Bingo! And then these same folks complain that the brand is "trash", unreliable, expensive to maintain, etc. based on their experience of having bought a pile of.......
European Car Ownership
- Thread starter The Critic
- Start date
Bingo! And then these same folks complain that the brand is "trash", unreliable, expensive to maintain, etc. based on their experience of having bought a pile of.......
Very true. I've had customers in my small engine business that I did the work for them to the best of my ability, and from then on just decline to work on their stuff, because their attitude and demands are just not worth my time.
People who give as much thought to their car as their dishwasher should not buy a Euro car. Doing the maintenance, and using proper fluids etc. are essential. The ignorant or cheap out crowd are the ones that largely creates the Euro car horror stories. We have countless happy and dedicated BMW etc. owners here on BITOG, but that is not a neglectful crowd.
How many VW turbo's have blown because they were run on long neglectful Jiffy Lube OCI's of conventional 5w20? I'm betting a lot.
How many VW turbo's have blown because they were run on long neglectful Jiffy Lube OCI's of conventional 5w20? I'm betting a lot.
I guess there could be some pretty bad quick lubes out there but the Pennzoil express lube I worked at everyone knew the importance of putting oil that meets the spec. Every German vehicle we would look up the specific specs for that vehicle. At the time I believe all of them were 5w40.
My coworker is trying to take care of his 2013 A4 but an engine rebuild is not going to be in the budget, so he's selling it as soon as he puts the winters on it so they don't hear the completely chopped tires.
Whoever buys it will also soon find out about the 1 qt per 600 miles oil consumption pretty quick.
And it's not just JL. Back in the day, even VAG dealers were putting mineral oil in these cars because things got lost in translation on the way from Germany.
I would not 100% put VW in the category of budget busting repairs - at least not to the level that BMW/MB/Audi are as far as expensive repairs popping up later in years. Yes its no Honda, Toyota or Mazda when it comes to outright reliability but repairs and maintenance are pretty reasonable when comparing to the luxury German brands for when things do go wrong.
Exactly, I have often said VW is German without the luxury tax. Much of the "German car" expenses oft disparaged here have less to do with German and more to do with being a luxury brand (Audi, BMW, Mercedes). A fellow BITOG'er recently posted some eye popping repair bills for his Genesis... again the luxury tax at work not country of origin.
I looked hard at Audi when I bought the Passat, unquestionably nicer, but not that much nicer and long term ownership costs were to me in the end not worth it. Maybe someday when I get that big promotion at work LOL.
That's good to hear, and I shouldn't have picked on Jiffy lube specifically. I'm aware that many quick shops (and unknowing owners) do not put proper fluids in the Euro cars which over time leads to problems. My son went into AAP and walked out with an ILSAC 5w30 for his Tiguan because the counter jockey told him that's what he needed.
This after he had already changed it once with Mobil 0w40 at my direction. Kids....Lexus (luxury brand) is probably cheaper to service than VW and Fiat (non-luxury)
And those comments get amplified in the internet echo chamber- parroted mainly by envious and bitter “experts” who have yet to even sit in the car that they are blabbering about.
Just look @ the wholesale price of used german cars. (9-15 years) A small percentage of what the original purchase price was. The market has significantly depreciated these cars for "some reason"; one can argue what the reason is, but they don't hold their value in the used market compared to say acura or lexus. If they were some kind of "gem" the market would have discovered this.
In the comments section we can find a Tier 0 technician.
“I had a 2018 Mercedes G550 AWD in last week. They just wanted to look at the vehicle before purchasing. When I had it in the air the front axle was nothing like anything I had ever seen. Big spheres at each wheel that looked like a ball and socket setup for steering knuckles. After they left I looked it up on Alldata and could not find info for this vehicle. This is the biggest reason I don’t like working on European junk.”
The portals. Oh my...
You can get portal axle conversion kits for them. But most likely the so-called 'tech' was stymied by the stock axle configuration. Which is sad.
I suppose that explains why the Acura and Lexus owners clubs are exponentially larger than the BMW, Mercedes, and Porsche clubs.
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There's always under valued stocks out there to buy. Perception is reality. Not everybody figures things out. Lots of people believe things that aren't true. Too many assumptions that the markets are efficient. They are not. As mentioned earlier, lots of people buy them without doing research. Do your research and you're less likely to be burned. I was going to buy a 2006 E-350 at one point, did my research and went to the 2008 instead, the 2006-2007 had too many issues, especially the 2006.
Swivel balls are intimidating.....
I still remember working at Saturn around 2005 and our manager knew a really good tech he worked with before and hired him from VW. He talked about the horror stories of VW repairs and this was 15 years ago. Disassembling entire front ends just to replace an alternator, etc. His opinion was the cars we were working on at Saturn were much better vehicles. He was actually driving an early 90s or late 80s VW golf diesel at the time. My opinion on euro cars has been from working in a couple dealerships and a couple independents. Other than oil changes I was not the one working on them so I'm getting my information second hand. Maybe all of us were just idiots and should realize how great German cars really are. But I think I'll just stick with what's worked for me. And as far as recommendations, I don't know anyone who wants to work on on VW/Audi, so it's best not to recommend them. I could have saved my coworker a lot of money if he'd asked me about the Audi before buying it.
Did you work there when the Astra was out? Do you have experience with the L-series (Opel Vectra B)?
Scotty Kilmer is a well known example (of many) mechanics who hates German cars because he doesn't like to work on them. I do minor maintenance but I don't "work" on my VW's. I pay someone else to do it and can easily afford to do so. I don't believe just because a mechanic doesn't like to work on something somehow invalidates the make as a viable alternative.
Plenty of Indy shops apparently like them as well, finding one that specializes in German is not hard in any well populated area. I'm just not believing they are all staffed by distraught, suffering "wish I were somewhere else" mechanics.
Plenty of Indy shops apparently like them as well, finding one that specializes in German is not hard in any well populated area. I'm just not believing they are all staffed by distraught, suffering "wish I were somewhere else" mechanics.
One of the problems that IMO can occur is that nobody is staying the same. The best maker (however you want to define it) back in 1980 probably was not making the same car in 1990... nor in 2000... nor in 2010... and all of them have some skeletons in the closet best avoided.
