I took delivery of a new SEL-Exec at the end of March 2017. I've done 13k miles (I know!)

A few little things annoying me, that when I take it in, I just get a feeling that they won't get sorted out, the kinds of things that won't ever or easily get fixed.  I did have one issue the dealer did fix - a dead fly inside the rear LED cluster. They have no idea how it got in there. It was in there from day 1. They swapped my light cluster for the one belonging to a salesman's car. Anyway - I digress.

 

Electric Window Noise - sounds awful & grinding. Already mentioned when fly was being removed. Dealer 'will order a new motor'. Hasn't happened and I've given up calling.

Rear wiper - Judders awful on the outbound swipe, smooth as you like on return.  Always has from new.

Centre console air con. The little cubby hole under the arm rest. It has a cooling vent for your lunch - as does the glovebox. The glovebox one blows cold. The armrest one blows warm.

Dab Radio - Good luck getting a signal in the mornings. 

Check DRL light - warning light has been on a couple of times to ask me to check DRL bulb. Get out and look - they are on and look OK. Turn car off & on and warning goes away.

Kerbed Wheel - 19" Sirius. Bugger. My fault but still a gripe :-)

Heaadlights - Occasionally the beam either points down so as you are only lighting up the first 2 metres in front of the car - or blinding everyone. Again, reboot the car and it's fine.

 

Just venting... It's those reboot it items that annoy me as I know they won't be able to recreate in the garage. So I'll have to live with them.

For the rear wiper, I use the rain-x cleaning wipes and after use, the judder goes away for a while.  Not a fix I know.

43 minutes ago, dg360 said:

For the rear wiper, I use the rain-x cleaning wipes and after use, the judder goes away for a while.  Not a fix I know.

I know it's a small thing - but it's the detail that matters. It's done this from day 1. But can't be arsed with the hassle of going back & forth & time off work to sort it.

My rear wiper on my current Octavia juddered on the return sweep but smooth on the outward one. Put up with it for 4yrs. Decided I needed new blades at front so changed rear as well and problem was fixed. Now it has been smooth both directions for over 3 years. So maybe just buy a new blade and see if that cures it or get the dealer to do it, whichever is the least hassle.

1 minute ago, PSM said:

My rear wiper on my current Octavia juddered on the return sweep but smooth on the outward one. Put up with it for 4yrs. Decided I needed new blades at front so changed rear as well and problem was fixed. Now it has been smooth both directions for over 3 years. So maybe just buy a new blade and see if that cures it or get the dealer to do it, whichever is the least hassle.

I did consider that. On inspection it's immaculate. The car is only 6 months old and has done this from the beginning. I may mention it if it ever goes in for other stuff. It literally means me not working for the period it goes in. I can rarely make the time. Should have bought a bus pass... :-)

My blade looked immaculate and did the same from new. For the sake of under £10 I would buy a new blade and see if it fixes it.

• Ditto with the juddery wiper
• Door cards rattle when cold and/or rough roads (dealer can't hear it)
• Creaky door rubbers - gummi-fledge fixes temporarily
• Creaking front suspension (dealer can't hear it)
• Clanking rear suspension (dealer can't hear it)
• Stupid eco-throttle - nothing, nothing, OMG ramming speed!
• Take a break warning when towing on rough/undulating roads
• Crash warning/auto breaking do-da which panics if I approach a car that *I* know is turning off the road
• Ghost detectors (aka. parking sensors beeping when there's nothing within a fair distance)
• Poor Pirelli tyres in cold/wet conditions - the 4x4 can kick in at the rear propelling me out of junctions only to find no traction at the front to steer

Had mine since 1st March 2016 and I've only done 14k miles.  Squeaks/rattles aside, modern cars are too clever these days.

 

I've never had a DAB problem and I get reception even down to a couple of levels in the underground car park at work. It doesn't affect the GPS signal on my dashcam either.

 

Meh.

Edited 29 November, 20178 yr by unclerichy

7 hours ago, jimcallaghan said:

I did consider that. On inspection it's immaculate. The car is only 6 months old and has done this from the beginning. I may mention it if it ever goes in for other stuff. It literally means me not working for the period it goes in. I can rarely make the time. Should have bought a bus pass... :-)

I replaced my original rear wiper with a Bosch blade. Perfect. Order online, arrives at your door, takes a minute to remove the old blade and replace the new one. £16. @PSM Where did you get a blade for a tenner?

8 hours ago, freelunch said:

I replaced my original rear wiper with a Bosch blade. Perfect. Order online, arrives at your door, takes a minute to remove the old blade and replace the new one. £16. @PSM Where did you get a blade for a tenner?

Can not remember the website as it was a few years ago but it was not a Bosch blade. It was the same design and look but a different brand (again can not remember the brand now) and has worked perfectly for the last few years. The fronts were also not Bosch (did not see the point in paying the inflated prices for Bosch ones) and again have been perfect.

I got my wipers changed at 6 months old to bosh ones.. Can't recall which ones but they were around £60 for front and rear.. Made a massive differance and perfect. 

 

 

Gripes and niggles - well, I'll not go into the odd squeaks and intermittent issues that won't be common to others,  and to be fair there aren't many of them. The substantive issues for me, so far  after 21000 miles in a 280 L&K estate:

 

• the stop/start sometimes stopping the engine before the car comes to a halt. Others have commented on this and I therefore assume it is normal behaviour, but is strikes me as potentially dangerous, e.g. on approach to a fast-flowing roundabout
• the low temperature warning - coming on with a big "the car has a problem!" BONG at a balmy 4 degrees C. Not only does that give me a totally unnecessary start, it's a too high a threshold to be useful. No doubt VAG are in possession of some information that shows a possibility of road icing as the temperature drops to 4C. That is prioritising CYA over useful functionality. For an even worse example of CYA, however, see below.*
• the standard issue tyres. Good heavens are they noisy, even if they last well. Just changed them for Michelin Crossclimate+ - good impression so far.
• the virtual pedal (which I like) and the inability to use it to close the door (which I don't). I have, thank you, loaded up the boot with my stuff at the car park. Now I am taking it out, and I have the bags in my hands, but I must drop them on the muddy drive to close the rear door. (I bought mine too early for the close function.)

 

* For serious CYA: my wife's DS3 will not allow the cruise control to be set at a speed > 70 mph. Fine, I understand why that works for Citroen, though not any of its customers. That means that on the motorway the fastest you can set the CC to is about 67mph in the real world. Not at all useful on Britain's motorways ...

 

 

 

 

 

 

4 degrees C is a pretty standard ice warning alarm point across the motor industry. Any lower would be redundant and any higher would be too cautious. The set point is engineering science based and not an arbitrary figure set by VAG.

 

Remember the temperature of the road surface may be several degrees lower than the temp being measured by your sensor. Wind chill factors on exposed sections of road etc etc. Hence the function is to warn that conditions are such that ice could or has already formed in the area you are driving; an early warning sign before you might notice from other external indicators. ( for example a rain shower in such conditions could easily lead to localised ice forming on that colder road surface.) 

 

I agree the bong could be less intrusive in design and it makes me jump sometimes but driving in a nice warm car on a cold night it is reassuring to know it is there. Especially so in the area I live with hills and valleys all around. The air temp can change quite dramatically over short distances. 

On 30/11/2017 at 09:17, PSM said:

Can not remember the website as it was a few years ago but it was not a Bosch blade. It was the same design and look but a different brand (again can not remember the brand now) and has worked perfectly for the last few years. The fronts were also not Bosch (did not see the point in paying the inflated prices for Bosch ones) and again have been perfect.

https://www.wiperblades.co.uk/estate-2-years-2015-to-2017/bosch-a403h-rear-screen-wiper-blade/

£10

ordered.

To remove wiper blade judder....

Lift up the wiper arm, move the blade to make a T and twist the arm slightly the opposite way to the judder stroke.

This fix is free and just aligns the blade to the window.

Ditto for me with the rear wiper judder. I bought the car at 6 months old/9000 Miles and it was really annoying. I got a new rear blade from the local motor factors (can’t remember the make, probably bosch) and it’s been perfect ever since. Best £10 (or whatever) spent!

 

Start stop when rolling - ditto, although it only seems to do it on the first stop. A design fault.

 

Virtual pedal works pretty well when the car is locked. Doesn’t seem to work well when the car is unlocked, for some reason.

Haven’t had any niggles whatsoever, but my gripe is … seats are just about OK (I do quite big mileage), however nothing to write home about. Above all, they’re too short and don't have any extend function. Alas, that’s no doubt built into the price / brand. It’s the thing that would most likely motivate me to look elsewhere next time.

+1 ^^^^^^

I feel for the OP. I've had cheap new cars costing 7k to 13k with niggles, but something the price of a superb that wasn't perfect would drive me insane.  If the dealers dont rectify a fault after 3 attempts, is it possible to reject the car?

So today all of my radio presets have been cleared. Stuck with it for now... Not quite sure how it passed U AT !

Edited 7 December, 20178 yr by jimcallaghan

On 03/12/2017 at 16:55, camelspyyder said:

I feel for the OP. I've had cheap new cars costing 7k to 13k with niggles, but something the price of a superb that wasn't perfect would drive me insane.  If the dealers dont rectify a fault after 3 attempts, is it possible to reject the car?

Depends what they trying to fix?

 

Engine and gearbox failures are usually justifiable for rejection depending on circumstance. But typically rejection is like trying to get blood from a stone

On 11/29/2017 at 10:26, jimcallaghan said:

 

Electric Window Noise - sounds awful & grinding. Already mentioned when fly was being removed. Dealer 'will order a new motor'. Hasn't happened and I've given up calling.

 

 

Had this from new on the driver's window. Sometimes creaked, sometimes did not. Guiding rails were lubricated but not hellped much. Dealer offered full reassembly, but I was more afraid of side effects on that (likely creaks from the removal of door cards/mechanisms). So decided to wait. Now I'm at 21000km, window is operated every working day twice (I have to swipe a card to enter the parking) and seems to almost cure itself (sometimes still not smooth, but no "groaning").

 

 

The car was 4 months and just over 6K miles old when I bought it and the rear wiper has always juddered. Have just ordered a Bosch replacement in the hope that it'll sort it.

 

Fitted a PedalBox+ back in the summer which sorted the throttle lag.

 

The only other real niggle I have is the virtual pedal. It only works when it feels like it.  I just wish it wouldn't feel like it when I'm down on my knees trying to remove the tow bar - the sudden beeping is enough to make me cack myself! I'm not entirely convinced either that an obstruction will stop the tailgate from closing before it has done some serious damage to whatever part of my anatomy is in its way. I've tried to stop it by grabbing it and it takes a lot of doing.

The only niggle I have so far is that when trying to put the key in the ignition in the dark I can't see what I'm doing. Such a shame that it's not illuminated. 

Does your car not have interior lighting?

The interior lighting does not illuminate the ignition.