New Car Lemon - Consumer Act

I think there is a few benoude boude from an earlier thread this week, waiting what brand this is.
 
Jean Claude Vaaldamme said:
Would not call it a lemon, but bought a brand new VW Caddy 2.0TDI Maxi.
First time on highway and over 110km/h and there is a loud whistling wind noise.
Book it in, they hear the noise but don't know what's causing it.
Week later they send it to another dealer, same thing don't have solution.
Tell me they have a engineer from Germany coming in two weeks and I must bring it then.
Take it and problem solved. Coming from the side mirror.
The fix? 10cm piece of Sellotape on bottom corner of mirror where the two pieces clip together.
Wanted to fight but decided to just live with it and replace the Sellotape once a year when it start looking dirty.
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Hahaaa! That was but one of the issues I experienced with the Vokopswagons I had the displeasure to have had. In my case the car was supposed to make the wind noises because 'it ventilates'!
 
Pax said:
Hahaaa! That was but one of the issues I experienced with the Vokopswagons I had the displeasure to have had. In my case the car was supposed to make the wind noises because 'it ventilates'!
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Well I am the wrong person to complain to about VW. Since I was a kid either my mom or dad or both had a VW. Not a single major problem ever.
Then for the last 30 years either me or wife or both had a VW. One we sold on 180k kms the rest was all past 200 or even 300k kms.
Once had a petrol pump(citi golf), and once a clutch(Caddy). Worst was an aircon compressor (Caddy). Thats it.
Oh and a 1.9TDI Caddy that was notorious for those turbo's. But it blew up before 30k kms. replaced within a day under warrantee with new spec turbo and ran like a dream till sold at 240k kms. We had one of the first 1.6i Polo's, with that big boot. Jeez that thing we abused, drove it to just under 300k kms. Nothing. Only tires, brakes and services and shocks once. That thing did not even have the standard VW small rattle somewhere.
So yes thats just my sample, but from my own experience of excellent reliability, very reasonable service costs and part prices and availability. Whenever I am looking for a car, VW is first on the list.
 
Jean Claude Vaaldamme said:
Well I am the wrong person to complain to about VW. Since I was a kid either my mom or dad or both had a VW. Not a single major problem ever.
Then for the last 30 years either me or wife or both had a VW. One we sold on 180k kms the rest was all past 200 or even 300k kms.
Once had a petrol pump(citi golf), and once a clutch(Caddy). Worst was an aircon compressor (Caddy). Thats it.
Oh and a 1.9TDI Caddy that was notorious for those turbo's. But it blew up before 30k kms. replaced within a day under warrantee with new spec turbo and ran like a dream till sold at 240k kms. We had one of the first 1.6i Polo's, with that big boot. Jeez that thing we abused, drove it to just under 300k kms. Nothing. Only tires, brakes and services and shocks once. That thing did not even have the standard VW small rattle somewhere.
So yes thats just my sample, but from my own experience of excellent reliability, very reasonable service costs and part prices and availability. Whenever I am looking for a car, VW is first on the list.
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Hahaa, not complaining to you, but aren't you one of the people, as I said, having only known stale bread, never found cake is nicer? Only having had VWs, you have never experienced nor realised other cars are better? I've recently acquired my 34th personal car, my 2nd BM in my life (that is not counting many cars bought for staff). I've had many, many brands of cars. The worst were Fords and VWs, the best Toyota, Merc, Volvo and (touch wood) BM. My first BM had airflow meter issues from km 0.0, but was fixed on 1st attempt. Hyundais also are deemed highly reliable in my book. I owned 2 and bought several as cars for staff.

So, some people are lucky, others seem to accept the shortcomings and overlook them. I, on the other hand, being very pedantic, hold reliability and other issues, like the constant niggles with the VW's, against the brand and am not willing to accept it. Why does one not get those issues with brands like Merc, Volvo....and Toyota, before they committed bestiality, getting into bed with Suzuki? (The older Toyotas were very good in my book, but the recent rebranded Suzukis....utter flimsy underpowered crap imho- only had the misfortune of driving them, and Suzukis as rentals. Wouldn't buy one after even a test drive though, not to mention now after having had more km experience)
 
Pax said:
Hahaa, not complaining to you, but aren't you one of the people, as I said, having only known stale bread, never found cake is nicer? Only having had VWs, you have never experienced nor realised other cars are better? I've recently acquired my 34th personal car, my 2nd BM in my life (that is not counting many cars bought for staff). I've had many, many brands of cars. The worst were Fords and VWs, the best Toyota, Merc, Volvo and (touch wood) BM. My first BM had airflow meter issues from km 0.0, but was fixed on 1st attempt. Hyundais also are deemed highly reliable in my book. I owned 2 and bought several as cars for staff.

So, some people are lucky, others seem to accept the shortcomings and overlook them. I, on the other hand, being very pedantic, hold reliability and other issues, like the constant niggles with the VW's, against the brand and am not willing to accept it. Why does one not get those issues with brands like Merc, Volvo....and Toyota, before they committed bestiality, getting into bed with Suzuki? (The older Toyotas were very good in my book, but the recent rebranded Suzukis....utter flimsy underpowered crap imho- only had the misfortune of driving them, and Suzukis as rentals. Wouldn't buy one after even a test drive though, not to mention now after having had more km experience)
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Well thats your experience and your opinion. Most of my family(from Freestate) are Toyota crazy and LOL I can tell you stories of head gaskets blown, cracked heads, injector failures.
You like Merc yet many on this forum will tell you how unreliable they are. I like Merc too.
We all have opinions and experiences.
So the closest to the truth is to look at history and stats.
Toyota and VW are the top selling cars around the world for many years........ for a reason
Merc, BMW have always been top selling luxury cars....... for a reason.
People will not keep spending their money on crap, especially if those cars are more expensive than others.
 
can the OP just make up a "story" like this so we can work this out..

my friend who lives in Lagos, Nigeria recently bought a brand new Audi A3, after 500km it gave these faults which the dealer is unable to fix

see how easy that was, you don't need to say your name or the actual location... the internet is all make believe!
 
Wrath of Khan MD said:
can the OP just make up a "story" like this so we can work this out..

my friend who lives in Lagos, Nigeria recently bought a brand new Audi A3, after 500km it gave these faults which the dealer is unable to fix

see how easy that was, you don't need to say your name or the actual location... the internet is all make believe!
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Hey! We all know its either Mahindra or Chinese.
 
I'm going with Audi and it's suspension related!

we need a poll! winner gets a wimpy burger and the losers get to keep the OP's car

wait can the OP tell us the price of the car! that is fair come on... we can sniff around after that
 
Wrath of Khan MD said:
I'm going with Audi and it's suspension related!

we need a poll! winner gets a wimpy burger and the losers get to keep the OP's car

wait can the OP tell us the price of the car! that is fair come on... we can sniff around after that
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Mahindra 3X0 AX7 or Citroen C3

OP was posting about buying a car in some other threads.
 
PCWARITM said:
34th personal car, so no long term ownership?
My neighbour's XC40 has been in at the dealership for 6 months now and it's just on three years old. They've now replaced the entire engine. Constant issues. Like all dealerships, the issue is likely lack of training at ours.
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As for long term ownership, normally no more than 8 years, although 1 Merc made 10 years. I usually own 2 and sometimes 3 cars simultaneously as my personal vehicles. I do many kms, usually I'd upgrade at around 180k km. One Merc lasted 250k km when moved on. No issues whatsoever on any car though save for the VWs and Fords which I could not tolerate even up to 80k kms.

As for Volvo, I realised around 2016 they are suffering from poor customer care and training in SA. The last one I bought then.....not again. Not what they used to be. I owned 6 between 2000 and 2016. Very reliable. Not even a flat tyre in the time( typing here I do recall once a turbo pressure release valve became erratic causing the car to surge at speeds over 180kmh. It was promptly replaced at no cost.) All driven to around 180k km.
 
PCWARITM said:
🤣 Just picturing Frikkie the local spietkop pulling the mechanic over for the 10th time that year... "pressure relief valve again Stevie?"
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Hahaa, in fact the mechanic said "how am I to test it, I won't drive that fast" (while I did then sometimes/often on deserted/back roads). I asked whether he ever heard of a dyno? The lights then came on for him. Faark! That T5 engine of Volvo was a STAR now I think back!
 
sandwitch said:
I'm not interested in writing what I'm going through because I'm living it atm. I'm interested in what happened to other people so I know the process and what to expect or to look out for.
The car was brand-new-never-driven-before. I love driving it and how it looks inside and out.
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I haven’t had an exact out of box failure on any vehicle, they all crept up later after a few months which made it much harder to fight about.

Ford Fiesta I want to say it was 2002/2003, by far the worst at around 7000km it started leaking from the roof and went in multiple times to fix this but never really got anywhere. In between these visits other stuff just failed either because it was built badly or because of their bad workmanship fiddling with it. Driver side window fell in at some point and electric mechanism stopped working. Head unit started to swallow CD’s. Rear boot panel just came clean off when closing it one day.

This was a lease car on a 5 year deal, but eventually I think into year 3 Ford finally came to the party and scrapped the deal and simply took back the car.

Not a major one really but my 2006 Buell Lightning I had some issues with the brakes that were shuddering by the time I hit the first major service at 8000km I seem to recall. Dealer has a look and the moment the disc came off it literally warped in front of our eyes right there on the table. No drama at all, Harley Davidson sorted it out under warranty. By 16,000km the wheel bearings were also pre-maturely shot and they replaced those for free, which later on actually became a recall.

2011ish bought a second hand Golf GTI from SMG BMW Century City. Took delivery of the car and went on holiday for 2ish weeks only to come back and find out the aircon was dead. Reported it to them they came and collected the car and left me with an Audi S4 station wagon which was a lot of fun. Little over a week later came and swopped back my car and all was sorted no mess no fuss.

2013 Truimph Street Triple had these factory crash protectors that would sort of fit over and around the fairing. Problem is on the right side this was badly designed where it would touch the fairing at times and eat away the paint. By my very first service this was a problem and the dealer ended up sending it away to be resprayed but didn’t really do anything about the fundamental design so by the next service it happened again and they did some hack and then it stopped.

Was the most minor of my issues as by 30,000ish km and just about to run out of warranty the oil light would flicker randomly. Dealer wasn’t much fussed and ordered a new sensor only for it not to work. By 32,000km they agreed there’s a real problem and opened up the motor and it was pretty much gone. Of course now it was out of warranty and a big fight, Triumph would not simply install a new engine and insisted on a rebuild that would cost more than I paid for the bike and also more than buying one new. I pushed to simply get the bike replaced but nobody would go for this and being out of warranty Triumph came to the party for the parts at least. Dealer sucked up the rest of the cost and I ended up forking over R5000. Credit to them I had gotten a courtesy bike for those many weeks they worked on it which I put 3,000km on.

2016 BMW R1200RS bought “second hand” with a whole 600km on the clock, but pretty much brand new for all intents and purposes. BMW by far has looked after me the best and it’s why I’ll probably never buy any other motorcycle again. Pretty much never had any resistance on any of my complaints and a great deal of volunteered work on their part.

First issue was clutch related where my bike’s just wasn’t quite as soft as the demo I had ridden. By the time I brought the bike home from Nelspruit to Cape Town this was very apparent to me and I brought it straight to the dealership, turns out there was a recall and good thing I brought it in then because I wouldn’t have found out about it until I updated my details.

Come first service I was having major issues with the quick shifter that would just sometimes do nothing or hit a false neutral. No drama they just swopped it out.

Somewhere around this time I had a problem where the throttle felt like it wasn’t closing quickly enough. Like you’d close it and it would return to idle over a few seconds instead of just dropping down. It wasn’t dangerous yet, but my worry is that it would get worse. Popped in at dealer on the way to work and without any further question or even testing they just pulled off the entire throttle assembly and put on a brand new one.

By the second service I had broken the quickshifter again. This time they were a bit more detailed about it asking to keep the bike overnight so they could take it apart and take photos etc to send back to Germany. No problem got a courtesy bike and off I went.

Don’t remember how long it worked but I had broken it again somewhere in between but now well out of bike’s own warranty. BMW was no stress the part itself has its own 2 year warranty and this time they didn’t just replaced the unit itself but the wiring loom that runs to it. Turns out all along that was the actual problem causing or not causing the correct resistance.

Beyond warranty they’ve quietly and without asking me for any money fixed things like the 1st gear/clutch sensor switch that failed. They’ve also done a full voluntary inspection and service of the drive shaft…which I thought would be a scam to make me fork over lots of cash.

2022 Haval H6 HEV bought very second hand in 2024 with 4*,000 km on the clock. Drove home only to find out the HUD wasn’t working and it turned out to be a problem with the wrong windscreen being fitted. They were baffled not no combative and after an initial inspection sent out guys to come do the windscreen replacement in my driveway.

At the first service I complained about what I feel is a not so normal brake shudder when using cruise control, in this regard they were firstly not of the opinion it’s a concern and definitely not interested in doing this as a warranty claim. They cleaned up the system and it did seem to resolve the problem for a while.

Subsequently I’m convinced it’s the regen braking and therefore lesser braking overall leaving excess amounts of dust on the discs, because a couple of intentional hard braking stops and it goes away entirely.
 
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