A blog I read this morning reminded me of my dear old car, the VW Polo. Maybe she was bitter because I parked her outside, in Cape Town, where she kept getting broken into and almost blown away, but boy did she give me troubles! When the speedometer stopped working I drove Kitten (that was her name) to the mechanics, guestimating that I wasn’t driving too fast or too slowly. R15 000 to replace they said. 15k! I was mystified by their insistence that they replace the entire cluster (so it’s called) when only one wire or something was faulty. I became used to the guestimation thing.
Peas on Toast, in her blog about the auto industry, proclaims that “car manufacturers, specifically Volkswagen, are just out to make flipping great wodges of cash, they do not care about their customers. They flaw their car designs so that it is possible to leave their customers moneyless and windowless”, and in my case, clusterless.
On one of my visits to VW to urge them to repair the faulty part, Sbu** told me quietly that he could probably do the job for R200 but I’d have to meet him after workshop hours in a quiet part of town. Can you believe it? I went.
Peas was quoted R12 000 to replace both doors when all she wanted was her windows fixed. Eventually a dealer in Jo'burg fixed her new VW Beetle for R850 a door. He says VW is ripping everybody off.
So, is flawed engineering a conspiracy theory that should be filed somewhere between Elvis is alive and Illuminati or are Volkswagens actually designed to break so the company can extort money from their clients?
* Volkswagen means "people's car" in German
** Name changed to protect workers identity
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