Not buying a VW ever again

At the age of 26 I purchased my third Volkswagen. Brand spanking new. My brother drives an Amarok. My mom drives a Polo. I drive a Tiguan and my wife drives a Polo. We are Volkswagen people.

But after the service I got over the past few years I will never buy a VW again, and I will not use a VW workshop again.

I recently took my Polo for a service at Lindsay Saker Edenvale. They said they needed to replace the control arm link, control arm bush and headlight. They quoted me close to R6k for this (headlight was R450), and I decided to rather take it to a trusted workshop from my hometown Fochville. I also decided to have my Tiguan looked at there.

- There was nothing wrong with the control arm link. Workshop replaced control arm bush and did wheel alignment for R1100. The headlight was replaced at a cost of R49 (vs R450!?!?) - The Tiguan had a bolt (holding the gearbox to the engine) missing!?!? It's only ever been at VW dealerships. - The Tiguan's air filter was never changed. The mechanic said that he had never seen an air filter so dirty and run down, and it should have been replaced ages ago. Volkswagen customer care said it should have been done at 60,000km service, but dealership denies this. Ironically the Tiguan was still in its service and maintenance plan at that stage, so I wouldn't have needed to pay for it back then. - The Tiguan had numerous problems after the 60,000km service (slave cylinder broke down, water pump broke, gearbox gave problems later again). So no idea if this had an influence.

In short: - VW is heavily overpriced on services and repairs - I have no confidence in the ability of their workshops, as numerous problems were identified by an independent mechanic that was never picked up by them. - The fact that they neglected to replace the air filter, and that one of the bolts on the engine was missing further enforces the idea that they have no idea what they're doing.

I reported all of this to their customer care centre. Except for receiving constant calls saying that they are looking into it, nothing happened that signalled that I was worth anything to them as a customer.

Never again Volkswagen. Not das auto.

Derik