My son is looking at a 2016 Golf with 90000 miles on it. My mechanic told me to stay away from used Volkswagens because they are expensive to repair. The parts are expensive and the difficulty of working on them makes the labor charges very high. Is this sour grapes on his part, or does he have a good reason to be concerned. The car will be mostly used for local commuting etc and will not have a lot of mileage put on it.
Who is paying for it?
Who will pay for repairs?
Listen to your mechanic. My father-in-law had a used Golf and a used Passat. They both nickeled and dimed the hell out of him before he got rid of them (and he and I even did most of the work on them…)
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He is paying for it but I’m sure I’ll end up helping with repairs
As much as I liked my GTI, I haven’t had a VW since, because of reliability concerns. He could get a great one, of course.
Might depend on the shop, my brother’s had his 2009 GTi that he specially ordered in the summer of 2008 which has been maintained by his local trusted german specialist since brand new. Not as cheap as a Toyota to maintain but at least with this shop maintaining the car it’s been reliable.
Your mechanic is trying top do you a favor.
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These cars were plagued with electrical problems…I would stay away.
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+1
CR lists electrical problems for that model as “worse than average”, but they also list the following areas/systems as “MUCH worse than average”:
Engine, minor
Engine, cooling
Noises/Leaks
Power Equipment
In-car Electronics
Overall, they rate the reliability of the 2016 Golf as “worse than average”.
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