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I feel like an idiot, but I did probably the stupidest thing in the world I just purchased a 2000 VW Jetta GLX VR6 without having my own mechanic look at it first. It had 79,235 miles on it when I got it. I purchased it from a local car dealer not a volkswagen dealer. They seemed genuine and for real, they provided me with a carfax report and showed me the papers showing it had been serviced and maintenanced.I was a fool and I trusted them. I'm not saying they're lieing however since I've had it, it has shown me otherwise. Now I'm pretty new with VW this is my first one, actually my first car ever. So I'm hoping someone that knows something can help me. I've only had it for almost 3 months. It's gonna end up costing me $12,000 and that's not including the $1,300 I put down, which I now know from researching that I was way over charged. I leased it on a first time buyers loan with 10.5% APR from a credit union. I pay $265 a month for 5 years. I bought it "AS IS" and the factory warranty expired at 80,000 miles and I didn't purchase the extended warranty.I'm not a very smart cookie, am I? It now has 83,140 miles on it. Here's my problem: When I brought it home and filled the tank for the first time, I reset the thing where you can keep track of how many miles you've driven. When it got down to E I had only got 230 miles to the tank. Almost everyone I talked with told me that I should get way better gas mileage in that type of car. I only use premium gasoline, but I went to AutoZone and purchased Octane Boost and tried to see if that would help my gas situation.NOPE. In fact it got worse. I kept reseting and checking the milage as it droped from 230 miles to 200 miles to the tank. Then yesterday morning when it reached E before I filled up and reset the miles I noticed that I had only got 194miles to the tank. Confused and Upset I took it to a local mechanic that specializes in import vehicles. When I told him my problem he checked under my hood and then plugged this computer type thing under my dash by the steering wheel.After a minute went by two things popped up on the screen. The first one said my 02 censor was completely dead "out". The second one said my CAT System was functioning insuficiently. The guy told me I would need to replace the 02 Censor for $200. If the catalytic converter had gone bad that was $1,500 to replace. He also started naming things I needed to replace for my 80,000 mile maitenance. Spark Plugs at $28-$34 a piece, and a couple of other things. He's talking almost $2K-$3K to fix my car and I just got. I went to the dealers and no help there. I thought they'd help in someway they were nice and replaced for free a radiator hose that cracked 3 days after I got it.Is this mechanic over charging me or is this the normal price range? And why did my car break so soon? Are these things typical in the 2000 jetta? Also never once did or to this day have any lights or symbols come up telling me to check or service engine, so could this guy be blowing smoke?Also I read on another site that in 2000 they had a problem with a few Jetta's. They said the owners who had, had their right rear tire blow experienced problems with faulty feul tanks. It just so happens that about 3 weeks ago when driving home on the freeway my right rear tire blew. Are these facts true or false? Do I have any options? I just don't think it's right that I should have to spend almost $3,000 to fix it when I haven't even had it for 90 days and whats wrong with it was like that before I bought it and when I bought it. The dealer never mentioned a bad 02 censor and CAT System, Huh, wonder why? lol. I still have the temporary registration sticker in my window. Is there anything legally I can do? Or at least something I can do to save some money? Please somebody help me with some answers. I'm only 19 and I don't know much about cars let alone VW's and niether does anyone I know. I'm so confused and scared!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(Amanda)
You are just learning about car maintaince. None of those items are particularly unusual for a vehicle with nearly 80K miles on it. German vehicles (especially the GLX which was VWs premiumim automobile in 2000) are expensive to maintain.
(most of the parts are manufactured to tight tolerances in Germany and you have to pay for them to be shipped to the USA)
I see you are in California, You may have some recourse with the seller. Apparently this vehicle will not even pass a tailpipe emmissions test.
(The bad O2 sensor can ruin the catalytic converter.)
Your "issue" with the tire is NOT related to the fuel-filler problem. You have it backwords... in some cases people would actually DRIVE with a flat tire on the RR of the vehicle -- the peices of the tire would "flap" against the fuel-filler tube and break it off. The fuel tank was not involved at all.
I would approach this as an EMISSIONS issue because CA. has such strict laws about emmissions.
Again, I dont know the laws in your state but I would have to beleive to have a licence to sell cars in CA that THE SELLER has to make sure it passes emmissions before they can sell it. (They sold you a vehicle that is not legal for the roads in CA) Perhaps speaking to your states attorneys office would help you understand where you stand on this issue.
It certainly wont hurt to call a VW dealership and get more details. Here is a website that lists all recalls and TSBs ( http://www.alldata.com/TSB/ )
BTW: Both of my daughters have receintly purchased 2001 VWs and are completely happy with them.
BTW - If you can find a good German mechanic, I would ditch the dealership and go there. The car is out of warranty, so you can save yourself a ton of money on dealer service markup by going to a private mechanic.
$265 per month for 5 years? Are you leasing a used car???.....yikes. Since you are only 19 years old, I am guessing your credit is not established yet, therefore you may not qualify to lease. But, you could have gotten into a BRAND NEW Jetta or even a Passat lease for that monthly payment. I drive a new '04 Passat GLS and am leasing it for 4 years and pay about what you are paying. I can almost guarantee that this car won't last the entire lease term (5 yrs) without a HUGE amount of money to maintain it and keep it on the road.
Just consider this a learning experience and go directly to the dealer where you bought it from and share your story with them. Maybe they will have pitty (but probably not) and assist with getting the car in good working order.
Sorry about your experience, but at least next time you buy a used car you will get an independent mechanic to look it over......
So I recommend to contact your dealer and you could get it fixed for free..
I own a 2001 VR6 and have had a stream of constant Check Engine Lights. I've had the O2 sensor replaced, the Mass Air Flow Sensor replaced and a bunch of other things. The Check Engine Light keeps coming back. Now my car is occassionally stalling after deceleration on stops. Are there any other Jetta owners that can help me solve this problem? The mechanics are stumped by this and just tell me that they can't find anything wrong with the car.
Thanks,
Mark
loren
I bought this car 3 months ago from the first owner. The car originally has a 10 year warranty. Is the 10-year-warranty still valid as I am the new driver? Do i have to transfer the warranty? If the warranty is still valid, what does it cover??
Thanks in advance.
Mine does the same its an Automatic 2004 VW GL with 11,000 miles. Mine has been doing this since 4000miles. Have taken it to the dealer several times and each time they say nothing is wrong! The car is great but this problem is pissing me off! NOW I know i am not the only one with the problem, Gotta do something so that the dealer can look at it. Anyone here has ideas of what is going on do let us know
Thanks
We've had ours for just over a week now. One obvious issue is that even when the tank is filled up, the fuel guage needle is at 9/10 full.
The other issue is the RPMs. For the first 500 miles the RPMs were usually at 3K. Then after filling up the tank we noticed that the RPMs dropped to between 2K and 2.25K. This happened in the middle of a highway trip. Yesterday I drove the exact same stretch of highway, going in the exact same direction, at the same speed (about 60-65), and the RPMs were back up at 3K.
What is the appropriate RPMs when traveling on a pretty flat stretch of highway at about 60-65 mph?
Our milieage seems a bit low despite all the highway driving. Our last fill up we averaged about 24 miles per gallon, and it was almost all highway driving.
Thanks for any advice.
Didn't get a straight answer from the dealer. Probably will have to go test drive at another dealer to see what a Jetta is "supposed" to drive like in terms of RPM, and then maybe talk to VW about it.
I am guessing you have the 2.0 engine, rather than the 1.8t. I drove a Jetta GL prior to my current Passat and the 2.0 engine did run at a high RPM when at highway speeds. It's the nature of the engine. I was not following your description of the RPM's dependent on the gas in your tank.
Just checked the sticker, yep, it is a 2.0 engine.
I didn't think it made sense that the RPMs went down after filling up the tank, and wasn't necessarily implying a causal relationship. It's just what we noticed.
On the way back from a day trip we noticed that the tank was down to about 1/4, and according to the trip odometer we had driven about 190 miles. We thought this strange since we had filled up the day before and driven almost all highway miles, we then noticed that the RPMs ran higher than any of the cars we had driven before. We stopped filled up, and got back on the highway. The RPMs went down to 2k-2.25k for the next 10 highway miles. Yesterday I drove the same stretch of highway again but the RPMs were back up at 3k.
Who knows. I guess the instrument panel is just off and needs tweaking.
Thanks for your reply Fish8.
Loren
Why anyone in their right mind would be the first kid on the block to have the latest and greatest (besides image, ego and/or vanity) is beyond me. That's what I call setting oneself up for a big disappointment. But then again, most of my life I observe and learn from others misfortunes...
Here is a video that shows how to identify and prevent the "coolant migratoin problem" (the only known "fix" after it has destroyed the wiring system is very expensive)
http://www.cincitdi.com/richc/coolantmigration.html
By the way, I love my car, it is a GLS 2.0L with manual transmission.
About 2 weeks pass, and the same thing happened, this time I went out and got a OBD II reader, and it spit out "P0302" which means "Misfire on cylinder no. 2"......???? As soon as I erase the code, the problem goes away and it drives just fine...!
It seems to me, like the computer is just shutting down into some kind of "safe mode" any time the check engine light comes on, and won't let the tranny shift. This is starting to feel like a scam to me, maybe VW is just trying to get me into the dealership over and over again...
Please help!
Isaac
My experience:
I bought a 2000 VW Jetta GLS leather package, sunroof, heated seats, premium sound (pre owned-certified) from McKenna VW dealer in Norwalk, CA, a city part of Los Angeles County, on December 2001 with 38,000 miles on it. On the test drive I noticed the high rpms and I was looking for the overdrive button, which it didn’t have. At the end of the test drive the check engine light came on, and the salesman told me that the dealer would fix it. Anyways I closed the deal and bought the car for $16000.
The dealer fixed the problem that caused the engine light to come on, the first, second and third time!!! My Jetta spend more time in the dealer than with me for the first two weeks. For Jetta owners out there, the check engine light will also come on if you didn’t close the gas tank cap properly after you pumped gas. Make sure to close it well and see if the check engine light goes off while you're driving, this happened to me a couple of times. Besides that, my Jetta also consumed oil about a quart every 500 miles, I’ve check on the internet and the high rpms, oil consumption seems to be common on this year model, so be careful.
The light on the A/C, fan, heat controls was replaced twice, once under my two year warranty and the other was after my warranty expired, it cost me about $100. (The third time I did not fix it) The part (light) cost about $ 3.00 the rest was labor $90.00 an hour and tax. Maintaining and repairing this car is quiet expensive and most of the work has to be done at the dealer. So I bought a repair manual to learn more about my Jetta and on different occasions I replaced both head light bulbs, a side marker light and a rear light bulb saving my self a few hundred dollars.
I had the front passenger side window fall inside the door (on a rainy day) I went straight to the dealer, they fixed it, the second time I had the drivers side window falling, however, this time I caught it before it fell completely inside the door, put my note pad in between the window and the door and I was able to hold it until I went to the dealer next morning. They also fixed it. Months later I received a recall notice about the windows malfunction, so I believe VW replaced mine with stronger window holders. I received two more recall notices later on.
On December 2004 at 76,000 miles the ABS (Anti-lock Brake System) light came on and also the battery needed to be replaced. My Jetta had a little hesitation starting up and the panel lights weren’t as bright as before. I read on my repair manual that when the battery voltage is low the ABS light will come on because it is entirely dependent on electrical signals, A built -in safety circuit monitors low battery voltage and when this is detected, the ABS is automatically shut down, and the warning light will come on. ABS is not operational but normal braking is still available. Therefore I wanted to replace the battery first to see if the ABS light goes off, the dealer quoted me $300.00 to change the battery. I could not do it myself because if I disconnected the battery I will lose all the code settings on the car including the radio (once I put the new battery) I will need the code to make the radio work again, so this job was for the dealer. I waited until 2005 to do it.
On late February 2005, I was about to go to the VW dealer to get the battery changed, take care of my car’s regular maintenance and to inquire about the ABS light being on, but a day before going to the dealer, I found a pink color fluid on the floor where I park my car, I checked the coolant reservoir and it was at half, I turned the car on and I had another warning light on, this time was the cooling light. I had a coolant leak some where at 80000 miles. I took my Jetta to a local mechanic, I didn’t want to drive to the dealer thinking that the engine was going to blow up on me, the mechanic told me and showed me that the leak came from one of the head gaskets in the engine and by looking at the radiator cap that the coolant and oil were starting to mix. He also told me that this was unusual for a car with this mileage, that this was a big job and recommended me to go to the dealer and that it may take several days to fix. If you look on the Yellow pages there are not too many places to take a VW for repairs that are independent from the dealer. The mechanic put more coolant on the reservoir. That gave enough time to decide on letting this car go.
I had $3000 left to pay on my auto loan, and I had at least $1500 or more on repairs and maintenance to do on my car for the moment. By researching Edmunds.com and reading about other Jetta owners problems (the problems that didn’t happen to me yet) I decided to get a new car this time. I did more research, to make sure that I wasn’t going to make another mistake. So on early April I went to a Toyota dealer and trade in my Jetta, (I used Edmunds.com trade in calculator, so I knew before hand my best case scenario trade in value), I had a little equity, it was worth more than I owed, that plus a down payment and I got my self a brand new Camry.
Yes, my Jetta was a fun car to drive, don’t get me wrong, it made me feel good (great sound system) It looked different, young, sporty, elegant and expensive (the kind of car for the crowd that could not afford a BMW 330) and it had more standard features that you could find on a car costing more, on the inside you could feel good quality materials. However it was not a reliable car, it is the car the you must avoid if you are planning to buy it used. (Well, now there is the new design). Some may say it is normal wear and tear, I just say and I admit it was just a good looking bad car, I always had the feeling of what is going to happen to it next.
I don’t know for sure if Volkswagen corrected all the problems on the Jetta from 00-to 05-model year. What I know is that VW sales are down, other products on its line are having problems like the Toureg for example. As a whole some big European auto makers are having problems with quality and reliability, therefore don’t let the name plate or price fool you. Do some research.
Let see if the new re-design Jetta will make up for all the shortfalls of the old model it is replacing. Yes, I drive a Toyota Camry now, perhaps the car that doesn’t match my personality, but I feel satisfied and for a long time I feel worry free knowing that I wont be having car troubles hopefully for a long time. The car buyer always expect more for less, and sometimes the buyer pays more for an upscale brand thinking to be better off, however to get less down the road. Always consider,quality,reliability and cost of ownership instead of looks and brand.
Our best friends have an '02 Passat that now has 63k miles on it, and aside from the coil pack recall, has largely been trouble-free; but he is under no illusions about how "typical" his experience has been. I am driving an '02 Mercedes C240, another car that is supposed to be nothing but trouble, and we have had no significant problems and I love driving the car [it is our 14th MB and 53rd car overall since 1962]...but I won't pretend that my experience somehow negates the numbers tilting the other way from the statistics that are out there.
As much as anything else, it is the continued number of scary stories I read here and on other websites about the VW dealer body that give me considerable pause about VW ownership. You're rolling the dice - if you get lucky, it will be a fine used car choice....if not....
I'll write back next week and let you know how it works out.
MAF & O2 sensor were replaced and they fixed "sporadic" performance issues.
Also does it happen when the car is wet? If so then it's probably wires........
PS I'm not the mechanical expert many who post here are, so don't take my advice as the end-all be-all.........
She has complained about one cylinder not firing while driving in the rain... Being the daughter of an electrical engineer, she has the training (from me) to be able to isolate vehicle problems quite admirably.... but I was never able to interest her is actually WORKING on her vehicles... go figure ;-)