Spacebacker

How about a car which doesn't have a full dealer history? I'm guessing they can use that as a reason. If so, the possible pool of cars available which meet that criteria at >5 years old is going to be small! Waiting for the car to "perforate" within the 12 years is an interesting game. This looks like being one of the first things to check on all these cars now. We had been considering earlier cars up to 2014. For our use (12k miles a year, year around in all conditions) I tend to think we'd be looking at this being a problem at some point.

This issue seems to be more common now, as you'd expect as time goes by and cars get older. As far as I can tell, the preventative measure of fitting the arch liners was only done on the VW Up! for facelift models (as a "product enhancement") and so anything else, especially an earlier car, needs to be approached with caution. Newer cars could have some remedial work and preventative measures but for older cars it may be too late. I am wondering how willing VAG are to step up and address the issue under warranty as there seem to be very mixed experiences for owner who have raised it and if every car starts to suffer they could be taking a big hit? It appears the full fix is about £1k to implement. Given it's a 12 year warranty every car is in scope. Finding decent cars is always tricky, this little feature adds a further complication and depending on the above makes me wonder whether to call off the search. If this issue is a question of "when" and not "if" then it's really off-putting.