As you may know, I have a complex relationship with the first-generation Volkswagen Tiguan. I own a 2010 Tiguan, which is my most “modern” car and, un-coincidentally, my wife’s primary car. I actually enjoy driving it and think it’s well-designed, an ideal size, and has a really pleasant interior. It’s also an unmitigated steaming pile of crap, electro-mechanically, with the check engine light on nonstop, which sort of compensates for the fact that none of the interior dome lights work. I’ve already poured way too much money into this steaming pile, what with the massive timing chain failure and then a positive crankcase ventilator issue that blew out the rear main seal, and a bunch of other little things. But whatever, she still likes the car, and if you ignore all the warning lights, it actually drives fine now, which frees me up to get annoyed by other, smaller issues.
In this case, the issue started out with the infotainment screen/head unit, but led me to the taillights. I know that’s a journey nearly across the whole car, but I promise you it’ll make sense in a moment, even if VW’s taillight design here makes no sense to me at all.
Everything started when the head unit died, leading to a period where the car was making these really confusing thwonk sounds through the speakers. I promised Sally that I’d replace the broken head unit with a new one, and one that also supported Apple CarPlay, which she really wanted in the car. Like so many people do, which makes the decisions of certain major carmakers so very confusing. But that’s beside the point; the point is the head unit was dead and needed to be replaced.
Happily, there are a lot of cheap, decent Android-powered head units that support CarPlay and Android Auto out there in the world, including ones that are an exact fit for the dash of this era Tiguan. I bought this one for about $110, and so far it’s been great; I’ll have a bigger story about it soon, because it’s also a ridiculous machine and that’s worth exploring more.
The unit fit in just fine and connected to the car’s CAN bus pretty easily. Well, except for one thing: the reverse camera. A working reverse camera is very important to Sally, so I needed to get that going. It would not connect to the built-in one, but it had an add-on backup camera I was able to install.
And here’s where we get to the taillight part.
So, the camera wants, like we all do, 12V to function. My initial thought would be the smartest way to get that 12V would be to splice off the backup light/reverse lamp 12V line, because I only need the camera to power up when the car is in reverse, so that seems ideal!
Now I’m going to show you how I ended up getting 12V to the camera, and you can decide for yourself if tapping off the reverse lamp worked out:
Yep, I ended up pulling 12V from the rear power socket. It works, but it’s hardly ideal. I mean, we don’t really use that outlet very often, and it’d be easy to pull it out if we ever did need to use it, but the bigger problem was that the camera thoughtfully came with four built-in white LED lights that are about as bright as four tiny white dwarf stars, so that means this quartet of blinding light is now burning nonstop at the back of the car.
I eventually had to cover them with red tape to change their color to a one legal to be showing at the back of the car and to reduce their intensity from “blinding” to just “oddly bright.” People behind the car don’t need to be blinded, at least not all of them, right?
So, you’re likely wondering now what went wrong? Why didn’t I just use the backup light wires as I was planning? I mean, first-gen Tiguan taillight bulbs and wires aren’t hard to get to; you just open a panel in the luggage compartment or on the tailgate, and you can access the back of the taillight unit, right? And isn’t that the reverse light right there, the white lens on the inner section of the taillight?
I mean, it should be, based on the design logic of this taillight: from outside in, there’s a red outer ring for brake and tail, there’s an inner ovoid section with an amber bulb for the turn indicator, then there’s another outer red ring for more taillight, and what looks like a corresponding inner ovoid that looks like it should be the white/clear reverse lamp.
But it isn’t. In fact, it’s nothing. The actual reverse lamp is down in the bumper:
That little reverse light in the bumper I had forgotten about, but eventually I remembered that, for some unfathomable reason, VW decided to put the reverse lamps down there. Okay, I thought, I guess I’ll just tap the 12V line from one of those back-up lights! And then I actually tried, and that’s when I realized that to get access to those lights, if you had to, say, change a burned-out bulb, this is how you have to do it:
You’re taking the whole fucking bumper skin off.
This person had to take the rear wheels off, too:
This is absolutely ridiculous. Light bulbs are consumables, and should be easy to change. You shouldn’t have to take off two wheels and an entire body section just to change out two tiny bulbs! This is hideous design, a design that feels like it has genuine contempt for people trying to do any bit of work on their own, even for something as minor as a bulb change. I can’t explain how much decisions like this piss me off.
So, no, I wasn’t going to go through the hassle of taking off the whole damn bumper just to get access to the reverse light 12V line. I guess if I wanted to devote the better part of a Saturday to this, I could have but you know what? Fuck whatever cruel engineers and designers thought this was okay! I’m not going to play their stupid little game, I’m not giving them the satisfaction.
And all of this leads to what I think is a very valid question:
Why the hell isn’t that area in the taillight already, the part that looks like a back-up light, why the hell isn’t that just the back-up light, one where you could get to the bulb easily and quickly! The existence of that strange silverly egg in the taillight that does fuck-all just makes this decision feel all the more contemptuous because it’s not like there was even any stylistic or design reason to do this! There is already something that visually looks like a reverse light there! What was gained by shoving it down there in the bumper, where you can only get to it via major surgery?
I just can’t with this. It’s such a baffling and needless design choice, something so free of logic or reason, something that spits in the face of kindness; it goes far beyond just a taillight design decision. This is the sort of design choice that affects people’s lives for the worse. This sounds hyperbolic, but think about it: the designers could have easily made that dummy section of the taillight the reverse lamp, with no visual changes, and people could have replaced that bulb easily.
As it was designed, though? Most owners would end up having to go to the dealer or a shop to replace a simple bulb, and that takes time and money, all for no good reason. Whatever this sort of owner-contemptuous design is, we need to be vocal about how much it sucks, and we need to stop buying cars that embrace it. This feels needless and even cruel, and I want it to just stop.
If there’s a VW designer or engineer who can defend this choice, I’m all ears. Until then, I’m just going to be mad some more.
As soon as I saw “Tiguan,” “bulb,” and “ridiculous” I knew it was the damn reverse light bulb. SO DUMB.
In old Kia Rondo you had to remove the front bumper to replace the fog lamp bulbs. I couldn’t believe it at the time. In the owners manual under the section for replacing bulbs it doesn’t even give a diagram or bulb size/type for the fog lamps, it just says “See Dealer for Service”.
I actually managed to replace the bulbs by only removing the wheel well liner (and about 40% on the skin on my hands) but it was a chore and there were many, many impolite words uttered that afternoon.
Same with the Soul. Not the bumper cover, but the wheel well liner. The side marker lights require someone with incredibly flexible wrists and strong fingers to change the bulbs.
A coworker had one and when the fog lights burned out that was it for them. Her grown son eventually covered them with black duct tape to get around state inspection (“all installed lights must work”) on a technicality.
Fuck you too, VW.
Thomas Schäfer from VW just called Torch and said those fake backup lights “definitely did a lot of damage” and “We had frustrated customers who shouldn’t be frustrated. So we’ve spent a lot of time now – working through really systematically – on what all the functions are that a customer usually touches when using a vehicle. We worked through this with a massive team. It took us quite a bit of time. It was an Excel spreadsheet as big as a room, but you have to do that.”
Why didn’t you just attach the camera to the tailgate where the now redundant and useless OEM camera is? Then you could simply tap into that power line.
And deprive us of his tail light rant?
Because the power cord included with it probably isn’t long enough and certainly not strong enough to go up the hatch and back down, most likely.
But the reason for doing this would be to splice into the OEM camera power supply which would be right there. In other words, you would cut off the 12V lighter plug and solder onto the OEM power wire.
But that camera isn’t getting any power because it won’t connect to his head unit. He wouldn’t need the added camera at all if that were the case.
I figured the issue was a data incompatibility between the camera and head unit. I did not consider that the head unit controlled power delivery to the camera.
Man I was all ready to blow you up in the comments for buying some weird Amazon head unit and then spending the equivalent of hundreds of dollars of time installing that wack-ass backup camera rather than just buying a kit from Crutchfield….
However even the Crutchfield kits don’t keep the backup camera! What in the world did VW do there? Those iDatalink units manage to keep the backup camera pretty much every time I’ve looked and the handful of times I’ve done it on cars of that era.
I for one will not sit back and allow you to speak disparagingly about quality products from reputable brands, such as the SJoyBring Upgrade Wireless Double Din Car Stereo with Apple Carplay, Android Auto, Dash Cam, Bluetooth, 4-Channel RCA, 2 Subwoofer Ports, 7″ HD Capacitive Touchscreen Car Radio, 60W*4, Backup Camera
Hah reminds me of the time when DT bought some mystery meat brake pads off Amazon and then complained about the amount of dust and noise they generated…
My Kia EV6 has its backup light in the bumper too, but it’s an LED, so it should last longer than the batteries. And thankfully there’s nothing else to add to the car, other than a dashcam.
Kia and Hyundai seem to *love* putting lights in the bumper. Especially indicators. Which then half the time you don’t see in traffic, and not where you expect to see the indicator if you’re looking for it. And of course perfectly vulnerable to get damaged in a minor mishap.
Such a stupid idea.
Someone backed into our Soul and cracked the mount for the fog lamp. Haven’t bothered disassembling the entire front end of the vehicle to fix it. That lamp would just have to point wherever, if the bulb was still functional.
So apparently it’s a common thing across manufacturers to use a very frail or weird 12v supply to the backup camera?
My 2014 Ford Transit Connect with dual rear doors had the same thing happen. Blown 5a fuse for the camera. I tried to troubleshoot this to fix, thinking maybe the wire flexed/broke where it goes into the door. Nope. All fine there. I ended up buying the printed wiring manual.
On the Transit Connect, that single thin wire runs from the driver’s side rear camera control module over the wheel well, forward to the dashboard, then back down the passenger side to the fusebox at the back. It has to be one of the longest single wires in the entire van!
I ended up cutting that wire, and running a new heavier gauge wire under the trim panel at the rear doors. With soldered and shrink-tubed connections at both ends, it will likely outlast the van!
Problem solved!
One of the things I did when fitting the tow bar to my “Jeep” was to replace the rear reflectors in the bumpers with Euro-spec reverse lamp / reflector parts. Since the Renegade was sold in both the UK and on the continent there are factory pieces for left and right sides, but even on NA-spec models the fender liners have access doors. I did replace the plastic screws with stainless steel.
The hitch kit came with a lighting module and harness which just plugs inline between the body harness and each light cluster, so tapping the reverse on that side was easy and fully reversible. I bought a pretty low-content 6MT example so there were also lots of empty slots to add a fuse and relay to the factory rear fuse block.
another reason I’m glad I sold my 2011 Tiguan a couple of months ago
Where is the wiring harness? I bet with a bit of research you could tap into one of the reverse light wires in the cargo area.
That way you could control it with a hood switch.
I’m surprised the Chinese vw specific unit doesn’t interface with the camera. They have come a long way. It’s been a while since I installed the factory camera and nav system in a vw of that era but i remember camera having a plug that was two connectors. I’m assuming power and video.
Just put one in my 2019 Amarok after the original bricked itself, and reverse camera is fine. I believe there is a cross-over about 2016/17, but dependant on vehicle.
My old Fiat 500 Abarth, when it came time to replace anything on the front besides headlight bulbs (fogs, turn, etc). Step one, remove front end.
Lucky! In my CTS I haven’t had to yet, but every front bulb is bumper and grille off.
Yes my SRX was like that for the DRLs where the bulbs lasted about 18 months. And when the DRL bulb was failed the TURN SIGNAL on that side didn’t work. Some guys just ran a one inch hole saw through the lens to get access and rtv’d the cutout piece back in.
In a Fiesta you have to remove the battery.
That was aways Step 1 in the Chilton’s Manual for any operation on any vehicle. And the last step is always “Assembly is the reverse operation.”
So I know we have the regulation that reverse lights cannot be on movable body panels (ie trunk lids & rear hatches). I wonder if non-USDM spec Tiguans use the ones higher up. If my theory is correct, you can still be mad that VW chose to save however many pennies by skipping the wiring to them instead of simply having two sets of reverse lights (and, even if there’s a reg that says you can only have two reverse lights, you could do what other companies do and have the hatch ones be the default but switch over to the bumper ones when you open the hatch).
Here, only brake/tail/turn needs to be on a non-movable panel. It’s not that!
Yep. The reverse lights on my Mk6 GTI are on the tailgate. I added a license plate area reverse camera to mine, using Bentley parts, and triggered off of the reverse wire that I found on the left side of the trunk floor, either under the carpet or behind the trim. I didn’t follow it into the tailgate.
TIL reverse lights are their own thing. Thanks JT!
You wrote this just to get me to post about replacing the headlight bulb on a chevy Malibu again didn’t you? I won’t bite. I’m done, please see my other 4 posts about that topic and how you need to remove the front wheels, remove the wheel well liners, and then remove the entire front bumper cover.
You got me beat – my Focus only requires that you remove the entire grill to access the headlight housings. My Mustang meanwhile, well, you could open the hood and replace the bulbs by feel alone. Ah for old design.
I wish Consumer Reports or someone would create a rating for ease of maintenance. Things like air filters, bulbs, 12v batteries. That might incentivize carmakers to try to do better.
I have to loosen the Yaris’s bumper cover and basically remove the headlight/s, unfortunately. A drawback of its stubby little nose.
My partner’s fourth-gen CR-V, meanwhile, doesn’t require any tools; the passenger side’s super-easy, while the fuse box gets a bit in the way on the driver’s side.
Yay Yaris! I saw one on the road the other day, and as always, it made me smile – Toyota’s seeming last gasp of making basic but quality cars.
I’ve had a 2008 Yaris and a 2020 Fit, on the Fit changing the headlights is fiddly but requires no disassembly.
Just did both sides on my 16 year-old’s 2011 Malibu this past Sunday.
Have since updated my car shopping checklist to include “check headlight bulb replacement access”. After the Malibu, it’s a deal-breaker.
I’ve been working on cars my whole life so when the headlight went out I grabbed a bulb from autzone and budgeted 15 minutes to change it in my driveway. 2 minutes for the work and 13 minutes to finish my beer. Boy was I wrong. Now I can get a little angry at engineers when I burn my arm on a catalytic converter because they put the oil filter behind it or small things like that. But I was noticeably pissed for over a week while I got all the right tools together to change that bulb. It still makes me mad. I swore id sell the car the next time the bulb went out and that’s what I did. Drive a colorado now and am scared to look and see what it’s like to change its bulb.
Sometimes you can replace headlight bulbs by removing a splash guard or loosening up an inner fender and going from the bottom up.It’s totally unnecessary that a simple job has to turn into a nightmare.I had to have my son replace my daughters bulbs in her Camry because there was no way my hands were gonna fit in that tiny space.I wish I could make the engineers that design these car have to work on them sometimes.
Just went through this exact procedure on my Mazda3. The official procedure is to pop the plastic clips holding the wheel well liner, bend it back, and squeeze an arm in through there.
Because I’m a sucker for punishment, I decided to do both sides at the same time. Total pain in the balls, especially when the working bulb i was “preventatively” changing REFUSED to budge, and there was no room to move my hand for a better grip on it. Got there in the end, but I swear my knuckles are still bleeding…
> I decided to do both sides at the same time
That’s one of the big no-nos together with going in against a Sicilian when death is on the line.
I am no expert but before I answer your reasonable question I have to ask a ❓ Did you verify that the method you stated was the factory recommended method or did you do a classic Torch removal of batteries with a chainsaw made up method? These exercises make for great content but I always wondered do the writers/repair people ever do a google search first? I mean it is an after market part but does the car have a tear facing camera hook up? Did the after market company have a customer service number for suggestions on how to install?
I had a boss at one of my many jobs that had a sign on his desk that said ” A lack of planning on your part does not constitute an Emergency on my part”
I did look. This is how you have to do it.
Well, heck, this makes changing a front fog light bulb on a MKIII Jetta/GTI seem like a walk in the park.
I don’t think the bumper had to be removed (I haven’t had the car in a long time), but it still required accessing it from under the car.
As a German guy, I can confidently say…
Fucking Germans!
Those generic Chinese head units are the closest I’ve experienced to being in hell, so I really doubt that it’s been “working great”. Even if for some reason yours is less glitchy than usual, it’s probably going to die in less than a year… which should be counted as a blessing.
Next time just find a double-DIN bracket for your dash and put an Alpine, Sony, JVC, etc. in there.
That is the Miata answer as in always the answer
You can also order a VW part (from China, because it’s made by the JV there) that has carplay and is drop-in. I did that for my Mk6 Golf, it even plugs into the factory wiring unit.
It’s because that stupid law that requires manufacturers to keep a functional set of rear lights (parking, turn signal, reverse) even when the hatch is open. So at least there’s an explanation, dumb as it is.
And to answer the second question about a “consumable” — I suspect the VW engineers thought the reverse lamp would last the lifespan of the vehicle. Lifespan, of course, being a limited number of miles or time they engineered the car to last — say 150k/10y. Beyond that, serviceability just adds cost/weight for the 95% of the cars that will be off the road by that point.
Reverse lights aren’t part of the set of lights that need to be always available!
Ah! Well, knowing VW and how they design cars, they had probably separate teams working on the rear end, one was tasked with the bumper, another with the tail lights. They came up with the finished parts and exclaimed “oh fuck, not again!”
Edit: It looks like you already knew this, Torch. I think the ChangLi’s lead vapors are affecting your memory: https://www.theautopian.com/the-two-times-volkswagen-lied-to-us-via-tiguan-taillights/
Now that I’ve thought about it, seems pretty hard to burn out a reverse light. That bulb only gets used a few seconds at a time (unless you are GM). If it’s a 1,000 hr bulb being used approx 1 min per day, it ought to last 166 yrs. You’d think it would make it at least the life of the vehicle. Except based on Jason’s experience and the multiple videos of others making the same repair, it clearly does not.
Incandescent filaments are have a relatively high number of outliers when it comes to lifespan. It’s hard to make something that’s so thin, subject to harsh vibrations and bumps and that’s burning literally white hot to be consistent. It’s nothing short of a miracle that they last as long as they do.
That being said, most of the forum posts and videos I saw of people accessing these Tiguan reverse lights are simply swapping them for LEDs but the original bulbs were still working.
Plus constant temperature swings. And yes I agree it’s a testament to human ingenuity we figured out not only how to do it, but to make them by the millions for pennies apiece.
What’s the rationale for swapping out working incandescents for LEDs? I’ve never “upgraded” my reverse lights, but also never wished I had more light while backing up (especially now with cameras). Am I missing something?
For some people is the prospect of never having to change a bulb again. Ironically a lot of these Chinese LEDs last less than the equivalent long-life halogen.
For others is the instant on/off look, especially in turn signals and brake lights, or maybe the extra brightness they claim to produce. Some cars have surprisingly good reverse lights (like tiny headlights) so if you put a bright LED in there and don’t have cameras, they can actually help you see better when backing up.
To be fair, I replaced essentially all bulbs in my ’78 Toyota for LEDs but I had a very specific need: to lower the load on the ancient alternator. I couldn’t drive at night and charge my phone at the same time. Now I can.
My car requires you to remove the front bumper to change a headlight bulb.
The Tiger-Iguana strikes again!
Reminds me of GM’s hilariously bad decision to put the Buick Envista’s actual brake lights low down in the bumper, leaving the lights around the hatch (which is at eye level) as, I dunno, decoration.
There is boundless stupidity in car design these days. Seriously, all current car designers with very, very few exceptions need a stint at Betty Ford. They have to be doing drugs like it’s the 70s, but drugs are FREE.
Ever since design by computer as opposed to design by common sense experience
I don’t really think that’s it. CAD just makes it faster to do bad design.
There seems to be a resistence to just using vertical taillights that use all that non-moving real estate on either side of the hatch.
Not to get too conspiratorial, but those “decorative reflectors” look awful pretty in the showroom. People just assume they are real. And how often do you ever see what the back of your own car is doing? So in that sense they serve their purpose of impressing buyers while being as cheap and useless as possible.
I’m willing to bet the actual design discussion wasn’t that far off, just focusing on the lines and don’t worry it meets FMVSS requirements.
On a happier taillight note, when my mom got her Mustang years ago, I told her to start it, put the turn signal on, and go look at the rear. She was blown away.
Isn’t there a Kia or Hyundai model like that too?
Meh, I have taken the rear bumper off my BMW to install a trailer hitch. It’s just not that big of a deal on most cars. A few screws, a bunch of fiddly clips, and in <10 minutes it’s on the ground. Knowing VW, it’s probably not even that hard. People pissed and moaned about having to take the bumper off a MK4 Golf to change bulbs, but it was a 5-minute job and honestly FAR easier than jamming your hands into tight cutty spaces that so many cars require.
I don’t disagree that putting the reverse lights down there is kinda stupid when they could have been with the rest of them, but come on, how often are you going to have to change one? They only get used for seconds at a time, they are likely to last the life of the car. I am going to guess they did it this way because different markets get very different taillights, but the reverse lights are all the same, or some other accounting-driven engineering logic that makes sense to beancounters.
Be thankful the taillight and reverse lights aren’t some monolithic LED bullshit that is guaranteed to fail and cost you $1500 to replace. Or better yet, have an ECU in them so WHEN they fail they spam the Canbus into conniption fits AND cost thousands to replace (cough, Ford pickups, cough). This is very much a first-world problem compared to how bad it COULD be. So take the time and redo the job CORRECTLY, not jankily. Sally (is that her real name?) will be most pleased with you. And if Mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.
I’m kind of surprised you can’t get the camera reverse trigger off the Canbus – that’s how it worked in the ’04 Volvo I put one of these Chinesium Android headunits in. I was not particularly impressed with either the Volvo or the headunit, and was glad to see the last of both.
Yes you are correct I have found removing a bumper is quite easy but also reattaching it usually isn’t
Opposite of my experience. It’s figuring out EXACTLY how the damned clips work that is usually the problem for me. You can’t see them usually, so you are working by feel and trying not to break things. Assembly is usually snap/snap/snap put the screws back in. It does help to have two people just because they are so big and floppy today.
I’m with spyder on this: the correct method is to grab hold of the panel, close your eyes, give it a firm pull, and see what little bits fall to the floor and how broken they appear to be. Much faster. Only downside comes when it’s time to put it back on and you can’t.
I try really hard to not emulate dealership monkeys when I am working on cars. Especially my own.
I just can’t abide taking off a whole bumper skin for a bulb. Think about an average owner deciding to change a bulb; if they’re presented with having to remove a whole bumper panel, I think they’re going to balk. And average owners should be able to change bulbs.
While I agree, I think the average owner believes air filters cost $89.99 or whatever Jiffy Lube is charging these days. Put another way: maintenance is something you pay someone else to do.
Average owners wouldn’t change a bulb themselves if it was literally a bare bulb sticking out of a socket exposed on the surface of the car.
A VW owner servicing their own vehicle? We at VW can’t allow that. Only our highly trained and severely underpaid technicians can be trusted with that job on our finely engineered vehicles.
Oh, it’s the second owner? They didn’t buy it from us new so screw them. They deserve it.
/s -VW management, probably.
“German cars are reliable as long as you do the maintenance”
German car maintenance:
I generally find German car maintenance pretty easy. It’s Japanese cars that I always seem to have issues with. Designed for MUCH smaller hands than I possess as a rule.
What kinds of hands do you possess on the off days though?
Your Mama’s.
I would also agree. I feel like German cars just have a reputation due to their complexity. My A4 with a 4cyl in an engine bay that fits a v8 is plenty easy to work on and almost everything is accessible with minimal disassembly. My Touareg is more difficult to work on, but everything follows a logical process.
My Miata is not hard to work on, especially suspension and drivetrain, but a lot of the maintenance is only easy if you’re jamming yourself into tiny spaces or spinning stuff at some crazy angle and then forcing it through a gap that’s a little too small.
it doesn’t help that the German car owners that are actually on the forums seem to be a bit dramatic. I’ve seen a lot of comments on the difficulty of doing stuff that is very easy with the correct shape of tool.
For sure I think many German cars simply look harder than they are, and of course, you need to learn HOW things come apart – it isn’t always all that obvious, even if it’s actually easy once you know.
And for SURE you need the right tools!
I’m giving the “wrench of shame” to the Swedes, although I’ve never had a Saab (or Koenigsegg), so maybe it is just Volvo, but Herregud, they hate DIYers!
Modern Volvos suck (on so many levels), the old ones were a doddle to work on.
I generally like driving my S60, it is very comfy and feels more solid than any other car I’ve ever driven. But there are just so many issues.
They replaced a basic PCV valve with some overcomplicated oil trap that needs replacing every couple of years.
The engine was burning a quart of oil every couple of thousand miles until Volvo did a voluntary recall to rebuild the engine.
No dipsticks, you rely on the electronic “gauge” that is really just binary, shows as full until it needs a quart.
To change the rear brake pads, you have to manually back out the e-brake piston using a drill with an allen bit. Unless you have the $2000 maintenance software which lets you put the brakes into maintenance mode.
The infotainment screen freezes every 2-3 months, requiring pulling over and restarting the car to restore.
I haven’t owned one as new as yours, but the ultimate problem with my ’04 V70 was that the running costs were higher than a German car, but it was nowhere near as good to drive. And more tied to the mothership than a BMW or Mercedes (you can get the BMW software for FREE and the Mercedes setup is much cheaper than Volvos AND doesn’t need that fun connection and payments to the mothership to do things). The juice wasn’t worth the squeeze, and I found it rather harder to wrench on as a rule. Shame, it was a pretty car and useful.
My Saab 9-5s were much, much better too, and also much cheaper to run. And my V70 was a pretty minty-dealer maintained example with a full service history plus it was the simplest, non-turbo version at that. Stone ax simple and it was still a pain in the butt to own while being completely meh to drive.
Don’t confuse German car for a VAG product.
BMWs and Mercedes have very well-engineered components, sometimes making it easier to perform maintenance than even in some Japanese cars. I love the wiring harness plugs in my E39 with little levers. They never stick or take chunks off my skin like they do in my Nissan or Toyota.
I can replace the spark plugs in my E39 in 15 minutes but I need to take the whole intake manifold off to do the same in my Nissan Pathfinder.
VAG products are reliable – so long as you remember to only consider those designed and built in the Czech Republic by Skoda. I’ll admit this does rule out all those offered in the US.
I’ve owned seven VWs – built in Germany, Brazil, and Mexico from 1984 to 2017 model years. There was no substantive difference in the build quality between them, and all of them were extremely reliable – and several were at or went to intergalactic mileages. In fact, my ’17 GTI was one of only two new cars I bought that had ZERO warranty issues, and I am a fussy wanker when my cars are under warranty. Absolutely superb car, and I was an idiot to fall for the pandemic used car price madness and sell it on. Though fun to say I drove a new car for four years for free. Buy in a scandal, sell in a pandemic, I guess.
The funny thing to me is that while “The Internets” rail on about how unreliable VWs are here in the US (but not RoW), everyone I personally know who has owned them, and that’s a LOT of cars over a LOT of years, has been more than happy with them and kept buying them over and over.