Government to probe 'killer' Volkswagens

[new2ford]

Originally Posted by DJM83

Funnily enough neither have either if my GERMAN designed and built Focus. But these things can happen to any brand.

A friend of mine who's an independent quality control engineer in Germany says the best-built German cars today are the Fords. If you want a good VW make sure it's made in Czech Republic (called Skoda). The VWs built in Slovakia (mainly Touareg) are also better than German quality.

German "quality" ain't what it used to be and that's across a number of industries. Still pretty good but no longer necessarily the best.

[ryeman]

I seem to remember the Germans used a lot of Turkish 'guest' assembly line workers, don't know if that's still the case.

[MITCHAY]

I had an issue once where my WRX completely turned off in peak hour at I think it was 80-100km/h because the security system engaged the immobilizer as it turned out. So I can understand how unnerving it is when it happens. Funny how people don't know what hazards lights are for though.

[GTP-RPD]

It stops just like a Golf.......

[Danny]

Originally Posted by stevz

If these cars are fitted with the collision avoidance system which automatically applies the brakes when they sense an impending collision - then yes, I think it is quite possible that this could happen in the event of a system malfunction.

Yeah but they don't have those systems so yeah...

Meh, they should have black boxes. Be ideal in situations like this so the real culprit can be found before the usual sensationalist media shttstormers can get off over headlines like Killer VW's GROUNDING to a halt, Trucks BEARING down on hapless motorists at an alarming rate..

Black Box. There's a nice Aussie invention for ya ;)

[Whitey-AMG]

Originally Posted by SS_01

Its assemebled in other countries correct, but the tolerances have to be within 2% no matter where the vehicle is assembled.

That's what the marketing guys at VW will tell you.
Indonesian tolerances within 2% of experienced german manufacturers.....really.

[DJM83]

Originally Posted by Danny

Yeah but they don't have those systems so yeah...

Meh, they should have black boxes. Be ideal in situations like this so the real culprit can be found before the usual sensationalist media shttstormers can get off over headlines like Killer VW's GROUNDING to a halt, Trucks BEARING down on hapless motorists at an alarming rate..

Black Box. There's a nice Aussie invention for ya ;)

Dont let the truth get in the way of a good story

[Franco Cozzo]

Originally Posted by Pinkbits

Not just confined to one make either.
My company car, a 2011 D40 Navara was continuingly going in to limp mode at any time.
It would happen at any time & under different driving conditions. Each time it happened I reported it to my dealer only to be told there was not fault code showing.
The straw that broke the camels back was when it lost power midway through a roundabout & I was nearly t-boned.
They had it for a week as I told them it was now a OH&S matter & that the vehicle was unsafe. They told me they had tried to replicate the fault & had re flashed it three times to no avail (no loan car either!).
It did I again soon after & I took it back & demanded someone from Nissan customer service contact me as I wanted a replacement car.
They scanned it on the spot & funny enough it came back with a fault code which indicated loss of fuel pressure.
The warranty claim had to be approved before they would touch it (it took three weeks).
So far it hasn't happened again.
It has also happened with another D40 but not as often & both cars were purchased from the same dealer at the same time.

D40s are a hunk of crap.

It was boiling the trans and diff oil when being used in 4x4 high/low when going off road, so we used an aircon condenser with a electric thermo fan mounted to it as a transmission cooler to stop it from boiling the fluid all the time.

The air intake on them picks up from one of the wheel arches, we took it through the wombat state forest, gone through a bog hole wheel arch deep......

Air intake sucked in the water from the wheel arch, into the turbo, seized the vanes and rooted them in the exhaust housing of the turbo, new turbo from Nissan $4000.

We got another new one for $1400 from a business in Sunbury.

His car has our initials stamped into it all over the place, when we fix something or come up with an idea, our initials get stamped into the fix we came up with.

[Ben73]

About 5 guys at work have the D40 Navaras and 3 of them have all had expensive problems.

Far from the most reliable car really. I have always liked the look of them, but I would be staying well away from them now.

[GREGL]

Fair dinkum, to those that have not enjoyed the experience of limp home mode you are very lucky. Had the privilege and it is not pleasant . VERY unpredictable as to when it will happen, the first few times were ok , booked it in to get fixed and had the TCS replaced. All good for 3 mths and in 1 drive it occurred 3 times, one on the gateway @ 100. That was the last straw for me, F'ing dangerous and anyone that reckons otherwise is a f/wit. To rely on other drivers to avoid you is putting your life in their hands end of story.

[stevz]

Originally Posted by GREGL

Fair dinkum, to those that have not enjoyed the experience of limp home mode you are very lucky. Had the privilege and it is not pleasant . VERY unpredictable as to when it will happen, the first few times were ok , booked it in to get fixed and had the TCS replaced. All good for 3 mths and in 1 drive it occurred 3 times, one on the gateway @ 100. That was the last straw for me, F'ing dangerous and anyone that reckons otherwise is a f/wit. To rely on other drivers to avoid you is putting your life in their hands end of story.

Was this a VW?

[WILDB]

I've driven quite a few vehicles which have gone into limp mode while I've been driving. Ford, Holden, Mitsubishi, Kia - so it's not as if any one manufacturer is immune.

It is a very disturbing feeling.

[GTP-814]

Originally Posted by 2011G6E

I'm sorry...but I always wonder about things like this and what the driver was doing. After all, we all remember the "suddenly accelerating Toyotas" that were traced back to driver error mostly, and the one tragic instance of a Lexus driver in the USA who just kept barrelling along at higher and higher speeds with his family on board and talking to cops on the phone, until he crashed, cruise control still locked on apparently...people did ask at the time if it was a true "uncontrollable runaway" why he didn't jam on the brakes as hard as possible, knock it out of gear, or just turn off the frigging key...after all, brake systems on cars are one of the few areas that are banned from having an electrical connection like some steering and throttle systems...there has to be a physical connection between pedal and brakes.

we have a Golf & to come back out of neutral you have to have your foot o the brake depressed & i think stationery to get back into drive

[graham7773]

Probably not relevant but along the same line. Nothing new about this problem and cars across all makes are having the same problem. AX and AY Ford Telstars and GE mazdas have been doing it for over 20 years and they do not throw a fault code. They just stop! I think it is caused by their distributors failing but I can't get a straight answer from Ford or Mazda on what the component in the distributor is that actually fails.

[GREGL]

No actually it was a Falcon, however as has been said it is it is not a brand specific trait. What annoys me is with all this tech. that the w/shop cannot diagnose the cause straight out because basically you are driving a unroadworthy car imho.
As has been proved by the accident that this thread refers to, no amount of 5 star safety is going to save you if your car wants to play silly buggers !

[Silver Ghia]

Early on, my BA Ghia suffered from a faulty TPS which on several occasions caused the engine to stop after negotiating slower traffic such as at roundabouts.

This was before the TPS became known to be fairly common problem. I took the car back to the dealership and told the service manager I was not going to drive it again until the problem was rectified, as it was a potential safety issue. I didn't fancy having it stop in the middle of the 5 laned Westgate Freeway in peak hour traffic doing 80kph.

The service manager was excellent, after some thought and discussions with others on possibilities, he determined from his previous experience with another make that the TPS would have been the most likely culprit, they changed it and I never had another problem again with it.

[DJM83]

Originally Posted by stevz

Was this a VW?

Oh dear it happens to all makes. What now?

Originally Posted by GREGL

No actually it was a Falcon, however as has been said it is it is not a brand specific trait.

Anyhow would still be a tad frightening.

[GREGL]

Originally Posted by Silver Ghia

Early on, my BA Ghia suffered from a faulty TPS which on several occasions caused the engine to stop after negotiating slower traffic such as at roundabouts.

This was before the TPS became known to be fairly common problem. I took the car back to the dealership and told the service manager I was not going to drive it again until the problem was rectified, as it was a potential safety issue. I didn't fancy having it stop in the middle of the 5 laned Westgate Freeway in peak hour traffic doing 80kph.

The service manager was excellent, after some thought and discussions with others on possibilities, he determined from his previous experience with another make that the TPS would have been the most likely culprit, they changed it and I never had another problem again with it.

If you are talking about the actual accelerator pedal with sensor yes that is what they replaced, my bad. At $450 odd plus labour I was happy enough to pay up and continue to enjoy reliable motoring, after all it was bought s/hand and unforseen outlays are to be expected.
We are on the same page as far as freeways go, pulling off to the side in some cases where the emergency lanes a K's apart while coasting certainly is not something you want to do for the fun of it.

[Silver Ghia]

Originally Posted by GREGL

If you are talking about the actual accelerator pedal with sensor yes that is what they replaced, my bad. At $450 odd plus labour I was happy enough to pay up and continue to enjoy reliable motoring, after all it was bought s/hand and unforseen outlays are to be expected.
We are on the same page as far as freeways go, pulling off to the side in some cases where the emergency lanes a K's apart while coasting certainly is not something you want to do for the fun of it.

The TPS is on the throttle body. They discussed that it could be a pedal sensor, but he decided it was most likely to be the TPS, which it was. The car was well in the new car warranty period at the time.

[ryeman]

Sunday mag Golf add asks. Why drive anything else?
Maybe because its reliable!

[Danny]

Originally Posted by GREGL

No actually it was a Falcon

Well there you go!

[stevz]

Looks like there is plenty of backlash against VW on various forums and news sites. Many owners looking to sell up and go elsewhere and prospective buyers changing their minds and keeping away.


"Das Auto".....Pfffffft.

[flooded one]

I defiantly aint taking the golf!!

[SS_01]

Originally Posted by GTP-814

we have a Golf & to come back out of neutral you have to have your foot o the brake depressed & i think stationery to get back into drive

No you don't, you may have another issue with your car if that's the case.

Originally Posted by ESP

That's what the marketing guys at VW will tell you.
Indonesian tolerances within 2% of experienced german manufacturers.....really.

I use to work within the Volkswagen fold, and unless its changed within the last 18 months, these are the tolerances set by Volkswagen and tested regularly.

Most likely the issue will be arising from the wiring loom, which sends a pulse through the vehicle every 30 milliseconds to determine issues with the car. With the golf, the most common version to go into limp home mode was the 118TSI.

As stipulated by others, this isn't only happening in Volkswagens, it often occurs in other makes and models.

[2011G6E]

My boss at my last job always had BMW's...he didn't like flying the short distance to Brisbane, he preferred to drive thereif he was going there for a meeting.
The last car he had before I left was a top of the line 750i...amazing car.
He'd only had it about a month or two when he turned up at work in a black M5 sedan...we jokingly asked if he was sick of the big Beemer already and had traded it in, and he said no, he went to drive to work and when he got in the car, the screen lit up with warning signs and wouldn't start, saying "Fuel injection fault, do not tempt to drive vehicle, call your closest BMW service center immediately".
The problem wa, the closest place that could do serious work on the bigger BMW's was down at Caloundra...I believe there's one at Hervey Bay now...but not in Bundaberg.

A phone call and a couple of hours later a tilt tray turned up with the loaner...the black M5...and they took his car away. The computer had apparently just had a brain freeze.

So even spending two hundred grand on a car is no guarantee of absolute reliability...

[Stefan]

Gee, my FPV goes into limp mode every other day, I had the pleasure of going into limp mode on Sydney's Eastern Distributor Tunnel in peak hour, threw on the hazard lights immediately and cruised out at 10km/h.

Yes it is dangerous but drivers need to know what to do in emergency situations. In the case of the girl killed I quote.

he court heard Ms Ryan was driving at about 100km/h while talking to a friend on a Bluetooth device connecting her mobile phone at the time her car was hit, but that in the seconds before the impact, her car rapidly dropped in speed.

She was obviously not fully concentrating on driving and when the emergency occurred and subsequently failed to act.

Yeah cars should not break down, but they do, and you need to be prepared and know what to do in an emergency.

[Itsme]

Originally Posted by Stefan

Gee, my FPV goes into limp mode every other day, I had the pleasure of going into limp mode on Sydney's Eastern Distributor Tunnel in peak hour, threw on the hazard lights immediately and cruised out at 10km/h.

Yes it is dangerous but drivers need to know what to do in emergency situations. In the case of the girl killed I quote.



She was obviously not fully concentrating on driving and when the emergency occurred and subsequently failed to act.

Yeah cars should not break down, but they do, and you need to be prepared and know what to do in an emergency.

In an emergency people can panic in making split second decisions, you were not there to judge the situation she was in.
You do not know what actions she took to avoid the accident, in hindsight it could have been a different out come but it was not so.

PS: I hate to have cars or trucks up my backside doing 100 KPH losing power suddenly....would be a hair raising experience for any one.

[new2ford]

Basically it seems to me that the vehicle behind the one that lost power was driving too close to safely stop (regardless of whether brake lights showed on the vehicle in front or not). This is a basic expectation of driving skills acquired in order to obtain a licence. If your car suddenly loses power, it's therefore reasonable to expect that a (presumably professional) driver behind you won't ride over the top of you. Nothing to do with VWs really.

[borough]

Volkswagen. Die Zitrone.

[SS_01]

Originally Posted by borough

Volkswagen. Die Zitrone.

I dont think this is very fair at all. Lemons can be found with every manufacturer, it does not mean that the brand itself is a lemon.