Ferdinand Piech leaves VW supervisory board

[narf]

Anyway if you want a reliable VW buy a Skoda

Same engines

 

[jack_christie]

Same engines

Ya, but for some reason they rate better in most customer satisfaction indexes

 

[Perc]

Maybe it depends on where they're made. Skoda had been making cars in Mlada Boleslav for decades and decades before VW was invented, and they're proud of that fact.

Communism was the reason they fell behind and eventually got absorbsed by VW. It could just as well have been the other way around, if things were different.

 

[narf]

Maybe it depends on where they're made. Skoda had been making cars in Mlada Boleslav for decades and decades before VW was invented, and they're proud of that fact.

Communism was the reason they fell behind and eventually got absorbsed by VW. It could just as well have been the other way around, if things were different.

For the engines at least that should be no different. For example, our 1.4 TSIs were made in Chemnitz and then shipped east. If the Audi issues really are caused by a batch of faulty piston rings then nothing the Czech engineers do during assembly of the car can fix that.

 

[Perc]

For the engines at least that should be no different. For example, our 1.4 TSIs were made in Chemnitz and then shipped east. If the Audi issues really are caused by a batch of faulty piston rings then nothing the Czech engineers do during assembly of the car can fix that.

I still think it's a case of a few vocal customers.

Yes, VAGs are "known" for consuming oil. But they also sell a metric fuckton of cars every year and most of these people are just happily driving their cars, hardly even topping up between their 30,000km oil changes.

 

[narf]

I still think it's a case of a few vocal customers.

In that specific Audi case it's also poor service.

Yes, VAGs are "known" for consuming oil. But they also sell a metric fuckton of cars every year and most of these people are just happily driving their cars, hardly even topping up between their 30,000km oil changes.

Considering how different the range of engines is, applying a single trait to all of them is pointless. A 1.0 I3 is so far off from a twincharged 1.4 TSI which again is far off from a turbocharged 2.0 TSI which - you guessed it - has very little in common with a supercharged 3.0 TSI. All TDIs are different as well, and that's a huge fraction of VAG engines sold.

 

[JTuhka]

I just read about a brand new Audi S3 sedan on Audifinns forum. After only 3 months and 5000km a fuel injector, front wheel bearing and the DSG gearbox have been replaced.

The owner didn't even bother listing "the small issues". I know. Isolated case, don't jump to conclusions, etc...

 

[MacGuffin]

You know, I work in customer service. If we only considered what dissatisfied customers tell us, we should immediately shut down and stop doing business. Fact is that not only those express themselves loudly, who have a real problem or believe they do. Many of them are simply carrying a grudge and want to get back at us in a damaging way. Almost never -- and I mean almost never ever -- satisfied customers express themselves as loudly as dissatisfied ones. But the truth of the matter is that only a very small percentage of customers is really, really pissed for some reason. The vast majority (I'd say easily more than 95 %) is perfectly satisfied. 5 % of dissatisfied or disappointed customers is still too much of course but if you analyze the cases carefully, in almost 100 % of all them the fault is at least shared. Very, very rarely it's only our fault. And those cases are being handled accordingly.

Everyone working in a company that has to deal with customers in some way, has to know that you mustn't take complaints as the normal thing. But unfortunately we humans tend to listen to those who articulate themselves loudly.

If a group of 10.000 people demonstrates against African refugees coming here, the alarm in the media is tremendous. But those are 10.000 people - a miniscule number compared to the 80 million that live here in Germany. When 0,00125 % of them express a loud opinion, all 80 million get upset. Let everyone of those 10.000 represent 10 more who think the same way but couldn't be bothered to demonstrate, we're still only at 0,125 %. Sometimes I am astonished what a tiny number of people can achieve only by being loud.

Frankly I'm not worried about the loud ones but of the often shockingly passive and indifferent behaviour of the rest.

What I wanna say is, that if one out of 1,000 VW customers has a serious problem, it doesn't mean the company has a serious problem. Because 1 dissatisfied customer means they still have 999 satisfied ones. But on the receiving end of the internet and the media we only hear or read what the 1 person says. That's why I value neutral surveys much more than any kind of customer surveys: Everytime humans are involved in the result, the result is merely worthless. At best it shines a spotlight on certain things that can be addressed. But it's still very vague.

Oh and by the way: Almost 80 % of our customer rank us very good or even excellent. For Germany that is an astonishingly high percentage. Because believe it or not: German customers are the worst... in the world

 

[AudiEnthusiast]

We once had a Audi A6 2.7 TDI (2007 build) and it was a constant troublemaker troughout the 2 years my dad owned it. Nonetheless, the 6 other Audis we had in the family from 1998 onwards never had any problems. Just, not kidding, nothing.
So, would my dad have been outraged and dissapointed of this would have been his first Audi? Probably yes. Knowing the bigger picture, no reason to go on rampage in the internet. To me, sometimes, it seems like Americans tend to be overly critical of german cars. Every single company today has sometimes issues with quality, Toyota, Hyundai, VAG, Jaguar, all of them. Chryslers killed people. Thing is, do you note it, and how.

 

[Interrobang]

Many of them are simply carrying a grudge and want to get back at us in a damaging way. [...]

Sadly a common misconception in customer service that in turn worsens the service for the majority of complaining customers.

Again - don?t interpret this the wrong way: I know very well that there are asshat-customers who are unreasonable, can?t think straight or have some other form of mental-health issue ... but the majority of complaints is not that type. And if those two get thrown together in a sort of "we are doing everything right, so they must all be crazy and we can ignore them"- way, any business is going to have problems in the long run. Because customers who have totally valid complaints (which are the vast majority) and get treated this way, they are never coming back when you treat them that way.

You have to very carefully separate the two groups ... pisssing off the group of customers with valid complaints because of the asshats simply cannot happen. Sadly in my experience (and I don?t direct this to you MacGuff) a lot of customer service in germany (not that france would be better, but I don?t feel like I can make a founded statement on that yet) treats every complaint no matter how justified like you are a complaining asshat.

 

[MacGuffin]

Ferdinand Piech leaves VW supervisory board

To make things clear, of course we carefully examine all complaints.

But we have a policy to not be sycophants. We're talking on eye-level with our customers and the vast majority values our honesty and natural behavior in contrast to the artificially friendly tone they often get somewhere else. Germans don't want to be pampered, they want results.

That also includes mentioning facts that would have prevented the customer from filing a complaint in the first place.

I know the German customer service has a bad reputation but that's undeserved from my experience. In reality many people like to complain about the big, anonymous apparatus they often perceive. It seems to be hard to grasp, that on the other side of the phone line there's a person just like them -- not better, not worse -- simply doing their job as best as they can.

As I usually say: we don't have a crystal ball and cannot do miracles but we'll try our very best

 

[TC]

Personally, I really like VW products. But all things being equal, I should hear a dozen or more complaints about Toyota and Ford, for every VW complaint. But that's not the case. The complaints seem rather disproportionate. Maybe VW complainers/haters are more vocal and hostile, but why would that be?

 

[MacGuffin]

Higher expectations in the first place?

 

[Mitchi]

I was just about to write a massive post but then I read MacGuffin's post...

Very, very rarely it's only our fault. And those cases are being handled accordingly.

This, fucking this.

The thing is, especially on the internet, that whenever a car goes wrong, it's always the manufacturers fault. Nowadays we're in a phase of more and more getting turbocharged due to the corelation between power and costs and obviously enviromental reasons. And I'm gonna put my hand on my heart and say that engines tend to fail more frequently nowadays to to lack of care then they did maybe one, two, three decades ago (old robust six VAG cylinder vs turbo 4 pot nowadays as an example). And most people out there, probably north of 99%, just don't know how to handle a car appropriatly.

As an example, I probably wouldn't buy the VAG 1.4 TSI in all its variations - sorry narf, perc, and MacGuffin, I know two mechanics at VW and when I hear how many engines get changed... hell no. But I believe that all three of you are more competent than enough to treat your engines well to not get into any trouble - just because most people have it that doesn't mean it can't be reliable. Yes, VW has acknowledged timing chain problems. But that doesn't mean such an engine can't last as long as engines did some decades ago.
You just need to treat them better - but many, many people can't, because they don't care.

Cars, especially with turbocharged engines, need a warming up phase, and a cooldown phase, way more than naturally aspirated engines. Do people know? No. Do people care? Fuck no. Should they know? Fuck, Yes!
But the fat, 45 year-old housewife who is just about to pick her kids up from school doesn't care, she starts the engine, and drives off in the first second where the rpm still settles to idle from her parking space with 30 km/h from the curb where she parked because it's a car, it should always work no matter what I do, and then proceeds to rev the car to 3+k in the first couple of minutes because she's late and is heading for the motorway with full throttle.
Those are the people that just buy a car as "one car, please" (props to perc for that one) and those are pretty much all the people that complain. People with no knowledge about the motor vehicle and how it works, yet they demand 100% perfection while not treating the car 100% as it should be treated.

And, as in quoted post, it needs one in a million to scream, and everybody is scared.

We once had a Audi A6 2.7 TDI (2007 build) and it was a constant troublemaker troughout the 2 years my dad owned it. Nonetheless, the 6 other Audis we had in the family from 1998 onwards never had any problems. Just, not kidding, nothing.
So, would my dad have been outraged and dissapointed of this would have been his first Audi? Probably yes. Knowing the bigger picture, no reason to go on rampage in the internet. To me, sometimes, it seems like Americans tend to be overly critical of german cars. Every single company today has sometimes issues with quality, Toyota, Hyundai, VAG, Jaguar, all of them. Chryslers killed people. Thing is, do you note it, and how.

I truly believe it that you never had any troubles at all. Same in my family where it's only German: Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz and VW (with one exception of Toyota).
Whenever there's some sort of a family meetup I tend to gather around with the people that are at least as much interested in cars as I am. And never did anyone had any big problems at all in the last decades.
Hell, we even have two A6 C5 with both having the 2.5 TDI where everyone is crying about it going wrong all the time, with one of them just recently having passed 400.000kms and the other one is nearly there aswell - completely trouble free. Just plain luck all the years - or proper care?

(And yes, Spectre, I know, different benchmarks should be applied for different continents. )

I honestly do believe, mostly it's not the manufacturer, it's the customer... Maybe I'm just living in an extraordinary world, I don't know. Rant over.

Well, damn, now this post is massive aswell.

 

[MacGuffin]

I don't know if the problem with the TSI engines is still an issue.

My car was built in March 2015 and as far as I know, the thing has been talked about since 2010 or so. From all I know, VW has identified and solved the problem by now, the main reason being worn-out production tools that left small ridges within the cam chain:

But even while the problem existed, only a miniscule percentage of the production was actually effected -- enough to stir up the gossip factory, though. VW still categorically denies that it ever was a production defect in big numbers and until today still handles the complaints as individual cases because the number of effected cars is so small.

Also the camshaft adjusters had problems but this has also been addressed. The improved part has the number 03C 109 088 E and has, I understand, been installed in all new engines ever since.

Until I read or hear something different, I assume the problems have been solved by VW with my engine by now.

 

[Mitchi]

The 1.4 in all its variations has been built for 11 (?) years now - I think you're very much on the safe side. One has to consider that all the cars coming in now for a replacement are probably some years old and not brand new.

 

[pepitko]

Cars, especially with turbocharged engines, need a warming up phase, and a cooldown phase, way more than naturally aspirated engines. Do people know? No. Do people care? Fuck no. Should they know? Fuck, Yes!

So. Much. This. Very few people treat their cars with a mechanical respect, especially turbocharged ones and when the engine fails they are quick to blame the car manufacturer. Also IMO, the anecdotal evidence from internet forums is skewed by people who ECU tune their cars and then are surprised when the turbo fails 100,000km later.

 

[bone]

if a cheap daily driver needs mechanical sympathy, it's a flawed design in my eyes.
it's not like modern cars are worth saving or cherishing

it's a bunch of metal infused plastic that lasts 10 years and you throw it away
if it needs mechanical sympathy to keep working, they should get back to the drawing board and come up with sth better!

that you need to take care of a ferrari ok, but a stupid golf should just work, and swallow all the abuse you throw at it without a problem!

(my 2 cents...)

 

[Mitchi]

bone, I get your point, but you still have to consider that a motor vehicle is a very, very complex mechanical and electronical piece of machinery. Sometimes it astounds me that ordinary human beings without any idea of how any of it works can actually make it work, driving a car is so easy compared to how complex all of the technical innards are. Even after more than a century with the motor vehicle you can't really expect it to be tough enough for it being able to be abused every single day of its life for ten years (at least). Especially since cars have to move forward technically and push the boundaries in every possible direction (and that's the point!), otherwise we'd be stuck in the 30s or whatever.

I mean, would you say the same to aircrafts aswell? That a plane, carrying hundreds of passengers in one flight, has to take abuse after abuse without proper and regular maintenance? You'd be endangering so many lives. And with a car it's the same, the complexety of it denies it being able to work properly year after year with much, much abuse. It just won't work.

Except if you buy a Lada 2107 or so. But those ran out of production iirc.

Oh, also, taking care of your car means taking care of your wallet aswell. Those people don't understand it, as pepitko wrote.

 

[Perc]

if a cheap daily driver needs mechanical sympathy, it's a flawed design in my eyes.
it's not like modern cars are worth saving or cherishing

People probably thought that of the Chevrolets in 1957 too.