considering buying a phaeton

[fotoLibrarian]

Well that's cheerful. Mind you, in 50 years of motoring I've never had to buy a replacement cylinder head.
Yet.

[gupsterg]

Welcome to modern motoring! ...

I will PM you my external email, contact me on it for perhaps some startling info ...

It's not all car's suffer x but what I think Crasher is getting at is these cars in the used market are cheaper to buy than some of the repairs on them, some require special tools and diags equipment which some indi garages may not have. Then you have the headache of finding one who can do it cheaper than a dealer ...

[Crasher]

The V10’s equivalent to a timing belt kit is £5645.57 for the most major part and the engine has to come out to fit it and it does go wrong occasionally. A set of injectors is £6293.03. The A/C compressor is £1306.49, one of my personal favourites is a front strut leg at £1392.01…I could go on…

[fotoLibrarian]

And the sky will fall in on us all tomorrow. It's lucky we're living today.

[Crasher]

Hey, I like being a pessimist, it means that I am pleasantly surprised more than disappointed.

[fotoLibrarian]

And I like being an optimist, because things usually work out well for me and I remain cheerful. Not too sure about events at The Oval today, though.

[fotoLibrarian]

Well, I've picked up my V10. It's lovely. Everything seems to work apart from the ancient Nokia phone and the analogue TV, surprise surprise, and it's comfortable and very powerful. The ride is nearly as good as my old Citroën C5 Exclusive SE, it has nearly as many toys and it's a LOT faster. The SatNav uses the same NavTech CD-based system as the Citroën but the interface is surprisingly less intuitive. And it hasn't broken down yet, after 80 miles. Next service due in 2,000 miles, which will take me through to December.

[Crasher]

Sir, you are a brave brave man....

[fotoLibrarian]

I've often been described as foolhardy. But brave? Never.

[fotoLibrarian]

500 mile report. The radio wouldn't work properly when I picked the V10 Phaeton up. It sounded as if there was no aerial signal. Took the car in to the VW main dealers in Criccieth. Diagnosis was the aerial unit needed replacing, £437.92 exc. labour but they couldn't get the part before I went off to Germany. So they put it back together again and lo and behold it now works fine.

The glovebox won't close. It needs a sharp bang once it's shut to stay shut. Any ideas, anyone?

Glanced at the speedo to see I was doing 120. Oops. It is deceptively swift, and the acceleration is prodigious. Average mpg 32.1 since I picked it up, which impresses me no end. It's more economical than my MGF. I do hardly any driving in town, it's all open road stuff. So far so good. Very comfortable, but the old Citroen C5 definitely had a better ride.

On Sunday I'm taking it for a trip to Frankfurt am Main. That should be fun.