I was going to call Car Talk with this dilemma, but I figured I’d post it here as well since I’m much more likely to get an answer.
I have a 2002 VW Cabrio with about 66,000 miles on it, all put on it by me. I’ve toyed with the idea of trading it, but the fact is that I love it and there’s nothing out there I really want that badly.
It has no major problems that I know of, but it’s getting to the age when it needs occasional love from a mechanic. The problem is that I live in the middle of nowhere. A couple of mechanics have come highly recommended, but they still treat my car like it’s some kind of spaceship.
For instance: my check engine light is on. I took it to one of the aforementioned highly recommended mechanics, and I got a call quite a while later asking if I knew where the connector was for the OBD computer. Later he told me that it gave him a code, but he didn’t know what it meant, so I’d have to take it to a dealer.
In fact, nearly every visit to a mechanic has ended with “you’ll have to take it to a dealer”. The nearest dealer, mind you, is 120 miles away. I once drove this distance on a bad wheel bearing, after another (highly recommended) mechanic insisted that it couldn’t be a bad wheel bearing and I’d have to take it to the dealer to figure out what the noise was.
So, my questions:
–Is this reasonable? Is my 2002 VW truly such an odd duck that supposedly good mechanics are flummoxed, or are they just stupefied by the memory of the Beetles, Microbuses, and Karmann Ghias of the past?
–Is there anything I can do to get more out of my mechanics? Is the “take it to the dealer” act just laziness, and should I push them to do something?
Not really. They are nothing like the old-school air-cooled VWs of the past, but I don’t see why a mechanic would be having such a difficult time.
Go to a different mechanic, or get the book and do it yourself. If you have the time, the tools are a one-time cost and will sometimes pay for themselves in saved labor costs. I’ll tell you this, man, there is nothing more satisfying than fixing your own car, even if it’s something as simple as changing the plugs or changing the oil.
That’s up to you. If you like the car, keep it. If your like is outweighed by the fact that you can’t find anyone to work on it and don’t want the dealer to go to town on your wallet, trade it.
Late model VWs are not the stone simple VWs of yore.
Newer VWs are a bit bizarre, but probably no more than several other cars out there. The issue is one of familiarity. If you are 120 miles from the nearest dealer, the guys in your town have probably never seen one before. This is not a good thing.
This means:
[ul]
[li]They may not have the diagnostic tools to work on your car[/li][li]They probably won’t have any special tools required to work on your car[/li][li]They have zero experience as to what are the common problems on your car[/li][li]As a result pretty much everything is a guess.[/li][/ul]
To their credit they are referring you to the dealer rather than pulling money out of your wallet. It may not be laziness on their part. It might cost them several hundred dollars to get software/ connectors to read VW systems. If you are the only VW in town it may not pay for them to make the investment.
Welcome to the wonderful world of foreign car ownership.
The guys are telling it like it is. The part about the code is so sommon these days. Fast food auto retailers have scanners and will scan cars for free. The scanners aren’t even of the Snap On or MacCo. caliber and having a code means nothing if you don’t have the reference tools to apply it to a specitic vehicle. It’s like handing a calculator to a baby. Although, any decent mechanic shouldn’t be asking where the OBDII connector is. Even some of the worst ones I have known would rather look a little harder than ask a customer a question like that.
As for getting rid of the car, it’s style and nametag are why you bought it, correct? I wouldn’t dump it over this speedbump. Wait until something really goes wrong before you let a little intimidation sway you.
I can feel your pain! My mechanic is happy to work on my passat and new beetle but he will run across codes that he can’t decipher because VW limits full diagnostic capability to just their dealers (afaik).
Are there any VW enthusiasts clubs in KY that you could find online to talk to about your VW issues, you may get hooked up with a mechanic referral! There is volkswagentalk.com for starters.
I don’t doubt it, and in fact one of my big “someday” plans is to get an old car (maybe an old VW) and fix it up. At the moment, however, I lack both time and inclination to get up the learning curve.
As for taking it somewhere else…I’m almost out of somewheres. Everybody I ask about it gives me the same three or four names, and they’re the ones I’m talking about.
I don’t own a VW, but one of my best friends is from a VW family. It is all they have driven for 20+ years ( if not longer.)
She mentioned that the engine light has always come on in every VW they have ever owned. Even the Fresh off the Lot ones.
Decades ago, the dividing line in automotive service was between shops that worked on domestic cars and those that worked on foreign cars. Things have changed. Nowadays, the line is between those that work on American and Asian cars, and those that work on European cars.
I used to be an import car specialist, but now I don’t offer full service on late model European cars. As a one-man shop, I can’t afford to invest in the tools and software for what is a small and decreasing percentage of my business. I imagine it’s a similar situation in your town.
In general, these guys are smart in knowing their limitations. Now, the wheel bearing misdiagnosis was not smart, and I’m surprised they don’t have information to explain a code*, but better they leave it be than screw it up.
*There are some cases where the explanation of a code is not available to the aftermarket, and only dealerships have the info, so that situation may not reflect badly on the mechanic.
I have never had a VW but that sounds right. We have had a couple of BMW’s and regular mechanics simply can’t work on them effectively if at all. Even if you push a regular mechanic to do something as simple as changing the oil, the check engine light will be on and the instruments will still be bitching about an oil change when you get it back. Anything more complicated is hopeless. I guess that is just the way it is with some European brands these days.
We had one remove the front end to do the waterpump and then couldn’t figure out how to put it back. For three weeks!
Had one drain the fluid out of the sealed transmission while trying to do an oil change.
When the check engine light came on it was determined by the “codes” that an air pump was needed. No problem. $350 later the light was still on.
The solution to this problem was the same as all the other problems. I went on the message boards particular to my vehicle and poked around for the answer. In this case it was the failure of $1.29 worth of vacuum line going to the new and unnecessary air pump.
There is absolutely no excuse for these mechanics not to do the same and find the answer with the greatest tool that technology has produced, the message board. They make disposable keyboard covers and lunch hours just for this reason. Its just mental laziness that prevents them from doing it. So now I print out all the particulars for everything I want them to look at and think about, i.e. the step by step directions for resetting the oil change service light. I just leave it on the front seat and it seems to work.
As for the dealers I’d rather get rid of the car than bow to their theivery. Soon after my A6 went out of warranty the transmission started acting funny in a very bad way. I took it to the dealer (at 22 mph) and they determined the tranny was ruined. I expressed surprise and said I thought it might have been the transmission computer. I was informed that was bad also and the bill would be around $9700. A second opinion by an independent determined a bad mass air flow sensor at $270. He has since gone back to not caring.
And what the hell do they do with all my lug nut covers?
Just so you know Gary, if you ever have one for a Chrysler or it’s affilates, Sprinter, Freightliner or the Crossfire platform, a Mercedes, please feel free to ask. Our program is called Tech Connect and although when I use it it’s like a monkey with a football, I know all the component groups and enough to navigate it. More and more my job is intersecting with yours, as far as Chrysler is concerned anyway.
Wholesale parts manager. You know collision repair shops as well as mechanical ones. As well as our own shop in some cases. You know how mechanics are sometimes, they will only talk to one parts guy for the most part. They will all come to me when they have something the other guys can’t get. And the other parts guys do too, I mentor the younger ones but I know people at Chrysler that you can’t get phone numbers for and as you might imagine they’re prima donnas just like everyone else. I pissed one off on Friday and had to grovel to keep him to where I can call him. I’m sure it sounds almost stupid but you know how people act. It’s everywhere especially in the higher echelon of my corporation. It isn’t just mine either. My peers at GM and Ford say the same things.
