2001 Volkswagen Golf review from UK and Ireland

The first problem I experienced was with the ABS. To be fair, I did get a recall notice which I was slow to respond to. Then the ABS started acting strangely... kicking in for no apparent reason under gentle braking. Then I discovered (the hard way) that it wasn't working at all and brought it in for warranty repair the following day. Subsequent checking around revealed that the fault was overheating wiring which could potentially have caused a fire.

The second problem was with ignition coils which suddenly started dying. Three of them failed in succession, within a few thousand miles of each other, and I could get no explanation from the dealership what was going on. I've subsequently discovered that there was a design flaw in one particular model of coil which was fitted to several VWs and Audis and that VW can't make the replacements fast enough.

The car itself is very nice, although it is very expensive for what you get. The dealer service has been pretty poor and the fact the Volkswagen have been very slow to acknowledge a problem with those ignition coils is disgraceful given the premium you pay for "Volkswagen reliability".