Date: Fri, 23 Dec 2016 17:26:14 +0000
Reply-To: Stephen Engel <sengel543@YAHOO.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Stephen Engel <sengel543@YAHOO.COM>
Subject: Re: Friday: VW shops and the VW diesel problem
In-Reply-To: <CAFnDXk2YmgQdQFJOjL8Oi8qW1BGy2ubyAYK3B3oGTp+6+4jX-w@mail.gmail.com>
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My '10 Golf TDI was facing fuel pump failure for the second time and a $5400 estimated repair bill back in August '15. My independent VW mechanic (who has since left the repair business to focus on internet part sales) had worked for the dealer I had received the estimate from. He told me to make a concerted argument that these pumps shouldn't be failing like this (@56,000 miles the first time and then again 32,000 miles later). He had seen VW meet the customer half-way in many cases.
I garaged the car while I was preparing my case, the dealer had written in my service record, "Do not drive, vehicle in imminent damage of catastrophic failure." ( the car ran fine, I was getting occasional flashes of the check engine light and glow plug light). Dieselgate hit in mid-September '15. Imagine if I had just sunk $5400+ into this thing! The settlement is my saving grace. I never drove it again. The car will be making its final 2 miles to the dealer after the holidays.
I've been reading that owners are stripping their cars of whatever parts they can. VW only requires that the vehicle be in "operable condition". I am troubled with the ethics of stripping parts off my car, but I can't express how mad I am at VW for conducting this CRIMINAL campaign. The settlement doesn't go far enough in my opinion.
I will be taking my settlement money and purchasing a Subaru, most likely.
Steve87 Syncro (my daily driver since 8/15)
On Friday, December 23, 2016 11:34 AM, Jim Felder <jim.felder@GMAIL.COM> wrote:
I went by my local VW shop to pick up a thing or two yesterday and I asked
the owner how was business. He said that the VW diesel scandal has hurt
them a lot--25 to 30 percent of their former business being the care and
maintenance of scandal-era TDI stuff.
He said he had a customer with a car in the shop until a few days ago. The
high-pressure fuel pump blew up, which ruins the entire pump with
fragments. After the $$$ item was replaced the car only ran on two
cylinders--a known problem with these engines since the diesel shops cannot
seem to reliably clean out the micro-filter screens in them. Injectors
being $650 a pop, the owner decided to call the VW dealer and see what
could skate by in the buy-back program.
"We'll take it" she said, "and you'll get the full payment if the car will
run on its own for 30 seconds, even on one cylinder." She went on to
explain that they had bought back cars with no doors and no interior.
Don't know if all this is accurate or not, but it suggests that there soon
won't be any of the scandal-era diesels around, and with VW getting out of
the diesel business altogether as was announced last week, the diesel-cide
will probably go back many years further that.
Jim
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