Recent VW Golfs -- opinions?

Like the topic says. What do the you think of A5/A6 Golfs?

Are they full of VW "character," by which I mean "electrical problems"? Any particular model/trim/engine to look for, or look out for?

Any info appreciated.

Thanks, Matt

Treb wrote: Like the topic says. What do the you think of A5/A6 Golfs? Are they full of VW "character," by which I mean "electrical problems"? Any particular model/trim/engine to look for, or look out for? Any info appreciated. Thanks, Matt

Actually, any VAG (hahahaha, sorry) product newer then 2002 is actually pretty awesome reliability wise. And the coolest thing is, if you are in the "know" (or know somebody who is in the "know"), they are easy to work on.

Case in point, my car last year was a 2004 Golf. One day, the check engine light came on, car stalled while cruising at steady state. Took it to my buddies VW/Audi shop, he plugged his vagcom into the car, instantly was able to tell me the coolant temp sensor had failed. No question, it TOLD HIM THAT. I've always hated EFI partially because of working on OBD1 systems of where the computer would say SOMETHING HAS FAILED but even if I replaced everything it wouldn't fix the problem. The VW setup on the other hand is top notch.

There aren't issues with the wiring to the locks/power windows anymore either, and all of the guys who have bought A5/A6 GTi's love them and have zilch for problems.

So you mean other than the wiring/electrical issues, the tendancy to spontaneously burst into flames (I've watched 2), the window winders failing and the windows just falling down, other interior trim pieces randomly falling off, & headlight systems flickering and failing, you're asking what other types of things might you want to be aware of and watch out for?

I just want to be sure I've got the question straight.

I've got an 07 Jetta 2.5, pretty much the same as the Rabbit. No problems, 35K miles. Pretty nice car, really. Its leased, though, not a keeper.

carguy123 wrote: So you mean other than the wiring/electrical issues, the tendancy to spontaneously burst into flames (I've watched 2), the window winders failing and the windows just falling down, other interior trim pieces randomly falling off, & headlight systems flickering and failing, you're asking what other types of things might you want to be aware of and watch out for? I just want to be sure I've got the question straight.

Yeah, it sounds like you've got it right. So, other than that, what do you think of them?

30k on the 2008 mk5 wabbit in just over a year..besides the rear brake pads wearing out by 25k, no issues... no mechanical issues, interior takes a beating and still looks like new... no squeeks, no rattles, nada... awesome car, and would buy again.

carguy123 wrote: So you mean other than the wiring/electrical issues, the tendancy to spontaneously burst into flames (I've watched 2), the window winders failing and the windows just falling down, other interior trim pieces randomly falling off, & headlight systems flickering and failing, you're asking what other types of things might you want to be aware of and watch out for? I just want to be sure I've got the question straight.

those were the A4 cars in their glory days....

A5 started with the new rebadged rabbit and gti (think 'my fast' commercials). They seem to be pretty reliable, one guy i autocross with has been, according to him, thrashing his leased '08 rabbit pretty good and he says its had no gremlins or weird issues at all.

The 2006 rabbit I bought my wife was terrible. Ate the front tires in less than 11k miles after checking the alignment multiple times. Got a terrible 15mpg in town but almost 25 fwy. Felt as heavy as it actually was, understeer of epic proportions. The Air conditioning simply sucked, no bones about it, on a 90 degree day with the AC on full blast it would be a muggy 82 in the car and for some reason a standard feature on that car is to have that awful AC ported to the glovebox and console cubby.

I pretty much hated that car and i think it hated me too. One morning on my way to work I thought "What is that? hey that is hot! Wait...WTF???? I leaned forward for the rest of the drive. when I got out of the car I saw that the seat heater had burned through the upholstery, my jacket, my coverall, my shirt and gave me a nice burn to boot.

I recieve excellent dealer service because the service writer and several mechanics are good friends of mine but owning that car was awful. I took a loss on it and traded it in on a 2001 GTI 1.8T and didnt look back. Faster, better handling and much better gas milage

My mother in law's Jetta is a POS. If something this bad came from Detroit people would burn the city down. Farm Tractor idle quality? Normal, a unique feature of the five cylinder engine. 15,000 mile tires? Normal. 25,000 mi rear brake pads? Normal too. The tail lights failed coming home from the dealer, they kept it two weeks while a harness was apparently being made from scavenged wire. At 40,000 it started to use coolant. At 60,000 the exhaust kinda smells like burnt coolant, When the dealer can fit her in we will probably learn why that too is normal.

Not defending the marque, although I work at a dealership.

We probably maintain 600 vehicles in this range between Golf/Rabbit GTi/Jetta.

I have yet to see a 15" or 16" equipped car get less than 35,000 miles on a set of tires with 10k rotations. 17" and 18" OEMs get 20,000 mile tires from the factory.

25,000 brakes seem low as well, not impossible but I often see 40K rear and 60K front services on most highway driven cars. Horrid brake squeaking starts immediately and never gets resolved.

Wiring is terrible. All of it. These idiots couldn't make a connector if their TARP funds depended on it.

Most coolant leaks are at the coolant flange or in the turbo (if equipped)

I have an '03 Jetta TDI that I bought new. For the most part, the car has been dead-nuts reliable. My car has never seen the inside of a VW service center. Too many horror stories of TDI's going in and coming out worse than before... I bought the car knowing I'd be working on it myself and have purchased the tools required to do so, such as the previously mentioned VAG-COM software. I'm currently closing in on 190K miles.

Do I go through tires? Yes... about a set a year, on average... but I tend to drive aggressively and have always gone through tires... I do swap wheels/tires for Summer and Winter, although I don't always run "Summer-only" tires. I recently switched back to the OE 15" wheels w/ all-season tires.

Brakes. Rear were replaced at 90K. Fronts at 150K. I'm currently at 190K and the rears are at about 50%. From what I've read about these cars, this is normal because of how the brakes are set up. The system applies the rear brakes first. With ABS, they can get away with this. The side effect is the rear brakes wear out before the fronts, which seems to annoy people for soem reason...

Wiring-wise, my car has been fine. Maybe I got a mid-week production car and they took more care in putting it together... I don't know... Maybe it's because the car was assembled in Germany vs. Mexico or Brazil?

My car has needed nothing more than maintenance and wear-items replaced. Mostly specific to TDI's, such as glow-plugs (3rd set about to go in, plus a new harness) and the all-important timing belt (2nd time very soon). It needs a coolant temp sensor. But the car has 190K miles. I don't consider this to be out of the ordinary. Heck, I'm still on the original battery... that I've been meaning to replace every Fall for the last 3 years...

The interior could use a cleaning, but is otherwise good. The front end was protected with a clear-bra very early, so paint chips are few. Occassionally, I even manage to wash and wax the poor thing and it shines up nicely.

As I sit here writing this, I start second-guessing my recent desires to sell the car... it's hard to dump something that has been so faithful.

I had A1 and A2 cars. Reliable daily drive and track machines. On to an A3 GTI and that was a piece of crap. The Corrado SLC that I bought new was flawless and reliable. After the A3 I was done with new model VWs. I did drive an A5 to see what DSG was about, but apart from the gearbox, I had no faith in it.

m

We had a 2004 Golf, and over 4 years the only problem* we had was a failed ignition switch.

It finally ran out of tires at ~44,000 miles, and we hadn't touched the brakes when we sold it at 50k.

(* As long as you don't count the dog-slow 2.0 as a problem... that engine ran out of breath at 3500)

No problems so far with my 08 GTI w/DSG. It's got 24k on it though.. so take it for what it's worth. I have a co-worker with a 06 GTI w/6M with 55K on it. His has been into the shop 1 time to get the passenger seat airbag wiring harness replaced. Apparently was an issue with the early 06's. I've heard bad things about the 5-cylinder gas mileage. Fortunatly there is a solution to that.. GTI or GLI. The 2.0L FSI turbo gets about 30 on the highway. I'm sure if you drove like mario around town you could get 18-20, but I've seen an average of 28 over my ownership of the car.

Daniel

carguy123 wrote: So you mean other than the wiring/electrical issues, the tendancy to spontaneously burst into flames (I've watched 2), the window winders failing and the windows just falling down, other interior trim pieces randomly falling off, & headlight systems flickering and failing, you're asking what other types of things might you want to be aware of and watch out for? I just want to be sure I've got the question straight.

you have quoted everything wrong with cool runnings except the bursting into flames bit (probably next on the list)!!!

My mom had an 03 Jetta 1.8T...it was crap. Engine went from quiet to noisy overnight. Doors sounded horrible when you closed them. Radio would shut off randomly and not come back on.

The car just seemed to go down hill very quickly.

I wouldn't want one newer than 88'

My wife bought a brand new Brazillian-built five door '03 Golf GLS 2.0 auto. Terrible, terrible car. From new, the slushbox wouldn't engage a forward gear from cold unless rolled a few feet(great fun when you're parallel parked uphill). OE Goodyears cupped themselves to death by 15k miles. Burned through front swaybar bushings. Windshield washer nozzles are not snowbelt friendly: they snap loose of their moorings when snow is brushed from the windshield. The chassis would flex so bad at any speed that you could actually hear the flex in the form of all the interior plastic panels in the rear crashing into each other.

All four window rubbers tore open the first cold day in winter... dealer wouldn't fix, I never did either. Drafty! I once activated the wipers on a warm rainy day and the driver's side wiper arm SNAPPED off, leaving behind a 4" stump on the spindle that marred the windshield; dealer wouldn't fix it, cost me $45 for a new arm and a LOT of hand polishing. I changed lightbulbs on the order of one a week(all over, not just one circuit), twice that if it was below freezing outside. Lost body trim constantly. Loved to blow mini fuses whenever all the windows were down and the sunroof was open... just as it started to rain. Lost chunks of the plastic engine undertray everytime it snowed. Waterpump impeller(plastic!?) blew up at 22k miles, fixed under warranty after 3 trips to the dealer, who insisted that the guage sender was bad, and that it wasn't actually wildly overheating. Front strut mounts blew out at 28k(dealer wouldn't fix, as the 4 year warranty was up).

So we traded it in on a used Forester after 4.5 years with a touch under 30k miles. More toys, better gas mileage, twice the drive wheels, better value new(same price!), cheaper to register and run, way bigger inside, arguably better looking, far more easy to work on, cheaper parts, light years faster. Our only regret is not buying the Subaru years sooner. I don't have a lot of experience with the more modern German-built cars, but after sampling what VW Brazil/Mexico turns out, I'm all set with Volkswagen for a while until I forget how bad the Mk4 was.

Wow...

Mine has always been good except it does eat front tires. Counting the originals my car has worn 12 different tires in 90,000 miles. Although I attribute that to the factory ContiTouringContacts being made out of concentrated awful. I'm going to get nearly as many miles out of my Azenis. And the car took it easy on my winter tires.

Aside from that the coilpacks went at 90k. The little $1 bulb in the hvac cluster went out. The gas guage stopped working. Had a wheel bearing done under warranty. Windows occasionally fall of track. 2nd and 3rd synchros have sucked since I got the car at 11k.

Still have the original brakes.

For the miles I've driven it, and how hard I drive it. The car has been quite reliable. Plenty of little things that you hardly notice. And tires.

A5 chassis is the same reliability wise but it turns better. Or at least thats what everyone who has them tells me. Given the choice I'd buy a lower mile A4...but thats just me.

I think it might be too soon to judge about the A5 reliability. Most don't have high mileage yet. From what I have read about the A5 Golf, it took twice as long to build compared to previous Golfs (or was it compared against similar cars from Honda and Mazda...). This makes me think it was designed a bit overly complex. The A6 is supposed to fix this build issue and is supposed to go together much more simply and quicker.

I think the A5 may have more failure points with age.

I have not driven the newer 180hp version just the old 150hp one but the 2.5 revs like a diesel.....with really E36 M3ty gas milage. at 4300rpm it just hit a wall. Tons of grunt on the low end but that was it.

The 2001 GTI we replaced it with has been problematic. Lots of bad coils, a diverter valve or two...but it is soooo much better to drive.

My Mk4 Golf would break the glovebox door on the first cold day of every winter. The first year - when there weren't many of them on the road - I got a replacement quickly. The next year, it took a long time because every single VW on the road busted their glovebox door that day. The only other problems were brake rotors that welded themselves to the pads after sitting for three weeks (replaced under warranty) and a rear badge that was candy to hoodlums.

I liked the car, though. I put some fat tires on it so the traction circle became limitless on the street and a proper suspension to get rid of the floaty one. But I never bonded with the car, and it got sold. Not enough character. Haven't driven an Mk5 though.

alright heres a question. say im in the market for an obd1 e36 325 or a mk4 golf or jetta, which would you choose? Ive had a 93 e36, was great up until i got the coolant trail on the back of the block, so i got rid of it fearing i had to do a headgasket. Other than that, it was a great car. Now i have the vw itch and am looking at vr6s and 1.8s. what would you do?

Mmmmm..... tasty VR6 is tasty.

A MK4 VR6 can be a good car.

Rusty_Rabbit84 wrote: say im in the market for an obd1 e36 325 or a mk4 golf or jetta, which would you choose?

Honestly, just get the Bimmer(I'm VW biased, for the record). Right wheel drive, good power, build quality is reasonable. The VR6 is a great engine with an unholy exhaust note when uncorked, and the 1.8T is one of the more driveable turbo mills around with great potential for big, useable power, but they are mounted in the least interesting, most dreadful chassis. Overweight, blithering, numb, flexy, unresponsive crap. Shame they didn't build something better to match the engines(2.0 excluded, obviously). Unless you happen into a clean GLI or GTI 337 or something really special, I'd pass.