I agree, plastic tanks are in common use, and have been for some time. They are not a safety concern.
I was talking to a friend of my dad's at the weekend who is currently selling his owned from new, three year old EOS because of persistent and un-fixable issues with the roof and the windows. The warranty is about to expire, and despite TWENTY SEVEN dealer visits, it still leaks in rain, there's still excessive wind noise, and it's pot luck whether the windows wind up in their guides, or outside them. The dealer admits that more than half of these cars either leak from new, or start leaking in the warranty period. Once they leak, it is almost impossible to cure.
I own two older VW Golfs (1999 and 2003) with 135,000 and 101,000 miles respectively, and I agree their build quality isn't any better than other mainstream brands. Panel fit and paint are excellent on both, but the 2003 car's plush looking interior has loads of rattles and squeaks, the faux leather coating on the gear lever gaiter has flaked off, and the interior door handles look like they've been attacked by plastic eating insects. The 1999 car is much tauter and tighter despite 135k on the clock, but has a few niggling issues like all cars at this mileage. Both cars are reliable daily drivers, but a Focus or Astra certainly wouldn't be any worse.
Both are Wolfsburg built ('W VWxxxxx' VIN no) cars, by the way.
We drive VWs basically because we like the cars, and we know a VW dealer tech who does excellent mates rates. We certainly didn't buy them on any premise of superior quality though, although the 1999 example is remarkably tight, taut and rattle free for 135,000 miles. This one is probably closer to what I would expect from the historic VW build quality reputation. The 2003 car is quite disappointing in this respect.
The real gem of VW ownership is residual values. I am confident we could still get within a couple of hundred quid of what we paid for our 2003 Golf over a year ago, despite adding 14,000 miles to its odometer. It does over 50 mpg and costs us next to nothing to service. Interest on the 4k we paid for it aside, it probably has the lowest TCO (so far) of any car that we've owned. Now watch something catastrophically expensive fail! :-)
Last edited by: DP on Wed 28 Apr 10 at 10:50
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