T5 2.5 130

I thought it was great until it went wrong!

I used this van every day for my business for 4 years and it served me well over 40,000 miles. On retiring I kept it as a useful work horse which it did well until it started playing up, cutting out after starting at first until engine warm and then hardly starting at all. During research on the internet I uncovered a multitude of possible causes so spoke to the supplying dealer's service manager who offered some suggestions but denied any knowledge of the multitude of failures mentioned on the net. I took the van to a VW specialist who I have known for many years who plugged his computer in to read any fault codes, there were none. He persevered trying different tests and changing various parts on a sale or return basis and he eventually diagnosed a faulty ECU unit. This he could not change himself as the vehicle's immobiliser system is involved and can only be recoded by a VW dealer. Van was delivered to the supplying VW dealer who rejected that the ECU was at fault so wasted many hours testing all the common failures that hither to they denied existed. They managed to "borrow" a second hand ECU that cured the problem so ordered a new one from VW £900 ish only to find that such is the demand for these for the 2.5 AXD 5 cyl engine that they were on back order in Germany awaiting supply from Bosch. Anyway £ 2000 poorer on a van that has been well cared for and only done 47000 miles I would not advise anyone to buy a 2.5 5 cylinder AXD engined variant. I now feel VW's legendary reliability and good customer service is just a sham so be warned.

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