Volkswagen Passat 2.0 TDI Comfortline DSG

5/21/2013 11:48:10 AM

UPS: All fine in the end

DOWNS: Entertaining service experience

I MENTIONED IN the last update that our Passat was pleading for a 15000km service, which was promptly arranged with our local Barons Culemborg on Cape Town’s Foreshore for the December break. As it turned out, I needn’t have pushed so hard for a service before Christmas since the workshop was conveniently open throughout the holiday period. Making the booking the week before, I was informed that, as this was the vehicle’s first service it would take about an hour to complete. Sounded good to me but, as my luck would have it, the day of the service did not quite go to plan...

Volkswagen Passat 2.0 TDI Comfortline DSG

Shortly after the metal gate was hoisted on Service Lane 2, I was told that the service was now a ‘special service’ necessitating an oil filter change and that they would need about three hours to complete the job. Those three hours would, within the space of an hour, grow into an entire day and I received a call from one of the service team who recommended ‘that the tires on your Passat be rotated’. At this point it was arranged that a member of staff drop me back at my home to contemplate a day without wheels... as an aside, a brake issue, also mentioned in a previous report, no longer required attention – it seems to have sorted itself out.

Upon my return to Barons in the afternoon, I was handed the fob to a car that was slightly cleaner than it had been when I’d first dropped it off, but driving the Passat revealed a horrible veering to the left. Back I went to the workshop for the car’s alignment to be checked, after which it emerged as good as new.

Good thing too, since the Passat’s presence would have been sorely missed over the busy year-end period. Its massively hungry boot takes up to 565 liters and the poor Passat saw itself being singled out as the ultimate shopping cart and a comfortable one, at that - for many a frantic festive shopping sortie.

LogBook

Volkswagen Passat 2.0 Tdi Comfortline

· Dsg Odo Reading At Start/ Now / 1 961/15 839km

· Distance Covered / 13 878km

· Fuel Consumed / 836.61ℓ

· Av. Fuel Consumption / 6.03ℓ/100km

· Service Interval / 15 000km/12 Months

· Service Cost / Covered By 5-Year/100 000km Vw Automotion Plan

· Total Fuel Cost / R10 346.93 Running Cost / 75c/Km

Jaguar XF 2.2D Premium Luxury

UPS: Build quality and reliability remain as good as the day it arrived

DOWNS: Service light appeared and caused slight consternation

AS THE DAY to return our big cat draws ever closer, it remains as trouble-free (touch wood) and reliable as the day it arrived. Unlike other long-term tests in the past, the Jaguar has not put a foot wrong and there has been very little in the way of niggles that I’ve had to complain about during its term with us. So you can imagine my surprise when the service warning light illuminated on the instrument panel one balmy summer morning announcing that the XF’s first service was required. Despite my reservations to the contrary (Jaguar sets the XF 2.2D’s service interval at 26000km or one year), warning lights are never to be argued with, so before the December break I decided to book it into the local Cape Town Jaguar dealership for its first service and to make sure that all was in order.

Jaguar XF 2.2D Premium Luxury

Jaguar XF 2.2D Premium Luxury

My telephone call to the dealership was handled politely and I was immediately put through to a service agent who proceeded to take down the details. But once I relayed the car’s current odo reading, my initial thoughts were ratified as the agent reaffirmed that there was no cause for concern and I was told to just ignore the warning light and that the car was only due in a few months’ time.

With my mind now at ease, over the December break the XF undertook many holiday excursions from the west to the east coasts of the Cape peninsula and didn’t miss a beat. The ride remains cosseting and comfortable similar to a flying couch on wheels – while the engine’s refinement and fuel consumption improve with every kilometer travelled. Who knows, I may even break the magical 8.5ℓ/100km mark by next month, just as our tenure draws to an end. It’s going to be a long, sad good bye...

Service light! Pah!...not for a while