Dynamic Headlight Error x 7 occurances

[happyberks]

Hi All,

I'm just after some advice on where to go / what to do please.

I've got an ID.3 1st edition which i bought at 6 months old from a dealership (it was a test drive car). The car has had repeated errors with the dynamic headlights and has been back to the dealers on 7 seperate occasions in the last 2 years. I believe the first few times they did the latest software update, recalibrated the lights and then gave it back to us. The last couple of times they've downloaded the diagnostics, sent them off to VW and then done what was advised (Checked for water pentration, change the sensors on the rear axle).
The car is at the dealers now and has been there for 5 weeks! They did whatever VW advised and the error returned. After two weeks they asked if we could swap over the courtesy car which we did and they havent called since. I called this morning and the Customer Service manager was off but i was informed the car was fixed and I could collect it. The person I spoke to had no idea what had been done but advised they'd recallibrated it and the error hadn't come back. I declined to collect it as I want to know exactly what they've done to fix the underlying issue rather than simply resetting it yet again.

My warrently expires in Sept so I have opened a dispute with the Motor Ombudsman as I have requested an extended warrently on the headlights but VW have declined stating they do not offer any warrently extension on the ID range. My arguement being if you've not fixed something in 2 years why should I then have to pay shoudl the fault reoccur once the warrently expires.

Is there anything else I should be doing, is there legistlation which protects me that I don't know about? I'm trying to be reasonable but at this stage with my warrently expiring in the next few months and VW being totatlly unable to fix the issue I'm losing faith.

All thoughts, comments or advise gratefully received!

[TheJimster]

I had a couple of headlight errors which came and went some time ago, the dealer investigated, but there were no faults logged.

It does sound like you are being given the run-around by your dealer. The extended warranty situation is concerning. It seems that VW won't confirm prices for extended warranties until you've only got 30 days or less left of the factory warranty, but I'd not previously seen any suggestion that VW wouldn't even be offering an extended warranty option for the ID3.

I love our car, but looking at the amount of work done under warranty in the first two years (two misted up headlights, two failed puddle light projectors, clicking driveshaft fix), I'd be much happier knowing it was under warranty after year three.

Our other car has an Audi all-in service plan, which puts it back under warranty and is pretty good value. I'd absolutely look at doing the same for the ID3, but I had already seen that VW aren't doing an all-in plan for IDs.

I can't begin to think how VW expect to justify not offering any sort of extended warranty on IDs. I wonder if they'll eventually backtrack in the face of potential reputational damage from frustrated ID owners.