[PeterEos]

Ever since the car was new, or during the first few weeks in any event, it has had one small quirk. Occasionally, when pulling up on the outside handle, the electric unlocking mechanism on the trunk lid does not operate. I only happens occasionally, and the mechanism always works on the second or third pull when it does happen. A minor annoyance to be sure, but I feel I have the right to expect a new car to be trouble-free.

When I took it to the dealer for it's courtesy inspection at about one month, I described the problem, but they were unable to duplicate the intermittent failure and said everything tested fine and they weren't getting any codes indicating a problem. I didn't pursue it after that, but when it went in for its 1 year service yesterday I decided I wanted them to resolve it. Luckily, I had the foresight to ask the service writer to come out with me to the car and show him the problem, hoping it would fail, and as luck would have it, it did! Now they know it's happening, but still they were unable to get it to fail under testing to determine what component is faulty.

At my insistence, the service manager said he would follow up on this and come up with next steps. which he did today. They are submitting a VTA when the car comes in so VW can assist with diagnosis, and they will attempt to recreate a failure while monitoring it with their testing equipment. He advised they might need the car a few days in order to resolve it, but they would pick up the car and drop off a loaner for the duration. It seemed a long time to be without my baby for such a minor thing, so I was not a happy camper at all. Still I wanted it to be right, so I asked him about the loaner. The last free loaner I had was a Toyota Yaris from Enterprise, and no offense to anyone who drives one, but it ain't no Eos--not by a mile. (*see below for more on that).

I explained this unpleasant experience to the service manager and he said he'd get me the Eos they have in their loaner fleet (good to know). YES!!! So next week they will come and pick it up, leaving me another Eos for a few days while all the great minds in Wolfsburg and Ardmore put their heads together on this baffling situation. Me? I would have just gambled and replaced the micro-switch (10 to 1 that's the culprit), but that's not how they do things apparently.

I'll update this post as things develop.

* NOTE about that Yaris rental fleet vehicle--OMG it was like stepping back into 1986, though it was undoubtedly only a year or two old. The side mirrors had manual adjustments, but on the plus side they were inside the car. LOL! Besides the bad seating position, the engine being winy and underpowered, and the car being a little sloppy in the handling dept; the worst thing of all had to be the instrument panel. Instead of being in front of the driver, it was placed dead center on the dash. This seemed idiotic to me until I realized the probable reason it wasn't in front of the driver where it belonged. As an economy measure, they no doubt use mostly the same dash components for both left and right-hand-drive models. Now THAT's cheap! LOL. I can't believe they charge $35 bucks a day for that thing if the dealer isn't comping you. Getting back into my Eos Executive afterwards made me appreciate it even more than I already do, and that's really saying something.

 

[PeterEos]

Here's the loaner car a 2012 Komfort:

Funny thing, getting into a base-model car the same year as your top-of-the-line model. Everything looks familiar, and yet it's not. There are so many new things to remember. Like taking the key fob out of your pocket to lock and unlock the doors and trunk, and to turn the ingnition on or off. Sheesh! You also have to remember to back up carefully since there are no parking distance sensors. And at night, you have to remember to turn on the headlights, and to turn them off again when you shut the car off--can you imagine? As if all that weren't enough, you even have to turn the wipers on and off manually because there are no rain-sensing wipers. What a nightmare! LOL Nav system? What nav system? Thank goodnes my Android phone has a fantastic nav built in, because I left my Garmin at home, never thinking I'd need it. Lastly, when I got home I had to manually fold the mirrors in, which left me completely exhausted.

Of course it wasn't all bad. For a base-model car it was very well-equipped, having such essentials as seat heaters, and a decent stereo. I won't mind in the least driving it for the next few days. Funny thing, though--it seemed a wee bit faster than my car. I suppose that's because it is lighter and uses less electricity due to the much shorter options list. It's not a huge difference, but it's noticeable. All the more reason now for me to get that performance chip! LOL

As soon as there's any update on the intermittent switch operation, I'll post it here.

 

[PeterEos]

Yesterday I phoned the VW dealer to check on my car, and was told by the asst manager that they still had not been able to replicate the problem. I was feeling a little exasperated, but contained myself and discussed the situation. He offered to call at the end of the day, but didn't so I called him this morning and was told they had ordered the microswitch yesterday, it had arrived today, and they were going to replace the faulty switch with it. Of course, since they never got an error code they dont know for certain it was the switch. Only time will tell, but I picked up the car this afternoon and it's working, and for now I am very happy to be back in my own car.