So a bit of an update on my situation...
After visiting and being told twice by the dealership that nothing could be done about the noise and that it was just a ‘characteristic of the car’ (despite them test driving the car for 48 hours and admitting that they were able to replicate the noise), I decided to call up VW UK.
VW UK got in touch with the dealership and they advised them that I wanted to test drive another GTI to make sure that it was in fact a feature of all GTI’s (which the dealership claimed it was).
Cool.
So without hesitation after VW UK explained to me that I needed to go and test drive another GTI, I drove to the dealership without warning, spotted a GTI, grabbed a service exec., they went and found a salesman and we went out for a drive.
Low and behold, no noise in the other GTI. We then got in my car, and there it was, the loud humming noise. (Couldn’t believe it happened tbh, how many times have you taken a car down with an issue, only for it to not happen whilst you’re at the dealership?!)
Got out, sat in the dealership, 20 mins later a technician came out and said “let’s go for a spin so we can try and replicate the noise”. I asked him why after you’ve had it for an entire day and were able to replicate it, I’d just replicated with his colleague 2 minutes ago, on top of the 10 recordings I sent them, I needed to go and do it again. He said “the salesman isn’t able to diagnose what’s wrong with the car”.
I nearly lost it with him by this point I’ll be honest, but after about 10 mins of ‘conversation’
, I reluctantly went out, thinking to myself this noise isn’t gonna happen again, but it did (again I couldn’t believe it). And his face dropped because he expected nothing to happen. I turned to him and said “I take it you can hear that, or shall we grab somebody else”?
Long story short, they’re replacing the pads and disks, which after reading above doesn’t always fix the issue, but it’s a start to them actually admitting there’s an issue with the car!
What I’ve learnt is that both the dealerships and VW are trying to pass the blame onto each other. So if you’re having an issue with the dealership in getting them to at least take the next steps, I’d recommend a) getting VW directly involved and b) just hounding the dealership until they’re sick of the sight of you!
I’ll update when they’ve been changed and let you know if it actually fixes the issue!