2001 Volkswagen Golf review from North America

I bought the car after the previous owner had had it for about 2 months. I guess that should have been the tip off. One week after I drove the car home the EPS light on the dash lit up. This causes the car to go into emergency power save mode, which makes it run no faster than a go-cart. The first week they told me I did not have the gas cap screwed on tight enough. The second week the brake light had gone out. The third week it was something else. By the fourth week, I was screaming in the middle of the showroom (literally) and they finally kept it for a month. The dealership had to call in someone from VW to fix the problem, which they are still calling a short in the brake system. The technician that had initially been working on the car was killed in a motorcycle accident and their back up guy had not been trained, so my car sat for an extraordinarily long time waiting for VW to get around to sending someone.

At about 40,000 miles the door locks stopped working. Occasionally they work, but not consistently. Sometimes, as you drive down the road, the doors unlock and all the interior lights come on. No amount of fiddling with the lights will turn them off. The only thing that works is to pull over to the side of the road, turn off the car and restart it. One morning I had to do this five time in a ten mile drive. To say the least, I was irritated.

The most recent small glitch, is the fact that my airbags blew while I was driving the car. I was driving about 35 mph at 11:30 at night with no other cars in sight. I heard a loud bang from the passengers side, saw smoke and smelled gunpowder, but could see no reason for the findings. The dash indicator light showed that an airbag had deployed, but it had not actually come out of the dash. About 30 seconds to a minute after this, my drivers side seat airbag blew. This time, it actually did deploy. Those things really hurt, by the way!! Being 11:30 at night, and having had two airbags deploy for no apparent reason, I stopped. Having no better plan, I limped home, praying that the steering wheel airbag did not blow. When I spoke with VW the next day, they asked my if I hit a pothole (I didn't realize that the airbags were supposed to deploy when hitting a pothole!). They will not pay for a tow, so I am stuck with that, plus the cost of a rental car for the weekend. Their plan is to hook it up to the diagnostic machine to see what it says. There is clearly no damage to the outside. I am currently waiting to see what they will say after the diagnostic is read.

This car is definitely not worth the sticker price. The hassles and unreliability make it a completely useless mode of transportation if you are using it on a daily basis.

There seems to be something inherently wrong with the electrical system in this particular model.