Tigger is Bleeding!

[Transporter]

Yes, actually, I lost 2 hours of my day when I took the Forester for the rear wheel bearings to be replaced by Subaru dealer, 6months after 3 years warranty run out - it cost me $100 (bearings were more expensive to buy, so I didn't do it myself and pay them for labour while Subaru supplied bearings). That was a real failure, since we were lucky to finish our holiday in the Forester and make it to back to Adelaide. The ignition coil failed at approx 12,000km, so I just took it to Subaru dealer and they swapped it within 15 minutes (almost forgot that one).
The rest of work was after the warranty and I did it myself. The leaking front seals are very common in Subaru engines as you probably know, and pointing out that the leads needed to be replaced at 100,000km or so, is almost like posting that the car is not reliable because the stop light failed.

Yes, I had the problem with my T5 and lost a lot of time trying to solve the excessive black smoke from the exhaust in the first 6 months when I bought my van. It was many visits to the dealer and they kept the van for 2 days, I think on 2 occasions. Anyway, long story short, they found nothing wrong with the T5, so we (the dealer and myself) put it to diesel fuel (with more than 1500ppm of sulfur) that we had until the end of 2005, from 2006 the visible smoke from the exhaust was reduced probably by 50%. Hardly the van's fault. To fix the oil leak from the rear engine seal, I was almost 2 weeks without van, driving in the Caddy (not a happy chappy). Despite all of that, the T5 is reliable, at least in my books.

Now to our Tiguan; we done just over 10,000km so you really can’t judge the reliability from that, and I don’t recall that we had any issue with it. Also, my younger daughter is waiting for her Tiguan after driving Golf for over 4 years. It will be diesel with the DSG.

I hope that helps.

[Mountainman]

Thanks for that.
We didn't expect to have to replace our Forester this early but it has been written off after I collected a cow on a late night run back from a work site on the Western Downs. The car was a real mess as the cow went over the top from the front. The Forester had done 245,000km in 5 years without a single warranty claim and was coming up for its registration and big 250K service, so at least I saved on those expenses. I have never bought the same car twice and a manual Tig ticks most of the boxes - I'm still very wary about sudden failures as our Golf has recently needed a new turbo under warranty and has started using oil excessively again. It was replaced at the 45K service just after a year old and had been reliable up to that stage. They tell me it will need new brake pads at the next service too which comes as a real surprise as the Forester didn't get them until the 225K service and we seem to be really easy on brake wear with all the open road running we do. The Camry V6 that the Golf replaced did 190K on its pads too and did 320K with only a worn out clutch replacement near the end. We are yet to decide on a diesel Tig or the 132TSI manual and even have thoughts of stepping up to a BMW X3 2.0D.

[Transporter]

Sorry to hear that.

There will be Tiguan 132TSI Pacific, that can be ordered from week 45. As for your long lasting brakes; you do 50,000km per year and probably don't use the brakes that often or you go easy on the brakes. There are ceramic brakes available now, made by ATE, they promise 300,000km life of the brake discs and 100,000 km on the pads (warranty them for 50,000km), bear in mind that it is for average driver. Yours would last much, much longer. The important bit about the ceramic pads is that there is no dust!

I have them in stock now, covering all VAG cars and am fitting them to our Tig next Saturday.

[Mountainman]

Thanks for the updates.