Hello all,
I am wondering if anyone has had a similar experience to me with supplying a Westfalia towbar to be fitted by a Volkswagen dealer. I purchased a Westfalia towbar and wiring module from Towbar’s Australia which was sold to me as an OEM towbar for my Volkswagen. My local Volkswagen dealer, agreed to fit the towbar and wiring module at a fixed price. I booked the car in expecting it to be no less than a day and after four working days, with me ringing every day and not getting a reply, I was told that the wiring module has caused a fault on the car and the car was not starting.

A few more days later the Volkswagen dealer then tells me that the wiring module is the cause of the problems with the car and the car still was not running correctly. They did however give me a courtesy car to use and then I did not hear from them for another week when they said they wanted me to purchase another wiring module from them at almost twice the price I had bought it from the Westfalia distributor. Their argument was that I had bought a non-Volkswagen genuine part even though parts are identical. Both a Westfalia fitter and Westfalia themselves claimed that the wiring module was not installed correctly and as a consequence it blew (and possibly cause damage to elsewhere in the vehicle). There is a lot more detail to this but I tend to side with what Westfalia is saying because by the way the story has panned out it appears the Volkswagen dealer is covering their tracks.


They just now today have given me the option of either returning my car with ½ fitted towbar yet they’re still going to charge me the full labour or I purchase another wiring module and they fit it. They will not release my car until either of these options. They have also changed their story and say now my car is running fine, so it appears that in the last week they fixed whatever they did to my car.


It appears that they are putting an unfair lien against my car, I have now been without it for three weeks whilst they have tried to rectify the error. One part of me is just prepared to pay the extra amount just to get my car back but I have now paid for the equivalent of three wiring modules, been without my car for three weeks (which is a work car and the courtesy car could not carry my equipment around), and it has caused me a great deal of stress and lost time try to sort all this out.


I also still may have residual damage that I am unaware of.


Any advice appreciated.