2002 Volkswagen Sharan 1.8T from UK and Ireland - Comments

Failed Airconditioning Compressor.

Tiptronic Gearbox Failed.

I bought a ’02 VW Sharan 1.8T with Tiptronic transmission from a used car dealer near High Wycombe in Feb ‘05 with 13000 miles on the clock. It was in immaculate condition and I was very pleased with it. However when the service light came up at 20000 miles in June ‘06 I took it to a German Car specialist to be serviced and mentioned to them that the aircon seemed to have lost some of it’s effectiveness. The car needed to have a new compressor fitted as the original had failed. The bill came to almost £1000!

Last month my wife was driving my kids to a drama group when the car refused to change into a new gear after changing out of first leaving her stranded. I was able to recover the car by manually selecting first and second gears using the Tiptronic selector, but I was unable to select any higher gear. After taking it to a Volkswagen dealer in South London (A week later as it was the soonest they could look at it) it transpired that the gearbox had an internal failure and would have to be replaced. This is on a car that had only done 22,000 miles! The cost of replacing the gearbox amounts to £3,700 which represents around 40% of the value of the complete car. I find it incomprehensible that a gearbox of this sophistication should only have a lifespan of 22,000 miles. The dealer where I took the car for repair told me that they had not seen this fault before and they consulted with the Volkswagen factory to see if they would make any contribution to the cost considering the low mileage of the car, Volkswagen have refused.

This is a car that has been mainly used at low speeds around town and has never been used to tow anything.

I had another Sharan before this with the 2.0 litre engine and manual gearbox which never gave any problem, but I am afraid that this experience has put me off the marque permanently.

I would have recommended this car to anyone before I bought this particular one and would say that if you are in the market for a people carrier you consider other makes and avoid making the same expensive mistakes.

I bought a new Sharan 2003 1.8T (from a VW authorized dealer) and have almost the same problem, but i live in Mexico, so I took the car to a Volkswagen Dealer and they said me exactly the same; but here the cost of repair gearbox is almost US$9,000 the car price in the market is US$13,500; I can't believe this! Volkswagen plant in Puebla, Mexico refuse to change the gearbox; people in the VW dealer said me that this is a very common problem on 2001 - 2006 Sharan's. Why VW do not accept his part of a failed product? I have 36 years and almost 12 years buying new VW cars (jetta, golf, sharan, bora, etc) since this problem happened I'm decided no to buy any other VW car in my life and do not allow my sons buy any VW and so on...

I've owned 2003 Seat Alhambra since new. Tiptronic auto box, no 1 pd injector and air con compressor have all failed in less than 100,000 miles. All VERY expensive. Would NEVER recommend on account of the reliability.

PD injector failure is extremely rare on a well maintained engine that's had regular oil changes with the correct spec oil.

These engines normally cruise past 200,000 miles without major problems. Skip services or use the wrong oil though, and you're heading for big trouble.

I have a SEAT Alhambra 2003 1.9TDi Tiptronic. So far we have had TWO new turbos, and now are faced with a new gearbox, as some part in the gearbox that detects reverse gear is stuck/broken so the computer thinks the car is permanently in reverse. So, the whole box needs to be replaced.

The car has done only 44,000 miles. I can't believe that all these problems are unrelated; espec 2 failed turbos, but SEAT assured me they aren't.

Can anyone suggest otherwise?

To be fair, SEAT have been pretty good with goodwill, but reliability is definitely a problem - and I suspect so is expertise of diagnostics. It has taken them a MONTH to work out the current problem - another unique one... Ha!

Having had these problems, I have scoured internet for solutions. I am appalled at the number of problems I've found re: turbos and gearboxes for the Sharan & Alhambra (no surprise as they're all one company now; built by Audi, judging by the branding on all the parts...!)

Come on SEAT/VW, or whomever is in charge; please recognise the fragility of these parts and sort it out! For all my moaning, it is a good car, especially for a family!

I'm going to have to ditch the car because of the cost...

I have had the same problem with a VW Sharan: Tiptronic broke down with the same symptoms as earlier described (at 80.000 kms) ; other problems: airco replaced, seat heating replaced, sensor alarm failed, parking sensor failed, auxiliary heating failed, power windows only work occasionally, a component in the suspension failed 3 times and was ultimately replaced for free with a redesigned full metal component, and some more things I don't remember. What a bad car.