Brat of a golf!

So I bought this little darling of a VW Golf 2003 back in February this year from (the dodgers!) Euro Prestige in Auckland.It then had transmission issues and because the salesmen was liable for the first month they had to 'fix it' so they stuck a second hand gear box in it with a 3 month warrenty and sent me on my way.now 5 months on and the transmission heat exchanger is dodgy which the garage thinks is what messed the transmission in the first place.hopefully I'm covered under warranty!!anyone else had this issue!

Parts are cheap and readily available on VWs.

Euros never break down and are CHEAP to fix :)heard this somewhere here before haha

what transmission is on it!

Yep, as others have said - Golfs are very reliable and surprisingly inexpensive to fix :)

Im sorry I think you misunderstand the law when dealing with second hand cars.
The dealer is required by law to be "fair and reasonable"
That DEFINITELY isn't one month.
So Yes you are well and truely covered and would expect the dealer to organise repairs
BUTdo not undertake repairs yourself because the dealer must be given the chance to undertake repairs in a tradesman like manner.
A replacement gearbox of the same age/milage as the one in the car is concidered to be fair and reasonable.

Ignore the joyfilled responses above.Its not having a go at YOUWe have a "local" here who constantly states that VW product is uttterly bullet proof and reliable. Despite experiences such as people like you have had.

What!! A Golf with transmission issues! According to the local one-eyed fanboy, its all obviously in your head and there can never be anything wrong with them. Especially not with the bullet proof, bomb proof, nuclear proof gearbox.

and people that drive them never get sick, or old, and when you drive up to the petrol station, they will give YOU money to fill it.

How many km on the Golf!
Those auto transmissions don't last well unless they are serviced. Is there any service history on the transmission at all!

+1 about what Kazbanz said about the consumer guarantees act etc.

How many km on the Golf!

Those auto transmissions don't last well unless they are serviced and most are neglected. Is there any service history or idea of km's on the replacement transmission at all!

+1 about what Kazbanz said about the consumer guarantees act etc.

At the risk of speaking outside my area of expertise and having the silly children above jump all over that as well.

I am scratching my head to remember as its been a while since I played with a MK4 Golf, most of my experience is with the MK5 and what I do know about the mk4 is from years gone by.

Anyhow, I think the heat exchanger your mechanic is talking about is not a transmission cooler that looks like a radiator with oil flowing through it but an actual heat exchanger that uses the cars coolant to cool the transmission fluid.

I had a feeling that yours would be the 5 speed tiptronic auto not the 4 speed being that late, and that the 5 speed had a different system. But now I think about it more it just makes too much sense for it not to be.

Anyhow, what I suspect has happened is either this exchanger has blocked so coolant would not have been flowing through. Or in some rare and extreme cases I have even heard of these actually leaking coolant into the transmission.

What I think causes this is either lack of maintenance of the coolant or some knuckle draggers (like the ones above) who don't use the proper G12 Coolant that these are supposed to run. Either way the system corrodes and sludge's up. Sometime's too to make matters even worse they put regular green coolant in without completely draining the system of the proper original G12. The mix of the two can give you a nice green jelly that would be just the ticket for blocking the heat exchanger.

It would be a good idea to come back with as much info as you can on what actually has been going on. If the wrong coolant has been run and the heat exchanger has indeed blocked then chances are the rest of your cooling system incl waterpump etc may be at least suspect if not well damaged. The people you bought it off should have known if it was running the wrong coolant and should have at least changed it.

It would be very interesting to know what colour the coolant was that it was running and what condition that coolant was in, so please ask your mechanic about that while they remember.

Its going to be tricky though as chances are, with the transmission replacement and who has sold it, the wrong coolant if it had it may have already been swapped out and the damage already done.

Anyhow, find out what you can, the more info the better and then we can likely help you ascertain that it has in fact been fixed properly rather than just patched together again.

Best of luck with it all.

Please be patient if waiting for a reply from me as I am quite busy with projects at the moment and not on here much.

Get it fixed and get rid of it before it consumes all your money.If it has been neglected the this won't be the end of your problems. Good luck.

Nope Jazz I disagree with ya totally. The OP shouldn't be mucking around for one second with the car. Take the car back to the dealer. Tell them whats wrong. Under NO circumstances undertake any repair work beyond non invasive examination.
I would be telling them that there apears to be an issue which may have caused the origonal failure. I would then ask for the specific means by which the car is to be diagnosed and repaired.
Keeping in mind that the contractor to the dealer may turn out to be responsible shold the wrong fluid indeed have been put in the vehicle.
Msigg--Hang on a mo--yes the old tranz may have been abused but the replacement one may have been well looked after

You are only disagreeing with me because you have failed to comprehend what I said.

I am actually saying much the same as you.

I am not saying have someone else fix the problem. Hang I havn't even got that far down the track.

What I am saying is they should come back to us with as much info as they can. This is because going on what we have been told it would seem that the dealer has not originally arranged a comprehensive repair, hence the repeat failure.

Given the suspected nature of the problem (which I have described in detail) it should be abundantly clear that to be sure the dealer dosn't just do a repeat half assed performance, the OP needs to be able to recognise for themselves exactly what is likely to need replacing.

This is going to be even more important second time around. If it breaks again further down the track we are getting further away from the original purchase date and the dealer starts to gain grounds upon which they can opt out of funding a third lot of repairs.

You are only disagreeing with me because you have failed to comprehend what I said.

I am actually saying much the same as you.

I am not saying have someone else fix the problem. Hang I havn't even got that far down the track.

What I am saying is they should come back to us with as much info as they can. This is because going on what we have been told it would seem that the dealer has not originally arranged a comprehensive repair, hence the repeat failure.

Given the suspected nature of the problem (which I have described in detail) it should be abundantly clear that to be sure the dealer dosn't just do a repeat half assed performance, the OP needs to be able to recognise for themselves exactly what is likely to need replacing.

This is going to be even more important second time around. If it breaks again further down the track we are getting further away from the original purchase date and the dealer starts to gain grounds upon which they can opt out of funding a third lot of repairs.

Or to put it simply, if they just pack it back to the dealer as you have suggested, how on earth are we/they going to know if the correct things have actually been replaced! The OP needs to gather as much evidence as they can NOW while its available BEFORE it goes back to the dealer for repairs (at which time it will be lost and they will have to take the Dealers word that the correct things have been done).

Yea I hear ya kabanz but if the auto has been abused then probably the engine has too. Nothing worse than an unreliable car.

While I completely agree about vehicles that have suffered widespread neglect and the hassles of bringing everything up to date.

It is also entirely possible that this car has been well maintained with the exception of the wrong coolant being used. Its a pretty common situation from what I have seen.

But I hear what you are saying too!

Ohh lordee lordee lordepraise the lord the day has come
all praise the great lord god of all things automotive.
Jazz and I actually agree on something and he posted virtually word for word what i woulda posted --Except I can NEVER bring myself to say a
(sorry car god for swearing) VW could be a good car.

That's the trouble with you Pagan's. always worshiping the wrong things.

(See. it didn't last)

Keep religion put of car repair

I thought Cars were a religion(o:

Cry kick yourself and buy a corolla

I'm actually more surprised that your eyes managed to stay open reading jazz's dribble(no pun intented) ;)

Have been toying with the idea of a Mk4 Golf Wagon. Most of which are Auto.
What I am hearing here is unless there is solid evidence of regular maintenance then avoid!
What maintenance should have been done if it has say no more than 80k!

What you are hearing is right. for any car. Absolutely lovely car and aside from the transmission maintenance + coolant requirement very easy/simple to deal with and not too hard to find a good one.

I am not sure what the current standard is (someone like 00quattro00 could give you an official line) however as a personal rule of thumb I fully service auto's under normal use at least every 60'000km. I think these may have originally left the factory with a stupid "sealed for life" recommendation.

I would personally be happy to buy one up around 80'000km that hadn't had a transmission service that had normal use and do it straight away.

If it has the 1.8 twin cam engine you want to make sure it has been running decent synthetic oil with regular changes. The others are a bit more tolerant. Aside from that the key thing is the coolant as explained above.

You are buying an older car and personally what I prefer to do is put aside a bit of money and just go right through and do cambelt, tensioners, waterpump, brake fluid, coolant etc and bring everything right up to date. Then you know where you are at. This is what I have done for years with similar old Italian and German cars and I am yet to have a breakdown and very very rarely do a non - scheduled maintenance repair. Remember, VW parts are cheap, especially if you know where to go and most stuff can be done easily at home if you want by a general handy person who can follow instructions.

I can give you a bit more of a buyers guide sometime when I have more time up my sleeve if you want. If it all sounds too hard just get someone like qualitat to check out the vehicle first. Even without a written service history (although this is always great) some common sense and good going over before purchase should give you a good chance at a good one.