2007 Reg Car from Dealer MOT with Advisory

pitkin2020

bigjl wrote: »

Yawn, did you read all of that on Honest John then.

VW, are by no means the builders of rock solid cars, I had a DSG Passat go bang on me, it was the DMF that took out the gearbox, I did comment about this a while ago, glad I didn't have to pay for that.

DTi fuel pump for £1k, are you buying them from Vauxhall, you need to shop around, maybe ask on the forum for proper advice.

DMF on a Mondeo costing £1k, are you buying from Ford or what?

Lets not forget that the Sharon/Galaxy/Alhambra was also very prone to DMF issues.

The problems with the Mondeo where largely sorted with the upgraded parts from about 2004 onwards, mine is on the original at over 160k, original fuel pump, injectors aswell actually, as is Hammymans Mondeo, I believe his car is also on this kind of mileage..

The new Passat, 2006 onwards, is not a patch on the old one according to many whose opinion isn't swayed by advertising income for the magazine. And the old one had issues with odd tyre wear due to worn suspension parts and was also a common car to fail the MOT on front suspension wear.

A lot of VW's have had issues with injector wear and fuel pump issues in N America, American forums are full of such comments and threads.

I think you need to form your own opinions from personal experience or the witnessed experiences of you peers, otherwise you are just repeating rumour.

And no, they didn't buy a petrol Mondeo, that would be rather stupid don't you think.

Though they were certainly glad to get rid of their Passats, almost certainly to be bought later by somebody that will defend the superb build quality and reliability of their VW, even whilst spending money on it and getting fed up trying to solve the odd tyre wear and trying to figure out why they now have a sore back after driving it.

However I would never try to put people off their intended purchase, though I will happily put forward things that I know about myself, or things that have happened to friends and relay this information, though i won't continue unsubstantiated internet rumours.

If you want a well built VW then buy a Skoda, for some reason they seem to be able to build a more reliable car out of VW parts than VW at the moment, wierd, but there you go.

The Met Police bought some old shape Passats, back in 2004/5, they used them for the Dog Units, but they never replaced tham with VW's though. Funny that..............

Overpriced and not as reliable as many think, though I believe the main issue was the soggy handling and suspension wear according to the Dog Handler I spoke to a while ago.

Funny how these are normally one driver vehicles and are the least hammered vehicles in the Met.........

Thankfully I am talking from personal experience and I do agree with some of your comments. Whilst a lot of these faults are reported on forums that is the nature of forums, people only visit them when they have a problem so the problem always appears to be more.

As for the vauxhall fuel pump it is around the 1k at the cheap end of the scale fitted, I know this as I have had to replace one myself. If I went to vauxhall they wanted 1k for the pump plus another £550 for the fitting. The pump recondition was £695 + Vat and I can assure that was the cheapest and was a !!!!! to find. If I could have fitted it myself then it would have been the cost of the pump alone. The prices I have given are an average cost not an exact cost.

Again look around the forums and you'll get an average cost of replacing injectors/DMF on the mondeo and they do range anywhere from £600-£1200 depending on who they use, its just an average.

I have atleast 6 friends driving around a car/van from the VAG range and all have been trouble free with regards to the engine.

I'm not saying no car is without its fault, i'm looking for a new car now myself so have spent a lot of time looking for all the major faults of each mark i'm looking at. I am fully aware the fault % is very low, if it was very high no one would be buying them. Trouble is everything I have looked seems a superb buying price used but stupidly high prices when it goes wrong.

As for the police cars I think you will funding has a lot to do with the choice of purchases as well as the service offered for the manufacturer. Most police forces now keep minimum mechanics on and most cars go back to the dealership. A family friend has been a police mechanic for the last 30+ years and even he says now all they are allowed to do is replace the odd bulb, fix the window winder if it comes off put a new wing mirror back on the rest has to go back to the dealership. He spends most of his day driving fords/volvos back to the dealership for menial jobs they should be able to do themselves.

bigjl

Certainly not how it works in London.

The only vehicle that visits main dealers were the first lot of BMWs, normally with fueling problems.

The only time they send vehicles to the main dealer in the LAS is when the Zafiras have repeated issues with the DPF.

This is due to time constraints not budget, though i believe Vauxhall do contribute to th new engines we have fitted to the 1.9 cdti Zafiras.

The early 2.0DTi Zafiras are pretty hardy, only issues we have had since 2003 has been EGR and turbo related, not had any fuel injection related problems, this may be down to the fact we only run them on BP diesel, our fitters also regularly change engines on Ambulances when required.

Every Force and Ambulance service will be different, Essex Plod for example do most of their own body repairs and also re battenberg them afterwards, LAS sub contracts bodywork out. And when they reshell a Zafira it is done by a garage in Essex.

More Police Forces and Ambulance trusts are merging maintenance facilities, sometimes the Fire Brigade also merge.

Down in GWAS area they have such a superfitters. I believe it is all three services.

Police Forces are by far and away the best at running the fleets, too many back handers in the NHS Fleet departments.