's more reality. OEM's need to understand that people don't want to have to maintain their cars- or do it as little as they can. Is it that hard to realize that there are so few car enthusiests out there?

For a huge majority of the buying public, a car is a tool. A tool to get them to work, a tool to show their status, a tool to move stuff around, etc. Same reason why stainless appliances are so popular- they don't actually do what they have to do better, they just look like they do.

And if we think that the Europeans are somehow better at that, wake up and face reality- they are worse. The whole 10k oil change came from Europe. They buy cars just like we do- with the pocket book firmly in the front. Manual diesels are popular because they are the cheapest to own.

I have no beef with VW (other than them profiting by cheating). But they can't pretend that the masses are ok with fiddling with their cars these days. Especially when others offer products that one barely even needs to keep track of.

My '00 A6 BiTurbo with 6mt, was awesome for bombing down the highway or back roads. But it was all the little things. The windows didn't always want to cooperate. Either they wouldn't go up or would randomly go down and then they wouldn't go back up too. WTF! The pixels! The pixels were a minor thing but for a car that was something like $40k new, it shouldn't be a problem. The fan clutch went out, the secondary coolant pump that's located under the intake went out, the intake tract was mostly decomposed by the time I got it so it needed all new hoses. The front suspension is fairly complicated and is expensive to replace as the rubber parts cannot be replaced so the whole link needs replacing.

After a while my $10k loan for, IIRC, 5 years, and all of the fixes felt more expensive than a $24k/5yr loan on a 3 year old F-150, so that's what I switched to and I didn't look back.

Trackmouse wrote: Take it from a 2001 Jetta vr6 owner. Run away and spray gasoline on the trail behind you, turn around and light that trail on fire

They probably don't even have the decency to burn properly.

I was just thinking, I have friends ask me about independent mechanics all the time. Only four request groups. 1. General mechanic. 2. Porsche. 3. Subaru. 4. VW. I have friends who are independent Subaru mechanics. They JUST work on Subaru's. My sister was had a great friend who only worked on VW diesels. Maybe these cars have a larger enthusiast community and demand more out of their mechanics?

mazdeuce wrote: I was just thinking, I have friends ask me about independent mechanics all the time. Only four request groups. 1. General mechanic. 2. Porsche. 3. Subaru. 4. VW. I have friends who are independent Subaru mechanics. They JUST work on Subaru's. My sister was had a great friend who only worked on VW diesels. Maybe these cars have a larger enthusiast community and demand more out of their mechanics?

I have to wonder why the independent shops stay busy enough to survive on just one brand. Either they have lots of VWs needing specialized repairs, or the VW dealers massively overcharge customers and drive them to the independent shops, or both. None of those scenarios would be appealing to me as a potential buyer.

I kind of suspect that there is something to the "where is it made" issue as well. VW moved a lot of their small car production to Mexico several years ago. If you had a Jetta built in Germany from before that it was fantastic and lasted forever. If you bought a Mexican one....well Wall-E came to get you with his tow truck.

The other end of the spectrum (Phaeton) was built at the cutting edge of what a car could do and be. Unfortunately the bugs weren't entirely worked out.

I'd hope that mine (B6 Passat VR6 built in Germany) manages to slot into the sweet zone in the middle but if I'm completely honest at 118,000 miles I've had to replace the alternator, the AC compressor, and suffered a catastrophic failure of the timing chain tensioner. Current quirks (the extended warrantee has expired) are a failed drivers' door airbag sensor and a rattle in the catalytic converter when it's cold.

OTOH, my mother has a 2013 Outback that I've had the misfortune of driving a few times and in every way it's an inferior experience, so I live with quirks to drive something I enjoy.

My experience was pretty negative. '03 Passat wagon. Wife stranded and needed tow 3x in 80k miles. Lots of expensive sensors went bad just out of warranty. MAF, trans switch, temp sender, fuel pump, lots of coil packs... It wouldn't turn over when the temp was below 10F unless I left the key on for 10 minutes and then tried again.

It was a brilliant car with a fantastic interior for a good price when it worked. I just couldn't trust it and most of the time that was with good reason. It had a yellow light on the dash and some kind of symptom for 60k of the 80k we had it.

She ended up with a BMW 3 series wagon that has done 150k "mostly" trouble free miles. So... some German engineering is better than others.

I'll buck the trend. I've owned VAG products (VW, Audi, Porsche) for the past 30 years. I've had good experiences with almost all of them.

Put 100k miles on our 2001.5 Passat with 1 set of brakes, 1 MAF, 1 timing belt change. Put 100k miles on our 2005 Audi A4 Avant with 1 set of rear brakes, 1 timing belt change and 1 drivers side window regulator. I've put a combined 150k miles on 2.7T vehicles (1 allroad, 2 S4 avants) with nothing but basic maintenance.

The 1 car that was an outlier was a used '93 Corrado VR6 I picked up. That car was possessed and had lots of issues...

Huckleberry wrote: So... some German engineering is better than others.

Agreed--- I've had a couple of BMWs and haven't had anywhere near the problems listed here. Sure they required maintenance, but nothing out of the ordinary.

For some reason nearly every time I see a car with a tail light or headlight out---- it's a VAG product.

Joe Gearin wrote: For some reason nearly every time I see a car with a tail light or headlight out---- it's a VAG product.

Glad you brought this up. What is the story behind that? I've seen so many new cars with a tail light either out, or stuck on. Each and every one is German...typically MB or Audi, with some BMW. Is there a common flaw among these? Some kind of component supplier they all use?

On the topic of VAG stuff. Only way I'd have one is if I leased it for 2 years or less. That way I can hand it back to VW before E36 M3 starts breaking...though 2 years may be pushing it.

My 2010 TDI has required near zero general maintenance items outside oil and fuel filters (which are insanely easy to change btw). At 115k it's still on it's original front pads and just got new rears. The AC has always been flaky with the silly valve control thing. The big issue with anything that has left me stranded (iced up intercooler twice) or cracked DPF (see an estimated 4k in warranty work that VW has had to shell out) is that anything else that has been an issue was always working away at what seemed to be 100% and then suddenly without notice just failed. Failing without notice is really annoying.

Our 2003 Jetta just turned 300K. It is a 2.0 - 5 speed. Replaced the timing belt, the dip stick, multiple brake light bulbs, alternator, and the headlight bulbs a couple times. For the most part a reliable car that we would pretty much drive anywhere. Multiple 1800 mile round trip to PA over the past few years and don't feel overly concerned about taking it anytime.