The car was bought new on 30th June 2009 [initially for my wife, who since sold it on to my son in late 2010] and has only 23K miles on it.
Was booked into the dealer on Thursday for an 'interim' service, with a request to clean the sparkplugs and carry out a regap to 29thou.
He didn't half get a shock when he went to pick it up again when he was told it would quite likely require a new engine!
Because of his misfire report, apparantly they decided to do a compression test and the #1 cylinder is well down at 70 compared to 160 for the other three! When he brought it home there is now a pronounced tapping noise at idle!
..almost as if a tappet wasn't filling with oil. I also thought there was a quite strong petrol smell from the exhaust. To say he is in shock is an understatement!Of course the car is one month out of warranty and initial approaches by the dealer to VW have suggested a 70/30% split on cost [about £1K by my son] which there is no way I will settle for! It needs be 100% by VW!
From my understanding of the problems posted on these forums, VW should be well aware of the issues with this engine by now. My stance is that all affected cars should have been recalled for a free sparkplugs upgrade when the replacement was issued in November last year, and maybe the problem could have been spotted then, when it was in warranty.
In any event, a 23K mileage is the equivalent of about 2 years average motoring and certainly shouldn't result in an engine failure within such a short period on a new car!
I'm 60 years old and the last time I heard of any compression issue on a 'new' car must have been about 40 years ago! And even then, mileages were at least 60K plus.
Current position is I registered a complaint with Customer Care on Friday and have been allocated a case referral number which I will discuss again on Monday when they reopen.
Am I right in thinking that if the car continues to be driven in this state [my son needs it for daily travel to work] then there is a good chance it might destroy the catalytic converter with 'unburnt' fuel?
BTW I'm not sure whether his software is fully up to date, but do know it was done at the prior service as the gearchange numbers now appear in the display.
If anyone has any comment to make on how I might persuade VW to cover the full cost of this faux pas, I'd be very grateful. There is a further 'complication' when the servicing dealer stated that in such cases VW like to see a contribution by the dealer which they would 'match' - in this case 15% each, but the dealer did not supply the car in the first instance, so my view is why should they be asked to contribute anything? We have been 'banned' from the supplying dealer as I had to sue them over truly shocking delivery paintwork on my wife's present Golf Match [same basic engine too minus the 'charger!] She is now considering moving her car on, after learning about this....
Have a look at this thread by the detailer who did the correction [the first damage pics are mine] http://www.detailingworld.co.uk/forum/s ... p?t=188296" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Here's another I posted at the time
http://forums.thedigitalfix.com/forums/ ... p?t=598936" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;