The Arteon lease thread

[layercake]

Catflap2 said:

So after just 50 weeks wait....

It’s arrived

Any pictures?

[rlw87]

iambigred said:

After 7 months of waiting and ~4 weeks of "build in progress", I've reached 5a and now 5b. Hopefully plain sailing from this point.

I finally moved from stage 4 to 5a yesterday, and 5b today, so hopefully there's a boat ready and waiting! Taken a nice 49 weeks to get to this point, hopefully only another 2 to go!

[iambigred]

5c now!

[JLB3]

After a month or so with the 1.5 Arteon my thoughts:

Lovely looking car. Envy of the staff car-park.
Comfortable and enjoyable on long runs.
Having went through a couple of tanks of fuel I am getting around 40mpg (exclusively in wafting mode!).
I would like a little more power, the 1.5 feels like it is straining a little on occasion.
The spare key is a farce.

All in all, well worth the money.

J

[iambigred]

Finally mine is in the UK. Docs from the dealer show that the registration date is just 2 days before the new 69 plate

Surprised that the insurance costs are actually lower on the new Arteon compared to my wifes 4 year old Tiguan. I must recommend Aviva Plus car insurance as they allow policy amendments with no cost, previous insurers have charged £25-50 each time I have changed vehicle.

[ajhemingway]

Long time lurker on this thread. Seems that the worst has happened, and just wondering if anyone had any advice/suggestions of anything I can do now. In summary:

21st January - Order Placed (provisional delivery date May)
February onwards - Occasional correspondence about delays to the order
13th August - “5a” text message - car has left factory
19th August - Email from dealership to say car is on the way. Paperwork sent.
20th August - “5c” text message - car nearly in the UK
20th August - Phone call from dealership confirming all is good for delivering the car to me.
21st August - Phone call from dealership (different person to any previous correspondence) to say car can’t be registered in time so order cannot proceed.
21st August - Car disappears from VW order tracker.

So that's where I am after a wasted 8 months without a car.

The really odd bit was the abrupt change between 20th and 21st. I had plenty of correspondence up to the 20th indicating all was good, only to get a phone call from someone I'd never spoken to before saying - that's it, deal's off. I understand the background to all this (not that anyone from VW has ever actually explained it to me) but it's an absolutely ridiculous situation to be in. Why would anyone bother ordering a car from VW again after all that?

Do I just chalk this down to experience?

[saaby93]

ajhemingway said:

Long time lurker on this thread. Seems that the worst has happened, and just wondering if anyone had any advice/suggestions of anything I can do now. In summary:

21st January - Order Placed (provisional delivery date May)
February onwards - Occasional correspondence about delays to the order
13th August - “5a” text message - car has left factory
19th August - Email from dealership to say car is on the way. Paperwork sent.
20th August - “5c” text message - car nearly in the UK
20th August - Phone call from dealership confirming all is good for delivering the car to me.
21st August - Phone call from dealership (different person to any previous correspondence) to say car can’t be registered in time so order cannot proceed.
21st August - Car disappears from VW order tracker.

So that's where I am after a wasted 8 months without a car.

The really odd bit was the abrupt change between 20th and 21st. I had plenty of correspondence up to the 20th indicating all was good, only to get a phone call from someone I'd never spoken to before saying - that's it, deal's off. I understand the background to all this (not that anyone from VW has ever actually explained it to me) but it's an absolutely ridiculous situation to be in. Why would anyone bother ordering a car from VW again after all that?

Do I just chalk this down to experience?

1.5 or 2.0?

[ajhemingway]

It's the 1.5 - so I understand why I'm here. But what I can't understand is: why hadn't the dealership massively pre-empted this, rather than leading me to believe it was all OK the very last moment?

[saaby93]

ajhemingway said:

It's the 1.5 - so I understand why I'm here. But what I can't understand is: why hadn't the dealership massively pre-empted this, rather than leading me to believe it was all OK the very last moment?

Is it actually the very last moment - how long does it take to register a car? What date are they trying to meet Sept 1st?

[ajhemingway]

I suppose what I mean by last moment is that I've waited 8 months, watched the car finally hit the production line, be built, leave the factory, be put on a ship, and almost arrive in the UK (I assume it has arrived somewhere). I've then had a variety of correspondence from the dealer saying the car is on its way; been asked to complete all the paperwork; to give days I'm able to accept delivery. Only for the very next day to be told the car can't be registered in time; is going to be scrapped; and then have my order cancelled. That happened in less than 24 hours.

I'm only privy to some of what's going on behind the scenes because of this forum (for which I'm very grateful - thanks to all). But taking my experience of VW at face value, it feels very last minute i.e. wait 8 months; finally, your car is almost here, let's get everything sorted ready for delivery; to (literally) the next day - your car is being scrapped and your order is being cancelled. There must be lots of other people this is happening to that are only experiencing the VW side of things. Which must be infuriating and baffling.

Ultimately, I'm not necessarily gutted at losing out on the Arteon. I'm gutted at wasting 8 months of my life on this (4 of which I've spent without a regular access to a car). I should have ordered something else, and presumably there must be people at VW (somewhere along the chain) well aware of that fact but were happy to take my order anyway, knowing there was a significant possibility I would never actually get the car. Main thing now is that I'm not really sure of where to go from here.

[saaby93]

Anything you can do tomorrow to contact dealer again to see if can be delivered?

[Sam2019]

ajhemingway said:

I suppose what I mean by last moment is that I've waited 8 months, watched the car finally hit the production line, be built, leave the factory, be put on a ship, and almost arrive in the UK (I assume it has arrived somewhere). I've then had a variety of correspondence from the dealer saying the car is on its way; been asked to complete all the paperwork; to give days I'm able to accept delivery. Only for the very next day to be told the car can't be registered in time; is going to be scrapped; and then have my order cancelled. That happened in less than 24 hours.

I'm only privy to some of what's going on behind the scenes because of this forum (for which I'm very grateful - thanks to all). But taking my experience of VW at face value, it feels very last minute i.e. wait 8 months; finally, your car is almost here, let's get everything sorted ready for delivery; to (literally) the next day - your car is being scrapped and your order is being cancelled. There must be lots of other people this is happening to that are only experiencing the VW side of things. Which must be infuriating and baffling.

Ultimately, I'm not necessarily gutted at losing out on the Arteon. I'm gutted at wasting 8 months of my life on this (4 of which I've spent without a regular access to a car). I should have ordered something else, and presumably there must be people at VW (somewhere along the chain) well aware of that fact but were happy to take my order anyway, knowing there was a significant possibility I would never actually get the car. Main thing now is that I'm not really sure of where to go from here.

That does seem odd, if they couldn’t register the car in time, surely just hold onto it and register it at a later date? Is this to do with the number plate change to 69?

[saaby93]

Sam2019 said:

That does seem odd, if they couldn’t register the car in time, surely just hold onto it and register it at a later date? Is this to do with the number plate change to 69?

Its the new emissions regs coming in at the end of the month

[Sam2019]

saaby93 said:

Its the new emissions regs coming in at the end of the month

Right... that makes more sense, so this means even if production was delayed and car delivery was going to fall into September , it would be scrapped!

Wonder if this was a MY19 Car....

[ajhemingway]

An update. A car has miraculously been found, with almost the same spec (different colour leather is the only difference that I can see). If anyone else ends up in the same situation, it seems there are cars out there if you are persistent. An awful lot of wasted stress though!

[iambigred]

ajhemingway said:

An update. A car has miraculously been found, with almost the same spec (different colour leather is the only difference that I can see). If anyone else ends up in the same situation, it seems there are cars out there if you are persistent. An awful lot of wasted stress though!

How utterly bizarre, god knows what VW are up to. At least you got sorted in the end. They could have easily pre-empted the entire situation many weeks (even months) ago. I've seen similar stories on the Arteon Facebook group.

It seems to me that despite an order number being provided VW hold off on the finance docs until the last possible moment. I wonder at which point the contract becomes legally binding and they must provide you with the ordered vehicle (or similar).

I collect mine tomorrow. I think it was actually around 7.5 months total wait for me in the end. It had better be worth it.

[Zoon]

ajhemingway said:

An update. A car has miraculously been found, with almost the same spec (different colour leather is the only difference that I can see). If anyone else ends up in the same situation, it seems there are cars out there if you are persistent. An awful lot of wasted stress though!

I was offered the same car possibly? was it Mistral Raven leather rather than Black?

[ajhemingway]

Zoon said:

I was offered the same car possibly? was it Mistral Raven leather rather than Black?

Could well be. The "scrapped" order was for black leather. I was then offered a car with Valencia (which I really couldn't live with), and when I rejected that a car with Mistral was offered (which I accepted).

[Zoon]

ajhemingway said:

Zoon said:

I was offered the same car possibly? was it Mistral Raven leather rather than Black?

Could well be. The "scrapped" order was for black leather. I was then offered a car with Valencia (which I really couldn't live with), and when I rejected that a car with Mistral was offered (which I accepted).

Yes my order was for black then offered mistral which I didn't want as I'd already sorted another car.

[ajhemingway]

ajhemingway said:

An update. A car has miraculously been found, with almost the same spec (different colour leather is the only difference that I can see). If anyone else ends up in the same situation, it seems there are cars out there if you are persistent. An awful lot of wasted stress though!

So the car was finally delivered this morning. Two issues:
- It's covered in really hard to remove sticky residue from the factory (roof, windscreen, doors etc.)
- Washer fluid bottle is cracked and won't hold any water.

The first issue is just irritating - this could have been dealt with prior to delivery.

The latter is infuriating because it's now got to be booked in for repair.

Still, at least it's here.