[Resolved]  Volkswagen India — Horrible service experience for critical safety issue in Volkswagen Bangalore

Below issue has been brought to the notice of customer care and complaint registered more than a month ago. I have got zero support towards solving the issue so far.

Vehicle issue
The engine on the VW Jetta cut out unexpectedly while being driven. Engine failed to restart and the vehicle had to be towed to the service center on 6th August, Friday. Thankfully the engine cut out happened while being driven at low speeds on residential roads with no other vehicles around. Otherwise this functional safety issue, unintended loss of power while driving, which compromises both steering and braking could have led to a nasty accident. This was not the first instance either. There were a couple of instances over the preceding days when this happened but on those occasions, the car did get restarted.

Lack of confidence in Diagnostics performed so far
For almost 2 weeks after dropping off the vehicle at the service center, the service in charge was contacted by the customer for updates and the vehicle was reported as still undergoing diagnosis. The injectors were checked and confirmed to be ok at this stage. Some error with cylinder 2 and 3 was being reported in diagnostics, but even after swapping the injectors from cylinders 1 & 4 to 2 & 3, the issue was still being reported from cylinders 2 & 3 thereby indicating it was not a hardware problem from the injectors. This was confirmed by the Service Manager over call as well. Then the fuel line was checked, fuel dumped and fuel changed because the fuel "smelled different". This did not resolve the issue either. Next step suggested was the replacement of wiring. This also did not contribute to fixing the issue. This is the progress from having the vehicle at the service center for more than 7 weeks! Now the next steps being suggested are ECM replacement and injector replacement (although they were checked and confirmed to be ok by the same service center earlier). The lack of root cause diagnosis is very troubling and does not inspire confidence that the issue would be resolved. The replacement of ECM seems like a hail mary from the service team where hopefully the issue gets resolved. The additional recommendation of replacing injectors makes no sense whatsoever. The whole thing feels like an expensive trial and error experiment by the service team rather than a diagnosis driven issue resolution by a technically competent team.

Tapping into the expertise of VW India Technical Team
I am convinced that the technical knowledge of VW India has not been tapped to help root cause and fix this issue. There should be many similar cases reported across other service centers on a national level that can be referred to and the issues understood better. There should be records indicating how they were resolved finally as well. Furthermore, even the knowledge and expertise of German teams who helped develop the engine and would have access to issues reported worldwide would also be a great way to ensure the issue is fixed in the best way possible.

Expectations from a top brand like VW
There is a significant amount of trust based on brand value that is taken into consideration when one makes a purchase as significant and expensive as that of the personal vehicle. This trust is earned from the customers over a long time through vehicle reliability, trustworthy customer support and efficient service experience. I do feel that the same trust has been violated and it makes me question why I or any of my acquaintances would ever consider purchasing a VW if customers are in for a bad experience. We have maintained the car as per the company recommendations since the very beginning and all the services have been done only at official VW service centers. The service record proves that. We even went ahead and replaced many parts on completing 10 years even though the vehicle mileage has been on the lower side (73k kms), having always been the second car in the family. This 10-year service generated a bill of almost 1 lakhs! And the problems have come one after the other since then. First an issue was reported in April, when the vehicle was stuck in neutral and gears could not be changed. The service and repair at that time came close to 15k. The engine problems surfaced after that repair was carried out in the same service center in April of this year. The car is just 10 years old and does not have a high mileage on it even. There is an implicit assumption that an expensive vehicle from a reputed manufacturer such as VW will at least survive the duration for which the registration charges are paid for, i.e. a minimum of 15 years of roadworthy life.