Zitronengelb

John e-mails to share his pain with German engineering:

I joined the Volkswagen "family" in August, with the purchase of a 2006 Passat 3.6. Holy Hades (!) that car was fast, emphasis on "was". It had more gadgets and doo-dads than I thought possible. The car was spectacular. My whole family was thrilled.

After about a week, the right headlight went out. This was no ordinary headlight. It was a bi-xenon gas headlight mounted on a system that turns the lights in sync with the steering. The light (it didn't have a bulb) cost around $400.00. I brought it to the dealer, Luther Volkswagen in Burnsville, for repair. They told me it would take A FEW DAYS to replace the light, as they had to remove the entire front end to get at it! Those clever German engineers had wedged the car's 280 horsepower engine in so tightly, there was no way to access the right headlight casing. My wife asked the service dept. fella what we should do if the light burned out after our warranty expired, given the cost of replacement and difficulty changing out the part. He told us "sell the car". Yikes!

The lights, both left and right, proceeded to burn out five more times over the next two months. The car was in the shop 43 days. After much shouting by my wife, Volkswagen agreed to lemon-out the car, on the condition we bought another new Volkswagen from them. We now have a 2007 Jetta value-addition; not so smoking fast, hardly any doo-dads or luxury items, but the lights continue to stay lit.

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