VW

[swill453]

Looks like no lasting damage to their reputation in Sweden anyway. Best selling car in 2016 wasn't a Volvo for the first time in 50 years, it was a Golf.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38493295

Scott.

[Mike88]

There has been lasting damage to me as my car at least - an Audi Q3 - is the biggest pile of rubbish I have ever owned. So many faults and niggles in a car that has covered only 12000 miles is ridiculous. Last month an oil seal failed in the transfer box. Audi don't sell the seal so a new transfer box costing £3000 was required. Fortunately the cost was covered by the VW/Audi warranty but if this is an example of German engineering I will return to another marque sooner rather than later. Rant over.

[bungeejumper]

There has been lasting damage to me as my car at least - an Audi Q3 - is the biggest pile of rubbish I have ever owned. So many faults and niggles in a car that has covered only 12000 miles is ridiculous. Last month an oil seal failed in the transfer box. Audi don't sell the seal so a new transfer box costing £3000 was required. Fortunately the cost was covered by the VW/Audi warranty but if this is an example of German engineering I will return to another marque sooner rather than later. Rant over.

Sounds like an old-fashioned Friday car - you'll hear similar about every brand. That's an odd one about the oil seal, though. It sounds like you may not have been told the whole story. According to a quick Google search, a gone seal in the transfer box is likely to trash the onboard ecu, and that'll be why VW replaced the whole caboodle on a newish car rather than trying to patch it up. (And good for them - would you honestly rather that they did anything else?) FWIW, there are plenty of Q3 transfer box seals out there for sale, so I'd guess that the older-car repair situation is covered.

My three VWs have all been fantastically reliable, although VAG have had a well-publicised design problem with their aircon compressors, and with their pre-2009 DSG gearboxes. I'll be buying another Passat just as soon as Wolfsburg have got their heads out of their backsides and fixed their engine/emission problems permanently, instead of installing a bodge as at present. Oh, and sharpened up their customer relations a bit. Might take a few years. No complaints about build quality per se.

BJ