Hello guys and gals, nice to meet you from Italy
this is my first post here so forgive me if i'm not exactly following the rules of the house. first i have to write in english as i am italian and can't speak german at all. i hope this is not a game-over!
i hope also you don't mind if i'm going to write a "wall-of-text", but i think an extended case presentation in the opening post can help to keep the topic and replies on focus
feel free to reply in german anyway, as i see that Google chrome is pretty good at translating something that looks meaningful enough (at least for the other topics i've read)
i finally decided to write here because it looks like this is the more technically-focused forum still alive related to the VW eGolf. and maybe here there are still passionate VW technicians lurking that could eventually chime-in and provide clueful advices and/or get me in touch with someone who can have "first-hand" information to lead to better diagnosis and eventually find the solution of my issue.
BTW I'm writing in the "presentation/review" sub-forum and I hope it applies for my report indeed; didn't find indeed a sup-place for talking about faults and "service-related" experience. it could look like these eGolf are made to last forever, and that what i thought too, but my case is falling a bit short on that regard.
here i'm going to talk about a "long-time" issue on my eGolf, an "electric anomaly", and a "less-then-stellar" repairing service in Italy, as they haven't been able to fix this fault in a 8 month long maintenance activity and after a very long list of swapped parts
I've got an eGolf in Jan 2020 and I've been a happy driver for more or less three years with more the 110k KM under my belt.
in late Nov 2022, during a trip in a rainy day, i was trying to run the "PTC" (heat pump) to dry the "fog" on the screen-shield" and i've got a yellow fault on the dashboard "electric anomaly, bring the car to service" .
turning off the PTC and power-cycling the car, has been useful enough to clear at least the visual indication of the fault, and so i drove home without more hassle.
the next day turned to the dealer in with the car to be checked but didn't know my nightmare was to begin!
in the first three months they diagnosed the AC unit to be faulty (it was indeed not working for many months) and they told me there was an internal leak between the HVAC gas and the cooling liquid (the "violet" one i had indeed to refill some times along the last months.. a leak was surely there but wasn't able to spot it myself, it was not going out through the floor when parked, sadly)
they said they changed whatever was found "faulty", and released the car in late Feb 2023 after set me back for more then 3000€
it was supposed to be the definitive fix, but it wasnt' during the 5 km to get to my office, i turned on both the "heater" and the AC to test some load on the car and the "electric anomaly" light was back there on the dashboard.
at that time, both in Dec 22 for the first fault event and now in late Feb 23, i didn't have the "cold-mind" to use on my own a OBD11 OBD2 tool, i purchased in the early times, so can't comment on the "real" DTC the system could show in the internal memories.. sadly (i was still trusting the dealer to be confident enough to fix the issue in a reasonable way)
Anyway I brought back the eGolf to the dealer and told them to fix it again.. they started with new diagnosis and other parts to be swapped. the "battery charger" and also more (i keep all the receipts showing a very long and detailed list of components); this to be done for a "mere" 1800€ in a bundle with a replacement car (they felt a bit bad, i suppose, for the first "show")
to make a long story short, also this second service activity has been struggling a lot, for many months. they said they kept informed also the VW italian distributor, but without a real fix for this "electric anomaly"
their last final verdict at this stage, AGREED with VW IT technicians (and commercial people), was that the "electric motor" was at fault here and needed to be swapped. a 10K€ part that VW "kindly" offered to cover for half of it, so just a "mere" 4800€ bill was on me!
i could not believe this was the final outcome: the final repairing (if they were able.. i was not so trusty anymore) could reach a whopping total of 10.000€ or so..
they decided to close the second task in middle of Aug 23, and told me to foot the second bill (1670€), to bring back the rented car and to get back my car, otherwise i should start to pay both the renting and the parking lot for my eGolf.
i fought a bit their uni-lateral decision to ask for the money and give me back a still-broken car, but in the early days of Sept 23, i was tired enough, paid the due amount and got back my eGolf.
i've already been using my eGolf for a week, driven for more then one thousand km and found it still performing well enough, both on "range" (i was worried that the battery capacity could be ruined after so many months buried in a parking lot..) and power (no sign of issues on the motor, powerful and vibrant as I used to know it. no noises, no errors on the dash board); still today i do not have a clue why they suggested as last resort to swap the motor.
last week i fired up my trusty OBD11 and dumped the status from the many (26) controllers on the CAN bus and found some relevant fault entries (i've attached the screenshot of the entries; on the left the recent data, against, on the right, the same controller entries with values dumped in 2020 when i grabbed the first data set as the car was brand new)
as you can see, there's finally clear evidence of the "isolation fault" signaled the 11 of Aug 23 time 17:30 in controller 8C "Battery E nergy Control module" (when the car was still in dealer hands, i suppose during their internal final test, still disappointing)
at the same time there's a fault in module 09 "Central Electrics" related to "Central locking Excess Temp" (don't know if it's related..)
and then there's this "thermal management" issue on " B3A0500 - A/C Refrigerant Distribution Valve Actuator "D" Stuck/Ope n" that looks like happened earlier in the morning (at 10:55) but i'm wondering if the timestamp on Fault entries on different controllers should be thought as "synchronized" or not..
is timestamp managed in a centralized way? i don't think so.. at least if we think how old is the eGolf electronic hw/sw/fw design is old, fifteen years at least, and which was at the time the "approach to SW" of the main car makers
so my questions are:
* is this intermittent "isolation fault" an issue already seen any time by other eGolf customers here in this forum? i failed to find other cases
* is there a way to "pin-point" this fault in a methodical/professional/economical way , instead of replacing parts and trying to solve the issue by mere brute-force (and we do see in my case, when out of warranty, this method can't be a reasonable approach, as the customer can't foot this kind of bills when can be higher then the residual car value)
* how can we "screen out" dealers who do not have a clue about these issues, no experience, no best practices, eventually no tools and do not want to admit to be not able to deal with these "high voltage" issues but pretending to be capable, they merely swap parts, "steal" the money, eventually add more issues (i have another component, the ACC signaling a new fault " C110300 - Adaptive cruise control sensor misadjusted " and this ADAS is disabled now: this issue was not there when brought the car to dealer!)
* can a three year old electric Golf be scrapped as repairing it is supposed to be no more economically reasonable, now that we are moving toward electric mobility and people is not very convinced (at least here in southern europe) and doesn't have so much money to afford a new car?
* is the German OEM, VW AG, aware about these mishaps on managing issues in the dealer service centers; are there "damage-control" actions to keep customers happy, also when there are signs of mis-management on the "after sale" support activities. Any single public case is very big bad advertisement, expecially when used by electric mobility detractors that we are not ready for this "forced" transition?
that's what i'm wondering.. let's hope this story could help making other customers more aware about what we can expect when cars show some faults and need some kind of assistance
i'll be happy if someone could put me in touch with VW people/technicians willing to better understand this case and eventually find the proper fix for this wonderful car.
this is my first post here so forgive me if i'm not exactly following the rules of the house. first i have to write in english as i am italian and can't speak german at all. i hope this is not a game-over!
i hope also you don't mind if i'm going to write a "wall-of-text", but i think an extended case presentation in the opening post can help to keep the topic and replies on focusfeel free to reply in german anyway, as i see that Google chrome is pretty good at translating something that looks meaningful enough (at least for the other topics i've read)
i finally decided to write here because it looks like this is the more technically-focused forum still alive related to the VW eGolf. and maybe here there are still passionate VW technicians lurking that could eventually chime-in and provide clueful advices and/or get me in touch with someone who can have "first-hand" information to lead to better diagnosis and eventually find the solution of my issue.
BTW I'm writing in the "presentation/review" sub-forum and I hope it applies for my report indeed; didn't find indeed a sup-place for talking about faults and "service-related" experience. it could look like these eGolf are made to last forever, and that what i thought too, but my case is falling a bit short on that regard.
here i'm going to talk about a "long-time" issue on my eGolf, an "electric anomaly", and a "less-then-stellar" repairing service in Italy, as they haven't been able to fix this fault in a 8 month long maintenance activity and after a very long list of swapped parts
I've got an eGolf in Jan 2020 and I've been a happy driver for more or less three years with more the 110k KM under my belt.
in late Nov 2022, during a trip in a rainy day, i was trying to run the "PTC" (heat pump) to dry the "fog" on the screen-shield" and i've got a yellow fault on the dashboard "electric anomaly, bring the car to service" .
turning off the PTC and power-cycling the car, has been useful enough to clear at least the visual indication of the fault, and so i drove home without more hassle.
the next day turned to the dealer in with the car to be checked but didn't know my nightmare was to begin!
in the first three months they diagnosed the AC unit to be faulty (it was indeed not working for many months) and they told me there was an internal leak between the HVAC gas and the cooling liquid (the "violet" one i had indeed to refill some times along the last months.. a leak was surely there but wasn't able to spot it myself, it was not going out through the floor when parked, sadly)
they said they changed whatever was found "faulty", and released the car in late Feb 2023 after set me back for more then 3000€
it was supposed to be the definitive fix, but it wasnt' during the 5 km to get to my office, i turned on both the "heater" and the AC to test some load on the car and the "electric anomaly" light was back there on the dashboard.
at that time, both in Dec 22 for the first fault event and now in late Feb 23, i didn't have the "cold-mind" to use on my own a OBD11 OBD2 tool, i purchased in the early times, so can't comment on the "real" DTC the system could show in the internal memories.. sadly (i was still trusting the dealer to be confident enough to fix the issue in a reasonable way)
Anyway I brought back the eGolf to the dealer and told them to fix it again.. they started with new diagnosis and other parts to be swapped. the "battery charger" and also more (i keep all the receipts showing a very long and detailed list of components); this to be done for a "mere" 1800€ in a bundle with a replacement car (they felt a bit bad, i suppose, for the first "show")
to make a long story short, also this second service activity has been struggling a lot, for many months. they said they kept informed also the VW italian distributor, but without a real fix for this "electric anomaly"
their last final verdict at this stage, AGREED with VW IT technicians (and commercial people), was that the "electric motor" was at fault here and needed to be swapped. a 10K€ part that VW "kindly" offered to cover for half of it, so just a "mere" 4800€ bill was on me!
i could not believe this was the final outcome: the final repairing (if they were able.. i was not so trusty anymore) could reach a whopping total of 10.000€ or so..
they decided to close the second task in middle of Aug 23, and told me to foot the second bill (1670€), to bring back the rented car and to get back my car, otherwise i should start to pay both the renting and the parking lot for my eGolf.
i fought a bit their uni-lateral decision to ask for the money and give me back a still-broken car, but in the early days of Sept 23, i was tired enough, paid the due amount and got back my eGolf.
i've already been using my eGolf for a week, driven for more then one thousand km and found it still performing well enough, both on "range" (i was worried that the battery capacity could be ruined after so many months buried in a parking lot..) and power (no sign of issues on the motor, powerful and vibrant as I used to know it. no noises, no errors on the dash board); still today i do not have a clue why they suggested as last resort to swap the motor.
last week i fired up my trusty OBD11 and dumped the status from the many (26) controllers on the CAN bus and found some relevant fault entries (i've attached the screenshot of the entries; on the left the recent data, against, on the right, the same controller entries with values dumped in 2020 when i grabbed the first data set as the car was brand new)
as you can see, there's finally clear evidence of the "isolation fault" signaled the 11 of Aug 23 time 17:30 in controller 8C "Battery E nergy Control module" (when the car was still in dealer hands, i suppose during their internal final test, still disappointing)
at the same time there's a fault in module 09 "Central Electrics" related to "Central locking Excess Temp" (don't know if it's related..)
and then there's this "thermal management" issue on " B3A0500 - A/C Refrigerant Distribution Valve Actuator "D" Stuck/Ope n" that looks like happened earlier in the morning (at 10:55) but i'm wondering if the timestamp on Fault entries on different controllers should be thought as "synchronized" or not..
is timestamp managed in a centralized way? i don't think so.. at least if we think how old is the eGolf electronic hw/sw/fw design is old, fifteen years at least, and which was at the time the "approach to SW" of the main car makers
so my questions are:
* is this intermittent "isolation fault" an issue already seen any time by other eGolf customers here in this forum? i failed to find other cases
* is there a way to "pin-point" this fault in a methodical/professional/economical way , instead of replacing parts and trying to solve the issue by mere brute-force (and we do see in my case, when out of warranty, this method can't be a reasonable approach, as the customer can't foot this kind of bills when can be higher then the residual car value)
* how can we "screen out" dealers who do not have a clue about these issues, no experience, no best practices, eventually no tools and do not want to admit to be not able to deal with these "high voltage" issues but pretending to be capable, they merely swap parts, "steal" the money, eventually add more issues (i have another component, the ACC signaling a new fault " C110300 - Adaptive cruise control sensor misadjusted " and this ADAS is disabled now: this issue was not there when brought the car to dealer!)
* can a three year old electric Golf be scrapped as repairing it is supposed to be no more economically reasonable, now that we are moving toward electric mobility and people is not very convinced (at least here in southern europe) and doesn't have so much money to afford a new car?
* is the German OEM, VW AG, aware about these mishaps on managing issues in the dealer service centers; are there "damage-control" actions to keep customers happy, also when there are signs of mis-management on the "after sale" support activities. Any single public case is very big bad advertisement, expecially when used by electric mobility detractors that we are not ready for this "forced" transition?
that's what i'm wondering.. let's hope this story could help making other customers more aware about what we can expect when cars show some faults and need some kind of assistance
i'll be happy if someone could put me in touch with VW people/technicians willing to better understand this case and eventually find the proper fix for this wonderful car.
