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As almost any Audiphile could tell you, the 1.8T in the A4's have failed almost as frequently as the VW's.
However the most Audi owners seem to still have a love for their cars after the coilpack problems & aren't as disenchanted. I attribute this to fewer misc. quality issues in the Audi & better service departments in general for the Audi.
VW is replacing the coilpacks if your car is underwarranty. But true to their form, the enthusiast community has been clammoring for months for them to release a TSB & it has been falling on dead ears. Outside of warranty VW is not reimbursing for the repair & I'm sure is making a good bit of change by charging people $150-400 for a repair on a part that by now they should recognize as poorly designed.
This problem very closely parallels the window regulator issues of the MkIV series. For the last 4 years windows have been spontaneously dropping into the doors of VW's. All of this was due to a plastic clip that would break after a bit of use or a string of a few warm days. For 4 years people were having to pay around $200 to get their window fixed if it was out of warranty (mind you, until last year VW's warranty was only 24,000 miles). This problem was so common that people would have to get their window regs replaced 4,5,6,7 times. A few poor souls on the vortex reported over 10 broken windows. This was obviously a design problem. But for 4 years VW ignored the constant pleas of their consumers & went along selling cars with known faulty parts & reaping the rewards in service charges when they broke. Finally after a class action suit had gotten enough signatures & support, just before VW was served the papers they released a dealer alert to the problem. Notice this was not an actual TSB, so consumers out of the loop still had no way of knowing this was a problem & nothing would be trackable outside of the dealers. When complaints continued to come in that dealers were still charging for the repairs, VW released a letter to their consumers stating that they would be able to get their window regs replaced until 100,000 miles & that there was a new window reg made with a metal clip. Finally some resolution to the problem. A funny little ending to this, VW is still refusing to replace the plastic window regulators until they fail. SO, since only one of my windows has dropped into my door, I try not to use the other window because it's a ticking time bomb.
Welcome to VW customer service. :P
I'm sure the coilpack issue is going to go this same route, the only issue is, they dont have a coilpacks to replace the current ones with. The "new J coils" that they said were the answer have begun failing on some of their cars. With only 18,000 miles left on my warranty, I don't dare chance it.
Hope this sheds some light on the issue. Remember, I am only one owner & one experience, I'm sure that there are thousands of people who've never had a problem with their Dub. I just hope you don't end up like me.
Justin
posted by 144.160....
, Thu, 9 Jan 2003 16:26:35
, Thu, 9 Jan 2003 17:51:13, Thu, 9 Jan 2003 21:26:22, Thu, 9 Jan 2003 17:33:00
, Thu, 9 Jan 2003 14:52:03
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