So here’s the thing; I've had my R for the past 18 months and to be honest I think it’s a real corker of a car! Whilst I was quite disheartened when I departed from my previously well-loved MKV GTi Pirelli Edition, stepping into the R I soon forgot her. For me the R offers everything I want from a performance car with the added practicality of a day-to-day family hatch; it's absolutely sublime.
So why the post entitled ‘reliability’ – and it's nothing to do with VW’s current emissions rigging scandal but more closer to home and something I’d like to share. To date, having covered 15k miles I’ve had the corner lights fail (blown bulb), the battery replaced in one of the key FOB’s (minor I know but still...), the oil light on 5 times this year (each requiring a top-up) and more recently the ESC light coming on periodically. The last issue was the biggest concern and so having the local VW dealers look into it and (on the second attempt) would you believe that they discovered the car had a leaking water pump which obviously needed replacing along with various connectors and sensors. Oh, and at the same time they also found that the car had a faulty exhaust 1 flap controller module fault (?) which they also replaced. With regards to the amount of oil top-ups the dealership has said that “VW have stated that the amount of top-ups is within the tolerance levels of the car and that this type of engine could use up to 0.5l of oil per 10000km”! Even if this is the case, and I’d be interested to see what you folks think, given that I’ve top the oil up 5 times since December this year and covered about 8km the figures don’t add up. When I question this I got some excuse about how ‘refine’ oil is these days so you would expect an engine such as in the R to require some top-ups! Now don’t get me wrong, I’m more than capable of topping up the oil from time to time but I’ve been driving new cars for the last 20 years (pretty much a new one every 3 – 4 years) and I’ve never, ever had to top up the oil!
Anyway thought I’d just put that out there for comment …. Oh and whilst I’ve got your attention can someone please tell me how you get the ‘coming home’ lights setting to remain on? The dealer apparently update my ‘software’ and said it should all work now but having followed the manual (several times) it still only works on that one occasion you set it and not every time you switch off the engine in darkness – have I missed a trick somewhere????
So why the post entitled ‘reliability’ – and it's nothing to do with VW’s current emissions rigging scandal but more closer to home and something I’d like to share. To date, having covered 15k miles I’ve had the corner lights fail (blown bulb), the battery replaced in one of the key FOB’s (minor I know but still...), the oil light on 5 times this year (each requiring a top-up) and more recently the ESC light coming on periodically. The last issue was the biggest concern and so having the local VW dealers look into it and (on the second attempt) would you believe that they discovered the car had a leaking water pump which obviously needed replacing along with various connectors and sensors. Oh, and at the same time they also found that the car had a faulty exhaust 1 flap controller module fault (?) which they also replaced. With regards to the amount of oil top-ups the dealership has said that “VW have stated that the amount of top-ups is within the tolerance levels of the car and that this type of engine could use up to 0.5l of oil per 10000km”! Even if this is the case, and I’d be interested to see what you folks think, given that I’ve top the oil up 5 times since December this year and covered about 8km the figures don’t add up. When I question this I got some excuse about how ‘refine’ oil is these days so you would expect an engine such as in the R to require some top-ups! Now don’t get me wrong, I’m more than capable of topping up the oil from time to time but I’ve been driving new cars for the last 20 years (pretty much a new one every 3 – 4 years) and I’ve never, ever had to top up the oil!
Anyway thought I’d just put that out there for comment …. Oh and whilst I’ve got your attention can someone please tell me how you get the ‘coming home’ lights setting to remain on? The dealer apparently update my ‘software’ and said it should all work now but having followed the manual (several times) it still only works on that one occasion you set it and not every time you switch off the engine in darkness – have I missed a trick somewhere????