[Resolved]  Volkswagen India — Defective Car

Address:

Faridabad, Haryana, 121006

I bought my new VW Vento 3 years back. It is driven 54k km in last 3 years. I have been taking very good care of my car and getting all the required servicing on time from authorized VW service centers.

Recently, my car broke down on the road and did not start. I got my car towed to authorized dealership (frontier vw center, mohan cooperative) immediately. They advised me that timing belt needs to be replaced. Estimated cast was INR 50k

Issue #1: While it’s possible but Timing belt broke down much earlier than it’s avg. life.

For some reason, their service center could not fix the timing belt, and further advised that car needs to be opened up further. And they estimated cost of repair to be INR 156k.

Issue #2: I am not a car expert, but looks like neither are service center staff who could not figure out the issue in the car.

By now, I tried to be inquisitive and asked service man if they are sure if this will fix the issue. Then to my surprise, they suggested to replace half of the engine. Now the estimate of repair cost is INR 350k + taxes. This cost if ~35%-40% of the cost of the new car.

Issue#3: It was clear to me that they don’t know what the issue is or they are just trying to screw me over. Either ways, it has significantly changed my perception about VW.

Issue#4: If the fixes suggested by service center are needed, it is very surprising that 3Yr old car with just 50k km on it need so many/expansive fixes so soon. Not sure if that’s because this unit was defected to begin with and it has something to with all the recalls VW did in US and Europe.

Service center told me that they will get back in next 2 days. Not sure what the process is but at this point I am confident that I need repaired car, I want a new replacement of this car. I was sold a defective car that broke down in 3 years. And this model is not a cheap model, but even Tata NaNo car which is one-tenth of the cost of Vento runs longer than this car.

I would like to request please take a look into the matter urgently because not having a car is effecting my daily life and my job.
I would expect a company like yours will take this matter seriously and take actions that ensure great customer experience. I look forward to hearing back from you.

Thank you,
Ankur Aggarwal