I'm on my second Yeti and total problems -one heated seat pad failure and one rear badge- not bad in my view-sorry for the O/P and not concerned as to quality -bearing in mind forums are a magnet for the unlucky and "Which" the whingers friend and cheese parers natural home, Re-sale values and JD Power ratings seem a good reflection of my personal experience.

Hi

 

My Yeti is just over 2 years old (23k miles). The only warranty issues have all been with the sunroof a rattle (repaired quickly), a leak from the front N/S drain tube (some threads in forum) fixed no issue but that caused another rattle. Dealer took car in and has completely rebuilt the sunroof frame - absolutely no quibble so I can't fault their service.

 

Grumpy

I thought Suzuki were bad but at least some of their dealers are superb. My dealer was still paying for a major oil seal problem (common on the 1.9 diesel) at 4 years old (1 year out of official warranty on a vehicle I did not buy from them). Suzuki paid once and then when that did not work the local dealer paid all costs including the loan cars. When I asked why they said..we keep getting it wrong so we keep working until it's fixed. Now that was a good dealer. The engine was removed 3 times before it was fixed. I moved it one soon after.

Interesting the main claim on the Reliability site was...

Engine

47.37%

Could it be that the 1.2 engine is just not up to the job for such a size of car?

 

I recall many years back that when buying an Automatic, the engine should be no less than 2 Ltr.

Yes I know things have move on, but Heh, my bike has a 1200cc motor in it & that revs up to 12,000rpm.. (not with me on it) :no:

 LOL...

Or, could it be that in the manufacturing process things arn't as good as they should be. In other words are manufacturers getting sloppy.

Also one small point, I still prefer to change the oil yearly, or 10,000 miles.

a 5 year old car with only 20k miles, should have had at worst 2 oil changes and at best 5+. Was there not a topic on the early 1.2 engines failing because of a bad batch of chains or idlers. Its not only the 1.2, the 1.8 also suffered the same fate.

& the Engine that has won Volkswagen under 1.4 litre International Engine of the Year for 9 years,

and the past 5 years was as a Euro 5 Emission version.

 

Failure rate of the 132-136kw minimum engine being now over 20% of those produced, 

and even ones supplied from Volkswagen as replacements since 2012 when they revised the engines are failing.

 

http://revotechnik.com/support/technical/14tsi-twincharger-engine-issues

This link shows the possible problems, only place that does compile them together, because the Volkswagen Group have not.

 

When you build a 1390cc engine then have it mapped to produce more performance than the 2.4 & 2.8 litre

VW Engines, then you might find there to be issues,

you might think that near a Decade since the first versions with Manual Boxes, and then other 5 years 

on with the DSG as Standard they would have resolved the weakness from the designs and fundamental 

parts choice, and quality control, and after sales failing and lack of changes in Service and maintenance guidelines.

Spark Plugs still being shown as a 40,000 mile service item when 1 plug in cylinder 3 might only last 20,000

miles some less than 10,000.

Edited 15 June, 201511 yr by goneoffSKi

my wife has a 1.2 tsi golf which was in at our local skoda dealer after it broke down. They rectified the break down but noticed there was a timing chain rattle that VW had overlooked when it was last serviced. VW dealer suggested it was going to cost £1200 to fix. WHen we mentioned they'd not noticed it during warranty and asked why, they came back with an offer to fix it for one tenth of that!

 

Skoda said it was a known problem that could and should have been fixed.

Well here I am back again with my 'so reliable' Yeti.

 

After fixing the timing chain rattle, the boot lamp failed a few weeks later. Not such a big issue I thought initially.

 

Then I took,the Yeti for a ride on a very rainy week-end in the countryside. Water started leaking from the rear passenger airbag into the cabin, such a lovely waterfall...

 

Usually the Yeti sleeps on a roof parking in town so never noticed this fault before.

 

I decided to took the car back to the dealer because I still have a few month of warranty left in order to diagnose the leakage and the boot lamp fault.

 

I did not want to take it back to the previous rude dealer, so I tried another major VW group dealer in Paris, massive impressive dealer, very classy with excellent reception staff.

 

The rest of it turned into nightmare.

 

After several days of inspecting the car, no water leaks was found (maybe they figured out I made up the whole story) and the boot lamp failure was due to a faulty electronic calculator + the electrical wiring that was defective (sorry I don't know the exaxt technical word in English)

 

As a result of this, I was quoted a 1000€ estimate, mainly labour costs to dismantle the car and repair the electrical wiring system + 300€ for a brand new calcultor.

 

The VW warranty refused to pay for this repair, the car is too old they said and electrical components are not covered by the warranty, only the engine parts are covered.

 

???

 

The car has less than 30.000 miles to date, and will be five years old end of June this year. That is surely too old for them.

 

What a piece of crap this car is, I also had to replace the rear door joint that was completely cracked, due to premature failing, this one was quoted 167€ which I accepted to pay simply because I could not close the driver's door with a bit of rubber joint hanging out of the car. The sort of thing you see on old bangers...

 

I can perfectly admit that every car has its weak points, but what is totally disgusting is the nosy attitude of the VW group that refused to cover for those repairs. Even though I have a valid warranty certificate.

 

Oh, and when I mentionned the chain problem this car suffered a few months earlier, they told me they never heard of this issue before within the VW group. Really?

 

I declined the electrical repairs and have ordered a legal expertise of the car, something you can do in France and will certainly lead to Court in order to demonstrate the hidden manufacturing defect. In which case I may end up with a full refund of the purchase of the car....and will never ever buy a VW group car again.