Re: Seat Problems

["Benjamin Stein" <bstein@mail.depaul.edu>]

Good timing on the seat thing.  Mine has squeaked, creaked and rocked since about 3,000 miles.  The car now has 12,000 and is about ten months old.  Since the seats started making noise and moving I have been to the dealer five times about the problem.  The first two times the car was there the dealer said they were not able to reproduce the problem
and attempted to just send me on my way.  The last three they have found the problem.  The first two times they found the problem they tightened this and that and pronounced it fixed, both times things were different but no better.  The last time (just this Monday) I got there and picked up my paperwork only to read something to the effect of VW aware
of problem, no solution known.  My first reaction was to be really annoyed that it took five visits to find out that the problem couldn't be fixed.  After I got over that, I decided to think a minute.  I realized that I leased my car and probably had a fair amount of recourse.  I walked over to the sales floor, found the salesman that sold me my car
and explained the problem.  I told him the problem and that at this point, if VW couldn't fix the problem that I would be interested in a Passat GLX.  After conferring with the service manager he came back and told me that my complaint was legitimate and that he would contact VCI and see what he could find out about getting out of the lease.  I spoke
with him today and he was fairly sure that he would be able to get me out of the lease and into a Passat.  I have not yet spoken to him about specifics but will tackle that when the time comes.

The fact that VW can't fix what are clearly defective seats is worrysome to me, though the Passats are nice enough cars that I am willing to roll the dice a little and see how the car ages.  I will be interested to see how things play out with this and if VW decides to stone wall or if they are content to sell another new car and get my Jetta GLX off
of lease early.

Sorry about the length of this message.
Ben Stein
bstein@mail.depaul.edu