Introduction
- Thread starter veedub6
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L7D4R
Very nice. I love that blue. So what made you stray from VW? I was seriously considering the new Golf SportWagen (arriving next next spring) on the new MQB platform, but read about too many bad experiences with VW reliability. Also when people took their problems to their VW dealerships, things seemed to get worse for them.
Welcome Veedub6, nice rides! L7D4R, those reliability issues are real. $750 for a clutch operated alternator, whaaat?!
As I've mentioned elsewhere on the forums, I came to the CX-5 after it turned out my Jetta Wagon was going to cost me $10k to put to rights. This after close to $8k in various repairs to get it 100k miles (and would have been much, much more but for the warranty work.
Admittedly, an older model (2001), and the MkIV platform was broadly considered to be the nadir of VW's reliability woes, but when something goes wrong on a VW, it goes expensive wrong. I drove great, though. I miss it.
Admittedly, an older model (2001), and the MkIV platform was broadly considered to be the nadir of VW's reliability woes, but when something goes wrong on a VW, it goes expensive wrong. I drove great, though. I miss it.
What that $10K repair the infamous shattered TDI fuel pump? I was considering a TDI VW Wagon until I read forum posts on that repair. Shutter to think of it.
Nah, I had the 1.8T, which was a wonderful engine surrounded by horrible everything else. The final straw was the simultaneous death of (yet another) clutch and the tranny, plus a dead AC, overdue front end work, overdue battery replacement, assorted electrical troubles (rear defroster couldn't go 15k miles without failure), brakes, timing belt, etc. etc.
A lot of that was non-criical items that had piled up because the repairs came so frequently that I tended to do triage, attending to critical/safety stuff over things like the air conditioner or defroster. Like I say, it was a blast to drive and if I thought VW could build a car with reasonable reliability, and had a dealer network that didn't feature so many incompetents, I would probably be driving the SportWagen even now (except for the totally meh styling). But stuff like TDI horror stories make me run screaming in the opposite direction, and the current 2.5l gas engine doesn't do anything for me.
So with the CX-5 I get better gas milage, more accessible/useful cargo space, better amenities (at a given trim level), much worse stock stereo (oh well, I generally upgrade my stereo anyway), somewhat less involving driving dynamics (but not nearly as less involving as the CUV body and height would suggest) and, god willing, vastly lower cost of ownership. CX-5 is an inch shorter and two inches wider than the current SportWagen, and comes in at similar money.
Thanks for the comments. It's actually a MK6 Golf R and I didn't stray away from VW, still own it. The CX-5 is actually my daily and the R just happens to be my weekend grocery getter now. CX-5 was overall great car for the money and lowest ownership cost. I was surprised that CX-5 came with standard rear-view camera at the price/trim level. I didn't think it would come in handy, but that's the only thing I wish my VW had. VW is a hit or miss, I hear horror stories of the repairs, but my 1st generation Touareg V8 had no issues except up to the point before trade-in when fuel pump went bad.
I hear you about the hit and miss. I really wanted to believe that my experience was flukey and that I might get "one of the good ones" if I gave it another go. At the end of the day I didn't feel like I wanted to take that risk. One variable seems to be how long people keep their cars. Things generally seem to go pretty well for the first 60k miles or so, then you get hit with a big repair bill and figure you might as well bite the bullet because the car has been fun and reliable up to that point, and next thing you know you're chasing your sunk costs in the hopes the next repair will be the last one for a while.
So folks that trade in their cars within the 60k window report trouble free driving and wonder why people give VW a bad rap, whereas people that intend to drive their car for 150k or so gradually go mad. Like with your Toureg-- you bailed with just the fuel pump (which I'm guessing was a significant expense to replace), but if you had hung on to it you may have well had a lot more to report.
So folks that trade in their cars within the 60k window report trouble free driving and wonder why people give VW a bad rap, whereas people that intend to drive their car for 150k or so gradually go mad. Like with your Toureg-- you bailed with just the fuel pump (which I'm guessing was a significant expense to replace), but if you had hung on to it you may have well had a lot more to report.
