Anyone ever had to complain to Vw?

[zoomered]

Just had the car in for a little warranty work and received a call an hour before i meant to pick it up asking if i had been topping up my coolant alot?! To which i replied no i haven't topped it up in the 6 months i have owned it as it has always been fine at my weekly check.

Turns out while they had the car up in the ramp they noticed the radiator is leaking! And went on to inform me that it would not be covered under my "All component warranty"    Reason being "corrosion"

I asked to inspect the car in the ramp and there is not a single bit of corrosion on the radiator, not visible anyway. So if its corroded from the inside out then surely as i have a full vw service history meaning coolant has been changed at correct intervals by vw, and bought the car only 6 months ago directly as an approved from vw this should be covered? If its corroded from the outside in-the-way then why is there no sign of corrosion on the outside??

To complicate things more, i had the fans replaced under warranty by a vw approved repairer 2 months ago, which has since closed down, so im thinking they may have even damaged the rad while replacing the fans!

Anyone ever had to complain to vw direct and had any success, tips etc,

Thanks and sorry for the rant, just can't see how this ain't covered.

[sub39h]

i wouldn't "complain", just call VW and explain to them the situation. i assume with a warranty your car will be under 5 years old - a rad should last longer than that if treated properly and i'd imagine that Trading Standards would stick by you on that. your point about the fans being replaced shouldn't matter as it was an approved VW repairer. if they didn't do their job properly their work should be warrantied for 2 years by VW UK.

i had a coolant leak on my car which turned out to be a worn hose - this is counted as a wear and tear item and was also not covered by the warranty. now i have a very good relationship with my dealer, so when i called Audi UK they called the dealer and the dealer had already worked out a better price for me than Audi UK were going to offer. (Audi UK were going to halve the cost, the dealer did significantly more than that of their own accord.)

[robby]

I had a mk5 Golf and 2006 A3 TDi which both needed new radiators due to corrosion

Apparently it's a common problem on these cars and the corrosion is nearly always at the bottom corners - another poor design

Golf was under warranty, A3 was done through dealers at £500 fitted