PCP - 4 months old, want rid.

[ashleyman]

I’ll do my absolute best to explain what’s been going on here. I would like realistic advice on what I can do about my current situation.

I ordered a Golf R though Drive The Deal in January 2016. The car arrived in March 2016 and so far has been nothing but a problem. It’s not that I don’t like the car, I really do but it’s a lemon and I’m not happy.

The list of problems started off with:

badly fitted seat covers
pen marks on bolsters
broken rear bench seat-fold mechanism
squeaky exhaust valves
misaligned bumper
misaligned passenger door handle
2 scratches on rear off side quarter
clear coat lump on bonnet

The supplying dealer refused to fix the exhaust, stating it was normal so I took it to my local dealer and they confirmed it was faulty and replaced the whole exhaust system under warranty. The supplying dealer then fixed the passenger handle and front bumper, re-ordered new seat covers and rear bench fold mechanism.

The supplying dealer attempted to fix the scratches and the clear coat lump but ruined the repairs and handed back my car with buffer trails all over the bonnet, passenger door, near side wing and above the fuel cap.

I opened a case with VW UK to try and get this all rectified and basically I was told I have to give the supplying dealer one attempt at fixing the issues and then to contact VW UK again if I was not happy.

That was all in May, the dealer says they’re still waiting for the seat mechanism to come in to stock. Once it’s in they can take the car away and fix the remaining items.

However, since my last communication with the dealer I’ve now got even more issues with the car.

The first is the ACC totally messed up on Tuesday. I pressed OFF to turn it off as I was stuck in standstill traffic on the M25 and on pressing OFF the car accelerated HARD forward and I had to stamp on the brakes to stop rear ending the guy in front.

The driver carpet is coming away from under the door sill and the driver door alarm sensor glue has failed so the sensor is starting to dangle out of the door frame. The USB port has also stopped working and won’t charge or read my phone.

Obviously, it’s 4 months old and on a VWFS PCP agreement. I know a car purchase is a little different but for instance, if I was ordering a new laptop and I’d had a few issues with it, I might consider an exchange or refund. But with a car I have no idea what to do.

Some people have suggested handing the car back and walking away. This does sound good but then what do I do about needing a car? Will I get any money back such as my deposit or will I need to start again? Am I even in a position to hand the car back or should I wait to get everything repaired and see how I go….

I had a 59 plate Fiesta Zetec S before the Golf R. I bought that at 3 years old and never ever had a single problem with it. I actually miss it and regret selling it for this new Golf.

What can I do?

I've got photographic evidence of every single fault before and after fix. I've also got a thread open on the VWROC forum where I've been getting some advice about the specific issues but nothing on the finance, termination of a PCP.

I did think about putting this in Finance or SP&L but decided to put it here as it’s not a finance or law thing more just need some advice. Hope that’s ok.

[ashleyman]

Timbola said:

What is ACC?

Adaptive Cruise Control

culpz said:

As someone said above, it's not necessary as far as i'm aware to be taking the car back to the supplying dealer for them to fix. You've had better service overall from your local dealer. I'd take it back there, i'd advise and show them the list of every fault you've currently got, tell them politely that you don't want the car back until everything has been rectified and ask them for a decent enough courtesy car in the mean time.

The local dealer doesn’t want to interfere with any warranty fixes the supplying dealer is planning to do. I could go to the local dealer about the alarm sensor and carpet, but not the other stuff.

279 said:

Sorry if I’m being a bit slow here, but which fault were you hoping to be grounds to reject the car on?

The small blemishes in the bodywork of a mass produced car (that the dealer are making an effort to rectify, perhaps just not to your standards*), a part being on back order or your USB port not working (that you haven't given the dealer a chance to look at)?

As much as I can understand the disappointment of a new car not being utterly perfect, none of the issues you have describe are catastrophic and sound like almost all are easily fixed.

A 4 month parts delay is unacceptable and requires a strong conversation/letter to get that chased up and the car into the workshop to sort out the faults unrelated to the seat back as soon as possible.

Are you able to replicate the ACC fault?

And the complain about 'pen marks on bloaters'. Both of them? From the day you collected it? Really?

*By all means if the door handle and bumper are hanging off and the paintwork looks like it was polished down with a emery paper feel free to post pictures.

This is what I’m trying to understand. Any one of the single issues is not grounds to warrant a replacement or handing back but what with everything combined coupled with a bad service from the supplying dealer I’m trying to figure out what it is I can do about it.

SturdyHSV said:

Given that they will all run the same software and hardware and seemingly nobody else has encountered this, I'd be inclined to think this is more likely.

I mean, come on OP, what's more probable? You have a one off murderous Golf that churned off the same production line as the other hundreds of thousands of Golfs but carries a unique trait that only happened this once whereby it launched you at the car in front, or you pressed the wrong button on this one occasion?

I pressed OFF in the same way that I have done hundreds of times since collecting the car. The Auto-Hold, Auto-Handbrake were all switched on, same as normal.

Tuvra said:

The Resume button wouldn't cause this. The car would still be aware that there was traffic in front so hitting resume wouldn't do anything. I guarantee he knocked the auto handbrake off as explained in my earlier reply....

This was also in my mind. The ACC wouldn’t move the car under normal operation if it sensed a car in front. There was a car in front so why the ACC made the car drive forward, I don’t know. I still don’t trust the ACC 100% so had my foot over the brake just in case anything happened, which it did.

[ashleyman]

xRIEx said:

It would if he'd switched off ACC and it was just in 'Normal' cruise mode, and the system had '70mph' stored as the most recent standard, non-adaptive cruise speed.

I had the speed on 40MPH as I was in traffic and the overhead speed limits were 40. When this happened it was a complete standstill.

I didn't think the Golf R had 'normal' set cruise speed. There's 2 functions on mine, cruise and speed limit. Cruise is all adaptive and radar based. You certainly can't set it to 70 and let it crash into the back of someone, thats what the radar is for and it should slow you down.

[ashleyman]

Tuvra said:

It was the handbrake, trust me

It wasn't the handbrake and I'd be grateful if you'd stop assuming and telling people that I incorrectly pressed the handbrake button.

The handbrake and auto-hold buttons are in the centre console. The cruise control settings are on the left hand side of the steering wheel. You have to use your left hand to press both buttons. It's impossible for me to be pressing OFF on the steering wheel with my left hand whilst also pressing the handbrake buttons off at the same time.

I can without a doubt say that I pressed OFF, I was nowhere near the handbrake or auto-hold buttons.
Even if I had pressed RES. the radar should have detected a car in front and not accelerated as hard as it did.

Yes, it's a DSG Golf R.

Edited by ashleyman on Monday 1st August 10:09

[ashleyman]

279 said:

Sorry if I’m being a bit slow here, but which fault were you hoping to be grounds to reject the car on?

The small blemishes in the bodywork of a mass produced car (that the dealer are making an effort to rectify, perhaps just not to your standards*), a part being on back order or your USB port not working (that you haven't given the dealer a chance to look at)?

As much as I can understand the disappointment of a new car not being utterly perfect, none of the issues you have describe are catastrophic and sound like almost all are easily fixed.

A 4 month parts delay is unacceptable and requires a strong conversation/letter to get that chased up and the car into the workshop to sort out the faults unrelated to the seat back as soon as possible.

Are you able to replicate the ACC fault?

And the complain about 'pen marks on bloaters'. Both of them? From the day you collected it? Really?

*By all means if the door handle and bumper are hanging off and the paintwork looks like it was polished down with a emery paper feel free to post pictures.

Lots of this, all over the car.

[ashleyman]

vtecyo said:

I think that's a whole new thread entirely..

It was supposed to say pen marks on the bolsters. Sorry!

[ashleyman]

Tuvra said:

I know exactly where the auto hold button is, this is what I reckon happened:-

• You accidentally hit the auto hold button earlier in the journey (disabling it)
• The traffic comes to a standstill, you bring the car to a stop and apply the auto handbrake by pushing the brake pedal down hard (which has been accidentally disabled)
• You press "ACC off" while lifting you foot off the brake, the car "jumps" forward (because the Auto Hold has been disabled).
• The ACC / Accident avoidance warning lights up red in front of you. It lit up red because it feared you rear ending the car in front.

I am not suggesting you hit the Auto Hold feature off at the very moment the car jumped forward, I suggested you hit it some time before.

I strongly believe this as I did almost exactly the same thing. I would bet my life on it that you have either accidentally knocked the Auto Hold button or the Auto Hold feature has some how failed. This is not a ACC problem, you pressing the off button as the car jumped forward is nothing but a coincidence.

All IMHO

I never had my foot on the brake when turning ACC off though. It was at a standstill with the green handbrake light showing on the dash - same as normal when stopped in traffic. I pressed OFF and the car moved off.

If you're correct and I had disabled the auto-hold or handbrake earlier in the journey. Why did the car not shoot forwards when I took my foot off the brake after recovering the car setting off by itself? Surely if I had turned the Auto-hold/handbrake off then when I removed my foot from the brake it would have moved again right?

Only, it didn't. When I pressed off, it moved. I put my foot on the brake HARD so it stopped. Then took my foot off the brake and it stayed where it was just the same as it has done every single time. I never touched any buttons to do with the handbrake or auto-hold. It functions exactly as it should now, just as it did the other day. The ONLY difference was the car moving by itself when I pressed OFF on ACC.

I'm open to hearing what you have to say but I've not enabled the auto-hold or anything since this has happened and it's working as you would expect it too.

[ashleyman]

edo said:

As POORCARDEALER said, send a letter to VWFS formally rejecting the car, briefly listing the issues, the timelines and all the problems still present. Reference the conversations/case with VW customer services.

Give them a timeline to collect the car.

I appreciate this but what happens? I reject the car? Do I get my money back or is it hand back and walk away entirely loosing my deposit and what I've paid so far?

[ashleyman]

Tuvra said:

Fair enough, as long as your 100% what actually happened, I know I was a bit shook up and thinking "WTF" when I did it.

I am still 100% sure that its the Auto Hold feature that has gone wrong and the pushing of the Cruise control button is a coincidence though

I was defiantly a bit WTF. Scared me enough to not use it for the rest of the journey.

I didn't turn it off, and it wasn't off as it didn't happen the second time, I didn't accelerate. The car just did it by itself. Perhaps the auto-hold had decided to give up but either way it shouldn't have happened regardless of the fault and is just another thing added to my list of car issues

[ashleyman]

Jader1973 said:

I suspect accident damage too. Possibly damaged in transit from the factory to the dealer, or damaged by the dealer themselves.

Check the build date on the car. Also did it take longer than you were told it would to be delivered?

Build Week - 22/02/2016

The tracker updates I had via email were as follows:
23/02/2016 - Left the Factory
26/02/2016 - On it's way to retailer
15/03/2016 - 10 days left
16/03/2016 - In the UK
23/03/2016 - To retailer
26/03/2016 - Collected

Collected for initial repairs on 31/05/2016
Returned faulty on 08/06/2016 - parts ordered (seat cover and fold mechanism). I went and got the car myself as there was no communication from them.

Exhaust fitted by local retailer on 20/06/2016

I chased up about parts on 04/07/2016 - was told seat covers arrived but other part did not.

and thats everything so far. They won't arrange collection of the car for the remaining faults to be fixed until the final parts arrive.

[ashleyman]

Sheepshanks said:

So the dealer says "no"? What then?

I've never done this, but I have a Merc and it's becoming quite common on the Mercedes forum. Key thing seems to be to get the supplying dealer principal / general manager on side. They can mange the return of the car and its replacement.

As the OP bought the car remotely, that's going to be tough. I tried DtD for the Tiguan we bought back end of last year but when they wouldn't tell me the supplying dealer I went through CarWow instead. Both local dealers quoted.


ETA: As for the electronics not working, old Tiguan doesn't have ACC but there's a current thread on the Tiguan forum I use about autohold and handbrake not working and cars rolling.

Edited by Sheepshanks on Monday 1st August 11:26

I did get someone else higher up involved and he basically said feel free to take us to court. VW UK know that too. My case with VW UK is closed though as they said that their policy is to let the retailer have one go at rectifying issues before they get involved. So I need to give them one chance to fix this before they'll touch it.

But I'm now at a point where there are so many issues that it's just becoming a pain and interfering with many other important tasks. Taking time out to return the car or letting them collect, having to document and photograph all the faults, being without MY car whilst they fix it. Non-communication and long wait times etc..

[ashleyman]

edo said:

Well a week to the dealer isnt a huge amount of time, but it is certainly enough to have spent a couple of days in a bodyshop....

Get a paint depth gauge, that will give you an idea of whether any metal panels aren't original factory paint..

KDS Keltic did this and said it all looks fine. I took it to them to get a quote on fixing the panels they'd damaged. The thin parts where were they had polished. And the extra heavy area was the repairs they did to the scratches.

[ashleyman]

Jonno02 said:

You don't go through the dealer, you go through VWUK. You're technically making a complaint about the dealer, so you don't want to write to them. There's so many problems with this car, I'd also be leaning towards has it been badly damaged in transit or at the dealers?

I've been trying to find out the VW dealer DTD use, but the OP doesn't seem keen to share the info. Guess I may be Carwow too, even though it's £2,000 more

Just sent you a PM with the dealer name and location. Was happy to share but was busy replying to the public questions first.

[ashleyman]

nickfrog said:

279 said:

The small blemishes in the bodywork of a mass produced car (that the dealer are making an effort to rectify, perhaps just not to your standards*)

An effort to rectify ? They've buffer trailed 4 panels !!!!!!!!!!

The dealer put the buffer trails there not the factory!

[ashleyman]

ok, anyway. Does anyone think I have a case for handing back the car, getting an exchange? Is it something I should pursue or just not worth thinking about?

Has anyone actually handed a car back? Whats the process? How did it go for you? What was your resolution?

I'm not a compensation we, but I really do feel like something is justified here. I've already paid for 2 years of servicing up front so not servicing. I'm on 10k miles per year that suited me but all the extra 105 mile round trips to the dealer has totally knocked my milage calculations out the window. I reckon this has added up to at least 500 miles so far not including trips to body shops or the local dealer. That's 5% of my yearly miles I can't use for myself plus the fuel costs involved in that - £120 for 2 tanks of fuel. Not a lot but still out of pocket.

I've been trying to have a think about what compensation if any I would feel appropriate and I can't think of any. Servicing, nice but already paid for. They could up my yearly milage but then that devalues the GFV at the end if I was to keep it to the end of the term. Could they give me the 19" alloys that I couldn't justify to the wife when I ordered the car? Thats a bit much £££ though. What is there that they can offer as a sorry?

I've been looking at replacement cars this morning if I was to end up handing it back and really can't find anything that would be ideal. This is why we picked the Golf R in the first place. So its not that I don't like the car its just been so much hassle since we got it.

[ashleyman]

Tuvra said:

It sounds like you've had a very rare lemon. Personally, I would push VW to rectify the problem or possibly even take another car as a replacement, they may have a delivery mileage/demo car somewhere that you may be able to have while they take in your lemon and put it right once and for all.

In terms of what else, I'd stick with it, I have done 19k trouble free miles in mine and I am genuinely worried that the Focus RS I have coming in March will not live up to the Golf R. Pound for pound I think the Golf R is towards the top of the tree in terms of bang per buck, throw £1k at a DSG car and you have a serious bit of kit, despite what the naysayers here will have you believe

It just seems to be one thing after another. I really don't have the time to be dealing with car issues. I bought a new car to try and make sure that it had maximum up-time but I seem to be spending more time trying to fix this new car than I did with the old one it replaced.

I've looked at other cars, the M140i and S3 are the next best thing but both of them would cost a lot more once you factor in Auto, Cruise and parking sensors. All things the Golf R has as standard. I would be tempted to get a replacement Golf R as it would mean I could change the colour and still keep such a great car but loose the issues. The Golf R is a fantastic machine but the issues I am having are just not cool.

[ashleyman]

lord trumpton said:

I had a similar experience with a Golf R but not on PCP.

First one had a bonnet like a plumbers radio - full of inclusions and fisheyes in the paint - obviously been painted

The replacement had poorly aligned doors on pax side. st quality - kept it 2 months.

Recently bought an Octavia vrs230 - absolutely perfect throughout. I think the Wolfsburg boys need to up their game.

How did you go about changing the first one?

[ashleyman]

Narcisus said:

If it's dsg and like my Superb the handbrake is automatic. I've owned my car 10 months the and never touched it.

Yep, my Golf R is a DSG and I haven't touched the handbrake at all.

[ashleyman]

nickfrog said:

The cost of Auto on a M140i is no different to DSG. Cruise and sensors is £500. There used to be std kit on the BMW that wasn't std on the Golf like leather, cruise, Brembos, Supersports, etc... But the main thing is that you can vet 20% to 22% off on the BMW, which should make it cheaper than the Golf.

Spoke to the wife and she wants a replacement Golf R, not a BMW, not even repair. She wants a replacement. So I guess I'll be writing some letters tomorrow.

Did just do a quick price check on DTD and they're actually a whole 1k cheaper than when we ordered in January for the same spec, not sure how I feel going through them again and using the same dealer again. The M140i is £29k which is an awesome discount.

[ashleyman]

MuscleSaloon said:

Yes, I did a couple of years ago.

Had a catalogue of errors with all sorts of stuff before even taking delivery. Soon after delivery I had one reasonably serious mechanical fault and rejected it. I had just had enough. Interesting few weeks, lots of letter writing, recorded delivery mail etc. One thing that helped - by chance I had taken some 0% finance that was offered - the finance company were great and really got involved. They were impartial to either party obviously, but once they knew my story versus the dealership who couldn't really defend their incompetence they were fighting my corner. It ended up with the dealer offering me a full refund of everything I'd paid if I signed to say it would be final and I wouldn't seek any further costs or damages from them.

Be smart, do you homework properly and have a go. Lots of good sensible legal advice on the net. Seek it out. Don't waste time with any phone calls, not one. Everything in writing, everything recorded - it costs pennies. If you go about it the right way you will quickly get to a point where you have the other parties proper attention and they will be asking you what you would actually like them to do. Now this might sound like a bold statement but from all what you've said I would absolutely guarantee to secure a new replacement vehicle.

I really appreciate this response. Thank you! Everything I've stated in the posts is all true and honest.

I've written a rejection letter. If you could have a quick read and let me know what you think that'd be fantastic. I'm planning to send it off either today or tomorrow. I still need to do a final spell check and put my address back on but you get the idea.

It's here.