Faults:

There is neither time nor space enough to detail everything that has gone wrong with this car, but suffice it to say, that I will NEVER own a VW again.

In the last 8 weeks alone, I have spent almost $2000 on this car, and they tell me that it will require another $1000 repair to replace the timing belt, even though it hasn't gone yet, because if it does go, it will cause "major problems". Perhaps they might have mentioned that BEFORE the warranty ran out 4 months ago.

If the warranty hadn't been in place that long, I would be out still more thousands of dollars.

Off the top of my head, I have had both air conditioning and heating problems, including the A/C quitting on the hottest week of the summer when I was on the road. They assured me it was fixed, but of course it wasn't, which resulted in me having another road trip in the sweltering heat with no A/C.

After taking it in numerous times for that problem, they finally decided that it was somehow tied to a faulty head gasket. On that occasion I was without my car for 2 weeks, and they tried to stick me with the bill, even though I had taken it in to have the problem fixed long before the warranty expired.

Finally they did agree to cover it under the warranty, but then shortly after, the check engine light went on, resulting in another $1100 repair.

Now the springs, shocks, and front axle have all gone. I just had it on the hoist a month ago getting new tires from them. One would have thought they might have done a quick check.

In any event, I will now be without my car for a further period of time, and will be on the hook for another $2000. I liked this car when I got it, and I have treated it very well. Unfortunately, it is just a piece of crap, and the VW service leaves me feeling violated.

I am really not difficult to please, but I would like a car I can actually drive once in a while.

And in case I haven't mentioned it, the problems that I've detailed here are just a fraction of the difficulties I have had with this thing.

I am going to buy a different car tomorrow. If VW came up and offered me a free car, I wouldn't take it.

General Comments:

NEVER buy a VW. Worst car I have EVER had.

Faults:

One of the engine coils became defective around 25,000 miles. This caused the car to cough and shudder on the highway, and felt like it was going to stall at any moment at city speeds. With the coil failure, it was running on 3 out of 4 cylinders. We brought it back to the dealer who would not fix it, because the car was out of warranty! This seemed ironic to us, as our 2001 Jetta 1.8 turbo had the exact same problem! It's funny that a big company like VW couldn't fix this problem after 4 years of building this same type of engine. Maybe they just didn't care enough.

The VW emblems on the factory optioned wheels looked like the lamination was failing, and they were stained with water marks. This also happened on our past VW - Another thing they could have fixed in 4 years!

The "stainless" steel trim on the car was cloudy and not shiny anymore. I tried polishing it, but the cloudiness wouldn't budge.

General Comments:

This was a very expensive, top of the line VW - we expected a lot more for our money.

The stereo sounded great, but it was very difficult to adjust. I miss having one knob for on/off/volume, and one knob to search stations - I guess that makes too much sense!

The back seats provide very little leg room. We should have just kept our Jetta.

The awful new car smell never went away. It always smelled terrible in that car.

The car always made funny noises related to the fan. It always made me suspicious that there was something else wrong with the car.