bulldog Posted January 29, 2004 Report Share Posted January 29, 2004 The battery died after a cold day and night. I could not even open the car with remote. And alarm did not come off! Used the key to open the car. After two days in the dealership so far no drains found. The only issue I had before was the door convenience setup disappeared from the menu. Also the rear door cannot be open by remote or internal button... I wonder if there is any link. Very disappointed. VW claims sophisticated power control to allow start in all conditions appropriate for offroad car… Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
s4dreamer Posted January 30, 2004 Report Share Posted January 30, 2004 That's gutting mate. You pay a shed load of money for a luxury car and get unreliability. Hope the eejits at VW can manage to get it sorted *properly* for you this time! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prhim Posted January 30, 2004 Report Share Posted January 30, 2004 Sorry to hear that Bulldog. I'm currently locking horns with VW luxury cars over my Treg - which seems to be speding way too much time in the 'shop. I hope that if all the owners who are suffering these annoying faults put the pressure on VW, then maybe we'll get their attention and they might actually get round to servicing their customers correctly. As the last post said, it's crap that we pay a fortune for a car, and it can't even keep a battery charge.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bulldog Posted January 30, 2004 Author Report Share Posted January 30, 2004 Many thanks for support. It has been now 3 days in the service and I get a replacement Touareg. The bad news - they still can’t find the fault. The good news - the car battery run flat overnight at the dealership so they can’t claim I didn’t lock it properly and now admit there is a fault. I really do hope that the car is going to be sorted out because otherwise I love the car. It is absolute blessing of comfort relaxed feel mixed with very impressive onroad and offroad capabilities confirmed while I was attending Touareg unlimited day a week ago at Kemble. Key impressions: The car performs really well at the extreme on the race track. In fact too well for such a heavy car. Basically it would outgun X5 because you have a very good throttle control for over and understeer along the race line at speed. This doesn’t really show up when you drive the car on the road. (Most of drive tests will miss it) I used to go to Nurburgring. I must tell that this car would be fun out there believe me or not. Obviously Porsche did spend good time at the track. Word of caution – you need to practice with this car a lot to get the steering at the extreme. The steering is naturally light and is not supposed to provide too much feel but comfort and it is very easy to lock the front into understeer at race speed. Performance offroad was equally impressive. We had all types of cars with offroad and road tyres. I was shocked that unless you go for mud tyres there is little difference. I did not believe that the car with road Brigestone Turanza tyres can negotiate such obstacles, mud and 3 foot water at all. You must have skills though. The conditions were treacherous – water, mud, wet grass. A reference Camel Trophy Landy on mud tyres straggled too. Touareg showed awesome traction with and without electronics. To get most of it you do play with settings for electronic controls and gears depending what you do and that is not straightforward. Steering angle input can be critical as well (Touareg rocks the front wheels helping you to find some extra grip). I have tested now at the extreme all Toauregs (2.5 TDI, V6, V8 and V10) and must say that surprisingly there is not much difference between the cars. We didn’t race beyond 70 miles and none of the cars showed any advantage. My impression of the ownership is as following: 2.5 owners love economy but prefer the smoothness of V6, V6 owners love the car most but admit you do not want to drive too fast to avoid huge fuel bills, V10 owners love the roaring power and at this point prefer not to think about depreciation. There were no V8 owners. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
s4dreamer Posted January 30, 2004 Report Share Posted January 30, 2004 Nice report bulldog. I'm contemplating a Touareg as my next car (maybe in a year or so), and am leaning towards the V10 simply because of the massiv torque from that engine. However, as I haven't driven any of them yet, we'll see what feels best nearer the time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bulldog Posted January 30, 2004 Author Report Share Posted January 30, 2004 in 2005 225hp 450nm 3.0 V6 turbodiesel would be another option... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prhim Posted January 30, 2004 Report Share Posted January 30, 2004 Aaah, I take it the pic is from your Touareg Unlimited day? Looks like you did the dreaded water gully at Calcot Manor too? Great fun! Thoroughly enjoyed my day. What time did you do the slalom course in? I managed 21.3 secs - and boy did that mean throwing it around the cones....! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
s4dreamer Posted January 31, 2004 Report Share Posted January 31, 2004 [ QUOTE ] in 2005 225hp 450nm 3.0 V6 turbodiesel would be another option... [/ QUOTE ] That would be a very interesting proposition, although by then the price of a used V10 may be similar, and someone else will have suffered the depreciation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bulldog Posted January 31, 2004 Author Report Share Posted January 31, 2004 21.6 - that is THE time! So you did like to kick Tregs around! I managed only 25sec on V8 but on Scorpion AT 235/60/17 semi offroad tyres slightly worn and rain... Would love to do the same on my Pirelli Rosso 255/55/18. On the negative note - for whatever reason I felt like we have been rushed through the day. I only had 2 runs on slalom. Too many people I guess. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prhim Posted February 1, 2004 Report Share Posted February 1, 2004 Sorry to hear you felt rushed; how many people on your day? We only had 10 people between 5 cars, so was lucky and had plenty of time on the track and a good run off-road. Believe it or not, my sub-22 sec run was in a V6 Sport, in "D" - and yes I was throwing it about somewhat. I did have the luxury of about 3 or 4 runs to get a feel for it, though. Interestingly, the instructors all agreed that the V6 effectively the fastest on slalom as has less wieght at front - so better turn in. Chap who I 'shared' my car with had a V10 and couldn't believe how much sweeter the handling on the V6 was. That said, on the straight-line braking test, the V10 would have been doing nearly 100mph by the time we hit 70 in the V6.... Who was your instructor? We had Wendy and she was fab; a real laugh... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bulldog Posted February 1, 2004 Author Report Share Posted February 1, 2004 It wasn’t too bad - I just wanted more time to practice. We also had 5 cars - 2 V10, V8, V6, 2.5 TDI and 12 people and my instructor was Paul. He was very good generally and in particular at walkie talkie. 100 mph? I am surprised you managed to get there. We were strictly limited to 70. We have measured some real world 0-60 times though... v10 - 7.6 v8 - 8.4 The time for my own V6 is 9.9. Av. test consumption I recorded was another interesting fact: V8 – 10.5mpg V10 – 12 mpg Long life R5 viva TDI: VW stopped calling 2.5 R5 and use TDI. Apparently R reserved for VW sporty cars i.e. R32 I have now some figures for the loan 2.5 manual diesel: London traffic, 10 mph – about 18 mpg , shorter trips drops to 16 mpg (V6 in the City is around 16.5mpg) Weekend blasts on motorway and B roads: 25mpg (V6 would be between 16 and 19 mpg) Casual driving would be 28 mpg (the best V6 consumption I’ve ever recorded was 23 mpg) Overall average for 2.5 is about 25 mpg compared to 17 mpg on V6. 2.5 feels very quick in gears, very easy to drive fast on motorway, however against the clock it is slower than V6 (on my usual test road V6 would be travelling +10mph at any point). Engine feels much rougher than V6. (My wife has asked me couple of times if something is wrong with the engine and she wants V6 back now). For me the 2.5 engine is quite refined but only between 2000 and 3000 rpm. At idle it is a washing machine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prhim Posted February 1, 2004 Report Share Posted February 1, 2004 We've got a 2.5 Tdi manual as a loaner while they fix our V6, and I have to say the in-gear acceleration is not bad. However, I do think the diesel lump is a lot more noisy and generates significantly more vibration in the cabin. The difference in mpg is quite severe. A tank of super unleaded will last me around 300 miles in my V6; in the diesel, we've covered 250 on just over half a tank (mostly motorway). But aside from the mileage, I'm happier with the V6 Auto. More relaxed, a bit more power and a much 'sweeter' engine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bulldog Posted February 3, 2004 Author Report Share Posted February 3, 2004 Fully agree about vibrations About economy... If you really press it is only 21.5mpg on 2.5 and on v6 the same style driving would be 16mpg. In the city the best on 2.5 is still c. 19mpg. The only advantage is when you hit an empty road. It seems that an extra refinement well worth the economy unless of course you do 50,000 miles a year on motorway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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