I just love how all you guys jump on him for not maintaining the car properly when he stated that all maintenance was done at dealership on schedule.
Actually we’re NOT sure who did the maintenance.
The OP said - "Shouldn’t VW be liable to some extent since all maintenance was done properly by me? "
MikeInNH:
The OP expanded on that in a subsequent post:
Re the confusion about who did the service - VW dealer did all service, to specs and on schedule. My comment about "all maintenance was done properly by me" simply meant that I set up appointments and made sure the service at the dealership was schedule and exectuted per plan, on schedule.
Just to add to the mix, we used to have a 2004 Passat and the owner’s manual was not at all user-friendly. It was huge, broken up into multiple sections in a ring binder, and it was difficult to find information about basic service. Anybody who can wade through its hundreds of pages and keep on track for maintenance schedules deserves some credit.
Most customer service organizations suggest email. If they respond, you have a record. Since all emails seem to be saved forever, it should be possible to find the original responses if someone wants to bad enough. I agree that any important, milestone correspondence should be in a registered letter. All you need to do is show that it is delivered. After that, the receiver is on the hook.
ok4450- What kind of owner inflicted problem could a new Subaru with 500 miles on it that sludged up have?
@oldtimer, this Subaru had not even been transferred to the new owner yet. The buyer wanted a car in a specific color/option package that was not in stock and Subaru of America just happened to have a new one that fit the bill.
SOA volunteered to have one of their employees drive it to OK City
The driver dropped the car off and was given a cab ride back to the airport. The salesman went out in the lot to get the car afterwards and discovered it would barely get out of its own way. Into the shop it came and I got stuck with it.
The turbocharger was fried, the oil feed lines coked solid, breather hoses full of coked oil, oil in the intake tract, and the engine itself was down over a quart of oil with the remaining oil already black.
The turbocharger had gotten so hot it discolored the paint on the hood so it went to the body shop for a hood repaint after I got through wrestling a new turbocharger, new lines, etc on it and some additional cleaning.
I also had to resort to removing that turbocharger with a cutting torch.
Word was the buyer was planning an out of state move and I never heard anything about what became of that car (heap might be a better word) nor was I privy to what the buyer was or was not told about the car, reasons for delay in delivery, etc.
The delivery guy had covered about 450 miles in approx. 6 hours including metro drive times and an interstate pit stop at McDonalds along the way.
Do the speed averaging on that one. I… 
The Toyota sludge problem (1998-2002 timeframe) was due to a design change that caused oil circulating through a passage in the cylinder heads to overheat.
That was designed on purpose to reduce emissions. It did reduce emissions…but it also caused the sludging problem. One solution was to change the oil religiously every 3k miles…The other is use full synthetic oil.
Were there any long hills the delivery guy had to climb? Or was it pretty flat terrain?
Anyway, to average 75mph he had a few opportunities to run wide open for extended periods; much more than Subaru expected in a street car.
@circuitsmith, the drive is pretty much straight interstate with some rolling hills and a brief mountain grade. I’ve driven that route a few dozen times and it’s usually taken me about 8 hours at a 70-75 MPH cruise with a brief stop for gas.
The point there is that one person created this havoc to both oil, engine, and turbocharger in 500 miles based on their driving habits so it would not be unreasonable to expect that similar things would happen in 5k or 50k miles under less severe circumstances.
Subaru warrantied the entire thing as they should and like the car’s future being an unknown, I was never privy to what if any action was taken against the employee who beat it into the pavement.
The employee had left at 5:30 in the morning and at 1 that afternoon was on a flight back. He had declined an offer of lunch and was in a hurry to get to the airport so it could be assumed that the reason for his haste was to get out of Dodge before the news hit…