Bought a 6C Blue GT and I love it - but I am having a mare since its last service

[CaI]

Hi. I bought my 6C Blue GT last October, almost went for the GTI but the BGT is a nice compromise. I have a bit of a long winded post, so please bear with me.

I love the car but since having it serviced by VW in late July it has given me nothing but trouble. The service was a major so included plugs and various other things, carried out FOC under the Das Welt Auto agreement.

Since the service I have had problems with it misfiring twice and on both occasions when roadside assistance were called out they found problems relating to cylinder 2 and each time the person stated the plugs had been overtightened.

The first time it happened the coil pack was split and the plug was missing its ceramic insulator. When it was recovered to the dealership they claimed the missing part of the spark plug was "sitting on top of the piston crown". They compression tested two cylinders and the disparity between pressures was 15%, which they claim is within tolerances and not even worth investigating, not even enough to test the other two. They said there was a slight mark on the piston crown. When I asked them to write a statement that they are happy no lasting engine damage has occurred and that if it starts to burn oil excessively within a reasonable period I won't be expected to foot the bill, they wouldn't, only stating that the car performed as normal after a test. Spark plug and coil pack were replaced "under warranty", which was nice of them.

The second time the misfire happened the spark plug was again overtightened and not gapped properly (perhaps exacerbated by overheating due to being overtightened), but the roadside tech was able to fix this by the side of the road, advising on the report form of the over tightening, that his fix was TEMPORARY and to take car back to the dealership and have them replace plugs and re-tighten to proper torque setting. I drove to the dealership today and was in effect asked, on explaining that this had happened again, what I wanted them to do about it. Their attitude is shocking, and when he went behind the glass to speak to the manager I could tell by the body language that it was basically a big fat FU to the customer.

The upshot is they're saying they can look at the car next week, which is fine as it is drivable for now, but that's where the obligation seemed to end. I work in the service industry and I know full well how this is likely to go - the dealership won't admit any wrongdoing despite this happening twice since the service and two independent qualified people both stating the plugs were overtightened.

At what point would it be prudent for me to involve VW UK in this? My warranty runs out mid Oct and I know if it drags on after this they will do their best to stiff me as much as they can so I need to be proactive. If this happens a third time, as much as I like the car I would be looking to go down the road of rejecting it, I still have two years of PCP left so I know this won't be easy but at what point can you draw the line and say enough is enough?

My god, thanks for reading my ramble if you got this far!!

[Mikeso51]

Hi CaI,

Since no-one has replied to your message I thought I’d chip in. My experience may have some relevance. I bought a VW approved 22k mile ‘66-plate Blue Gt from my local main dealer at the end of last year and quickly became aware of a faint whirring noise from the gearbox, most noticeable when the engine/gearbox was hot. Dealer had 3 different technicians listen to it on two different occasions, and they couldn’t agree. 2 said it was a noisy clutch release bearing, which made no sense to me because the noise stopped when the clutch was depressed. The third agreed with me that it sounded like a noisy gearbox input shaft bearing. Eventually the dealer produced a similar mileage Blue Gt which made a similar, though lesser, noise when hot. The conclusion was that “they all do that to some extent sir”. As with your situation, the dealer would not give me anything in writing to cover me if the gearbox failed prematurely, merely pointing out that the car was under 12 months Das Welt warranty. Now, to be fair, a couple of other forum members have said that their cars make an apparently similar noise, and “my” noise hasn’t changed in 1000 miles, but it still worries me. My intention is therefore to extend the warranty for another year when the current one expires in November.

[Robbo770]

Get the vow dealer to supply 4 new plugs FOC, take the plugs to local independent you used before and have them fit them, check the plugs with pictures of each prior to fitting to record the condition of the plugs and make.

Ensure genuine vw supply from dealer,

Or if finance is on car, contact them and report issue, ask for reselution or unwind of purchase, that will motivated the dealer to get off their arse