V10 Towrag reliability?
Discussion
Toady1 said:
Anyone got any hard evidence ie actual ownership experience of these? Im guessing in real world terms they only actually do about 5mpg less all round than a 2.5, would that be a fair guess?
My brother in law owned one for a while. I drove it a few times. Nice car. If you gave it the beans I seem to recall it returning about 17MPG. Normal driving - 20s. He had no reliability issues with it (other than his wife reversing it up a tree).The must be pretty cheap by now?
I have heard some interesting stories about gearbox reliability but I am struggling to find hard evidence to back them up....
Take a shufti at www.honestjohn.co.uk as there are some other things mentioned on there.
Glen
Take a shufti at www.honestjohn.co.uk as there are some other things mentioned on there.
Glen
Edited by GlenMH on Thursday 13th November 00:53
Have had for 2 1/2 years and just over 40k miles. My ownership experience has been a bit of a mixed bag really 
The engine is a monster, so much torque and sounds nice too. Is great as a motorway cruiser, less than 2, 000 rpm at 80 mph so very relaxed. Have gotten around 22 mpg average across the board, with 26 mpg possible at 80 in cruise on long trips, and once even got 30 mpg driving with slippers on + egg shells stuck to the soles!
Service costs are sensible, I have done 19k miles between services using long life oil …. has variable service intervals where the car counts down to the service. Brake discs / pads are dear although if you wanted they could be procured from a German motor factor and fitted by a specialist to save a few quid. The car does however go through more rubber than Ann Summers! Get around 10k miles from tyres, with them costing around £175 each for P-zero's (have the 19 inch rims).
The handling is ok for such a car; remember it weighs 2.6 tons with a full tank of juice. If you push it hard will understeer and you can really feel the weight of the heavy engine up from. The gearbox is smooth and slick, though despite having the latest software upgrades done it sometimes gets confused at roundabouts / junctions when you are rolling at low slow and need to pull away quickly ..... upon flooring the throttle the gearbox takes a little while (a split second, but feels longer!) to decide what gear it should select before blasting off. This can be alleviated by using the sport mode, but I find this is only really worth using for overtaking given it quickly drops a couple of cogs and really gets you moving.
The downside of ownership: have had a few problems with it of varying severity. Some minor like airbag lights, some pretty bad like a non start issue (caused by faulty engine speed sensor) and a new prop shaft due to a failed UJ. The major one this year was a new cylinder head ..... the car started using loads of water, and eventually was diagnosed as a cracked head. VW argued the toss for weeks over responsibility even though was under warranty (see below), the car was off the road for 8 weeks and it all ended up a farce. I had a nice Jetta loaner for the duration but overall I thought it was handled poorly by VW themselves (the dealer was great).
I would VERY strongly suggest you buy one from a main dealer so you get a pukka warranty and check that this ALL component VW warranty can be extended after a year. I actually forgot to extend mine before expiry, and hence when I did try to renew was only eligible (despite having a full VWSH and had an inspection done on the car prior to renewal) for the VW limited named component warranty meaning any one claim had a max payout of £1, 000. The bill on the new prop was £1500 with the dealer covering the extra £500. When the engine blew the bill was mind blowing, VW paid a good lump after arguing for weeks, but still leaving me with quite a sizable bill. I spoke with customer services directly and basically told them unless they coughed up the lot I would not get another VW out of principle, they didn't care and so that was that!
A good car, as long as you have a solid warranty behind you
Hope this helps
Martyn.
Edited to say: just noticed the post re. gearbox issues above, whilst mine was in for surgery was chatting to the Master Tech (as VW calls them) who said the gearbox stepper motors fail .... this is the fist sized thing on the outside of the gearbox that can be seen if you lay on your back and have a look underneath. Transfer boxes were said to fail sometimes (on all Touareg models), and also a field recall exists for the front diff (done FOC) where they change some components within the diff itself.
The engine is a monster, so much torque and sounds nice too. Is great as a motorway cruiser, less than 2, 000 rpm at 80 mph so very relaxed. Have gotten around 22 mpg average across the board, with 26 mpg possible at 80 in cruise on long trips, and once even got 30 mpg driving with slippers on + egg shells stuck to the soles!
Service costs are sensible, I have done 19k miles between services using long life oil …. has variable service intervals where the car counts down to the service. Brake discs / pads are dear although if you wanted they could be procured from a German motor factor and fitted by a specialist to save a few quid. The car does however go through more rubber than Ann Summers! Get around 10k miles from tyres, with them costing around £175 each for P-zero's (have the 19 inch rims).
The handling is ok for such a car; remember it weighs 2.6 tons with a full tank of juice. If you push it hard will understeer and you can really feel the weight of the heavy engine up from. The gearbox is smooth and slick, though despite having the latest software upgrades done it sometimes gets confused at roundabouts / junctions when you are rolling at low slow and need to pull away quickly ..... upon flooring the throttle the gearbox takes a little while (a split second, but feels longer!) to decide what gear it should select before blasting off. This can be alleviated by using the sport mode, but I find this is only really worth using for overtaking given it quickly drops a couple of cogs and really gets you moving.
The downside of ownership: have had a few problems with it of varying severity. Some minor like airbag lights, some pretty bad like a non start issue (caused by faulty engine speed sensor) and a new prop shaft due to a failed UJ. The major one this year was a new cylinder head ..... the car started using loads of water, and eventually was diagnosed as a cracked head. VW argued the toss for weeks over responsibility even though was under warranty (see below), the car was off the road for 8 weeks and it all ended up a farce. I had a nice Jetta loaner for the duration but overall I thought it was handled poorly by VW themselves (the dealer was great).
I would VERY strongly suggest you buy one from a main dealer so you get a pukka warranty and check that this ALL component VW warranty can be extended after a year. I actually forgot to extend mine before expiry, and hence when I did try to renew was only eligible (despite having a full VWSH and had an inspection done on the car prior to renewal) for the VW limited named component warranty meaning any one claim had a max payout of £1, 000. The bill on the new prop was £1500 with the dealer covering the extra £500. When the engine blew the bill was mind blowing, VW paid a good lump after arguing for weeks, but still leaving me with quite a sizable bill. I spoke with customer services directly and basically told them unless they coughed up the lot I would not get another VW out of principle, they didn't care and so that was that!
A good car, as long as you have a solid warranty behind you
Hope this helps
Martyn.
Edited to say: just noticed the post re. gearbox issues above, whilst mine was in for surgery was chatting to the Master Tech (as VW calls them) who said the gearbox stepper motors fail .... this is the fist sized thing on the outside of the gearbox that can be seen if you lay on your back and have a look underneath. Transfer boxes were said to fail sometimes (on all Touareg models), and also a field recall exists for the front diff (done FOC) where they change some components within the diff itself.
Edited by MOD500 on Friday 14th November 14:54
Don;t suppose you could PM with details of the Field recall on the front diff could you ?
Just that my Old man's front diff has gone on his 2.5 (an 04 - with approx 40K miles on it) - got quoted 3 grand for the repair and VW have made a 65% goodwill gesture on the bill. Just wondering now, after reading whether it should have had recall work done on it in the first place
Just that my Old man's front diff has gone on his 2.5 (an 04 - with approx 40K miles on it) - got quoted 3 grand for the repair and VW have made a 65% goodwill gesture on the bill. Just wondering now, after reading whether it should have had recall work done on it in the first place
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