NOVEMBER, 1998- I took delivery of a 1999 VW New Beetle GLS at Donaldson's Volkswagen in Sayville, NY. During the first couple of months, I had problems with my foglights not working, and my passenger headlight kept blowing brand new bulbs that were installed on a weekly basis.
My problem lies with the Service portion of the dealership, not the sales. For the past few years of owning this vehicle, I have done so much to bring up the Volkswagen name. I did things like create my own Volkswagen club for the Northeastern States region of the USA and we always got together for "VW Events".
After my warranty expired (in 2000), my factory radio caught on fire. When I called my dealership about it, they just simply told me that it would cost me $435 for a new Volkswagen factory radio plus labor for installation.
Of course, I have a good head on my shoulders so I opted to buy an aftermarket radio and have it installed. It only costed me about $275, including install.
Within this past year, I have encountered so many other problems with my Beetle than what an average person can handle. For instance, my gas flap doesn't close anymore, the lock on the driver's side door fell out, my temperature guage is stuck on 22 degrees with a snowflake, and my speedometer stopped working (with the exception of the gas guage and the tachometer).
I wrote a letter to VWoA about these problems because I firmly believe these are all factory defects. I was told by another New Beetle owner that the driver side door lock is definitely a defect and that her dealership replaced it free of charge saying that the factory used the wrong size pin on a lot of New Beetles when they were being manufactured.
After three months roll by, I receive a voicemail on my cell phone from someone at VWoA (she didn't leave her name) stating that VWoA will help me with these problems, but I just need to get the diagnostics done on the vehicle and send it to them.
I received in March a recall notice on the car (recall was dated December GO FIGURE!). I went to call my dealership to schedule an appointment and they could only "fit me in" for May 31!!! To make matters worse, I went in for the recall and the service rep I was dealing with, Bill Moran, told me that they cannot touch the vehicle because it has an aftermarket radio.
I explained to him the fact that my original radio caught on fire and I showed him all the things wrong with the New Beetle. I had to schedule for another appointment after disconnecting the radio from the car.
My car went back to Donaldson's a couple weeks later and I was told that the diagnostics will cost me a lot of money. Bill Moran told me and my fiance that we would have to shell out "up to $125 per incident", meaning that it will cost us up to $125 for the diagnostics on the speedo, up to $125 on the gas flap, and so on.
We ordered to have diagnostics on the speedometer, which costed us $120. For the $120 that was spent on the diagnostics, we only got a couple pieces of paper that stated that the speedo problem was not electrical.
Not even a week after picking my car up from Donaldson's, my catalytic converter went on me. I decided to use a different dealership to check on it, so I went to Bayside Volkswagen, Northern Boulevard in Bayside (718-224-6200).
Turns out that the welding that was done on my catalytic converter was "not proper" and it was easily seen to them that it was a Volkswagen fault. I was given a call back from the Service Manager, Rich, who assured me that Volkswagen of America will pay 100% for the repairs being done on the car.
My car was at Volkswagen for over a week before they even touched the car to repair it. Then once everything was finished, I was slapped with a bill for $350!!! And they say that it was for items not being paid by VWoA.
My fiance paid for this charge and we drove out of the service center smelling a weird smell from the car. We disclosed it as the new parts working for the first time. Turns out that my antifreeze was pouring out of my vehicle! Thus, making me pull over a major highway on Long Island by myself!
It was after hours and the weekend had already started, so no one was available to take my call at Bayside VW Service Center. I had to have my fiance bring gallons and gallons of water to add to my antifreeze container, only to fill it up not even a mile of driving!
I called Bayside VW Service Center that Monday to state this problem and spoke to Rich, the Service Manager. His response was that it was not their fault that this happened and they were nowhere near the antifreeze or its components. And that what I should do is I should somehow get my car back to Bayside, Queens and he will check it out for me. Then he will figure out whether or not it is Volkswagen's problem when they replaced my catalytic converter.
I explained that the car can't be driven unless I stop every mile to add more water to the antifreeze container. He did not seem to care, which left me with a bad impression on this. We opted to have a local service station in Wyandanch, NY fix the car.
$336.00 later, my car was fixed of the antifreeze problem and we put a stop payment on Bayside Volkswagen Service's charge. So, now I am stuck with this car with a broken speedo that needs to get fixed before I trade it in for an AMERICAN CAR!!!
My advice to everyone out there: DO NOT BUY A VOLKSWAGEN! My way of thinking about Volkswagen is that they make great designs for cars, but the imagination they have come up with trying to get these cars functioning normally on the road is out of bounds!
Buy anything else, except a Volkswagen! You will see that this is the best advice you will ever receive!
Becca
Bayside, New York
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