How can I fix this?

[W44tcl]

Recently picked up a polo gti+ 2021 pre facelift but have found numerous error codes to pop up randomly

These consist of tyre pressure warnings, max revs of 2500rpm, battery not charging, and almost always no stop start

When diving into these problems I’ve found that turning off the engine and straight back on will eliminate all these error codes and the car will resume driving as normal with all features working as good as ever. VW themselves haven’t seem too useful as they are asking to do an engine diagnostic to find the issue which leads to me thinking that I may be the only one having these electrical issues.

If anyone has seen, had or conquered these problems please suggest an ideas as I am stuck

[SRGTD]

I’d let the dealer scan the car for fault codes which should help them narrow down or pinpoint the cause(s) of your car’s issues.

Is your car still under warranty?

[PO10ASH]

Yeah, these aren't normal, get the car scanned and diagnosed! I've had my car since late 2020 and have only had tyre pressure warnings "accidentally" go off during a heatwave.

[W44tcl]

I’d let the dealer scan the car for fault codes which should help them narrow down or pinpoint the cause(s) of your car’s issues.

Is your car still under warranty?

Car is still under warranty but want to charge £225 for a diagnostics and it’s not refundable under warranty if they don’t find anything

[SRGTD]

I was aware that it’s now ‘normal’ for VW dealers to charge a diagnostic fee, but £225 sounds pretty steep for what probably amounts to just plugging a diagnostic reader into your car, even for London labour rates (I see your location is shown as London). The diagnostic fee should be the labour charge for a 30 minute diagnostic check, and my understanding is that it’s VW’s policy to refund the charge if a fault is found that’s covered under warranty. With your dealer charging a non refundable £225 for 30 minutes labour, that’s equivalent to an hourly labour rate of £450 which sounds outrageous IMHO, even allowing for the fact you’re London based!

If you know someone with a diagnostic code reader, then it’d be worth getting them to scan your car for codes. Alternatively, you could either;

• find a reputable independent VW specialist to do this - they will also charge, but hopefully considerably less than £225. Who Can Fix My Car website suggests the average (independent) diagnostic charge at current prices is around £60. This will vary by region - you can input your car’s reg. no. and your post code on the website and it’ll give you the average price for your area. Link; https://www.whocanfixmycar.com/services ... iagnostics

or

• challenge the charge quoted by the VW dealer. It’d be worth doing an internet search or phoning around to see if you can find a lower price quoted by other VW dealerships near to you. You could also quote the independent diagnostic charge from Who Can Fix My Car to see if VW will match the price.

Unfortunately, I don’t think there’s an alternative option to getting your car scanned to find out what’s wrong with it. However, I wouldn’t be prepared to pay £225 for someone at a VW dealership to just plug in a scan tool and read any fault codes that might be shown.

Please keep this discussion topic updated, along with the outcome. Good luck, I hope you get your car sorted soon and at a reasonable, realistic cost.

[RUM4MO]

Yes, you do seem to have been caught in a trap in as much as if you want to risk that the car's warranty covers this repair, then you must suffer your VW dealership's initial costs to diagnose.

Going down the VAG Indie route could end up being cheaper - but if something costly is the root cause then that repair route will cost more in the end as normally VW Group dealerships, for all warranty claims, need to initially carry out their own diagnosis - then follow the VW Group "pathway to repair", if they didn't do that, VW Group would dismiss any claims being made for labour and failed parts.

I hate warranties!! I much prefer reliable equipment, or equipment that I can solve the faults on at my convenience and my costs.

Edit:- really it is now up to you to make your choice - both a bit of a gamble!

[W44tcl]

Definately steep in price for what it is but will have to get it done. Going to have to rely on my university finance loan in order to get it done which will be early/mid April but definitely going to start recording any issues that do occur as evidence towards the issues

Hardest thing now to do is explaining the unexplainable to dealerships that all the error codes disappear once I settle for the simple engine on engine off route which may end up with me taking a perfectly fine and running car with no error codes to the dealership with them left with there snarky looks ( Ruislip citigate)

Thank you for the advice on getting it checked out as I was unsure if i should due to no errors leading to any long term issues

[RUM4MO]

More expense, but this is where VCDS comes into its own, if you had VCDS, you could or should scan the car and save the results - okay VW Group workshops claim that VCDS is complete junk and can't be trusted - taking that false view suits their workshops very well, but at least it lets you see a trend.
One annoying - for owners, aspect is, nowadays low level faults get "flushed" out of the controller memories quite quickly I originally discovered this after having a frequent AC compressor fault being logged.
So, yes, in some cases, you hand the car in and all faults have been flushed out of memory - not good, it wasn't always like this.
So with VCDS and a few other scan tools, if you are having short term issues, quickly scanning and saving results does give you a "data/fault trail" which eventually VW Group can not run away from.
The only car that I've noticed that had/has a frequent "issue" is my older daughter's 2019 Leon Cupra, it logs an issue with the locking or unlocking of the front passenger's door - but my daughter has never noticed that and I've considered that she would never find enough time to drop it off on the way to work every few weeks or months, it still logs these faults but I only ever scan it every 6 months - and save then clear all stored logged faults.

[RUM4MO]

If you can live without your car maybe bite the bullet as this is spoiling your ownership of what could be a good car - and the VW warranty clock is ticking away, and after that they will not be too interested in helping you out.