Big Thumbs down for Leith VW.

Stephen Westerfield · **Posted:** Tue Oct 05, 2004 2:59 pm

Although they sponsered an event, I didn't see them listed on our list of sponsors, so I figured I was ok to share my experiences with Leith VW.

We took our Passat to them with the CEL on to get diagnosed. The service person...I forget her name, Tina maybe?....called me up to let me know they had figured out the problem....said the code was for bad vaccum lines and then proceded to quote me a rediculous price to replace them as well as a few other new problems they discovered. She first told me they would need to replace the cam seals because of an oil leak...but this was covered under warranty so they would take care of it....(gee thanks). Then they threw on a bunch of miscellaneous items, brake fluid needed flushing, radiator flush, new rear brake pads...yada yada yada. I denied all services except the free warranty work and opted to take the car to Chris Dale at Import Autowerks for anything else. When I picked up the car, they claimed they didn't have my invoice ready and would have to mail it to me. So I get the invoice and it says..."Customer complained of oil leak"....Did I?...I don't remember that...maybe them trying to cover something up due to this Oil Sludge recall for VW's and Audi's that came out recently?

Chris had changed the timing belt on the car less then a month earlier, so when he noticed oil leaking from the cam seal behind the timing cover...it looked odd to him as he had just been in there recently...(hmmm....Leith VW just replaced that cam seal). So when I picked the car up from him, I took it right back to VW and ....surprise...one of the cam seals we replaced didn't seat right...we have to go in and replace it again. It was done at no charge, but it shouldn't have happened to begin with.

So I figured I was done with Leith..and was happy. Well...the CEL kept coming on, so I bit the bullet and decided to take it back there to give them a shot at fixing it. To no surprise...they diagnosed it as being the vaccum line again and said it was also on because I had a bad battery. For giggles, I thought I would let the service guy "Chuck" quote me on replacing the battery....$200!!! "Explain to me Chuck...how in the hell could it possibly cost $200 to replace a car battery?" Well, VW's have to be "reprogrammed" when you change the battery, we have to reset the cam timing, recalibrate the O2 sensor, even the radio has to be reset and it can ONLY be done by an authorized VW dealer....(he mentioned a few other items, but I was laughing too loud in my head to hear him). Gee Chuck...I just disconnected the battery last week to reset the CEL so I could take the car to carmax and try to sell it...now what would the difference be between me disconnecting the battery, and you replacing it? Funny...I didn't have to reset any of that stuff. Long pause....well....sometimes the car "relearns" the things on it's own. Hmm......Chuck, I think I got one of the smart VW's....I am going to take my chances and change the battery myself. Now up until this point, we had never had an issue with starting the car or a low battery....but I went to pick the car up the next day and conveniently the battery is dead. So I went to Batteries Plus...bought a new one $70 bucks...and put it in....and the car runs fine.

I had heard good things about Leith VW too, so I was really disappointed to have two terrible experiences there. Oh well, now that we have sold our VW, guess I won't have to "bug" them anymore....I can leave them to worry about bigger issues like how to deal with that huge marketing blunder they call the Phaeton......

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Big Thumbs down for Leith VW.

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