1996 Volkswagen Golf GL from North America - Comments

1. Rust on roof, fixed by me with some similar paint.

2. Drive side locker broken.

3. Check engine light on and it turns out that the automatic transmission was damaged. Gear 2 is difficult to shift. $4300 to replace it!

4. Coolant leak. Fixed it for $120.

Purpose to buy:

VW is very popular in China. It had good reputation for quality and easy to maintain.

What happened:

I bought this car from a lady who relocated to England 3 years ago. Since the lady had all records of maintenances and repairs, so I think this car will give me a lot of pleasures. For first 2 and half year. It’s a pleasure to drive. Just regular oil change every 3000-5000 miles. One day the check engine light on and the transmission was difficult to shift. The transmission is a sealed type, so I can’t even able to check the level of fluid. Oddest thing is that all the repair shop refused to open the transmission to fix it. They claimed that they’ll need VW computer to talk with the transmission. Nobody wants to touch it. I went to VW dealer; they told me new transmission plus labor cost $4300. So they recommend me to trade this car in. So in summary, the transmission seemed never being serviced till 110k! Discouraged by the information from repair shops and dealer, I decide to try changing the fluid with an “unauthorized” shop. I bough the fluid from VW (which is twice more expensive) and he just used his experience to drain as many as he can and then add the fluid to the level he thought is OK. Believe or not, he only drain half quart of fluid! Which means this car had been driven on freeway without too much fluid!

Conclusion:

If this car is equipment with a non sealed version of transmission then I’ll be much happier. Consider the transmission can be used without too much fluid, I think the parts quality is pretty good. If VW Germany engineers can think more about how to make the maintenance easier and cheaper for customer then I can be a future buyer for their luxury cars.

I don’t think VW has an open mind. People always say “Customer is God”. From this lesson I feel “VW is the God. Customer is the servant”.

I’ll be away from it and not recommend VW for others.

I am the original writer. Since after the transmission oil change the transmission problem is still there. Any recommendation on how to fix it? Right now I'm keep driving this car by switching D/D3/D2. I hope this car can be fixed under $1500 and have another 3 years of life time.

Other than the transmission problem, other repairs looks quite low. The engine seems super strong. I can easily go up to 80 miles on freeway without any trouble. The speed performance can bypass the camry V6.

I post the original survey.

I spend a year and finally I find a mechanic that promise to rebuilt my auto transmisison for $1500! I tried him and pray that he can fix it. One and half week later, he gave me back the car. Man! It was fixed! Now it drives very light and responsive, and I can change lanes on freeway again! I am so happy!

My lesson here is "DO NOT BUY" it again. My experiments toward this brand is "VERY TIRED".

During the past year, the oring inside a component (the component that connect to the oil filter) broke which took me 2 times and $410 to fix it. And in the first fix, I used "Quality Turn Up" and it turns out that they put a wrong sized O-ring and use additional silicon to fool me. So it worth the money to toll your car to a trustable person.

I'm planning to drive this car one more year and may get rid of it after that.

Now it is the sixth year I've had this car. What more has needed repair ^_^

1. One engine oil O-ring broke on freeway. (changed)

2. Heater pipe broke at gas station. (bypassed)

3. 3 broken air and intake horses. (replace and duct taped)

4. Another door lock failed. (repaired)

5. Factory alarm system malfunction. (bypassed)