What's a 'reasonable' length of time for a safety component to last?

teb558

Rodders53 said:

Sure it's an antenna (aerial)? and not a battery to power the system in the event other battery(s) power sources fail/are disconnected in the crash.

A backup antenna is a non-moving non-powered part that should have an extremely long life unless physically damaged.

I suspect that, had you investigated the VW forums and/or Googled the problem, you could have found out how to fix it yourself for relative peanuts.  That said, it might still have needed a dealer visit (or reputable indie) to reset fault codes and enable the replacement.  

The batteries seem to be rechargeable Lithium ion type and genuine VW items on eBay are 10x your dealers charge...  I'd not expect one to need replacing ever if the charging circuit and supply in good order though.

Check out with Dealer on part (google part number on invoice) and check VW forums for your specific model and how common the issue is ...  You may be able to ask VW customer services for a goodwill contribution even if out of warranty.

I was the aerial.  I have the part number.  It's is non-moving, so shouldn't wear out.

I took the care to two independent VW specialists and both said it's 'dealer-only' and that they couldn't touch it. I did indeed google it many times and came to the same conclusion.  You need special equipment to diagnose the issue, which could be one of several things.  You can't do it yourself.  The error is quite common though.  In some cases it's a whole new control unit, which would have been £1500 just for the part, so I probably got off lightly with just an aerial, but I would have expected it to last a lot longer than it did.