Buying a 180 California on a 2010 plate

David Lapping · Apr 26, 2016

Hello,

We have been dreaming of owning a California for over three years now and we have finally saved up enough money to get something used at around 5-6 years old. We are due to view a Cali tomorrow down South, it is a 180ps DSG on a 2010 plate. I have since been reading about the engine problems on this year of vehicle, the van has done just 50k miles.

We are now gutted and do not know what to do, it is the right price, colour and spec for us but I am worried about what I have been reading. Could this be a time bomb waiting to explode?

Many thanks

Dave

BerndRos · Apr 26, 2016

You already have your answer by reading this forum.

I suggest you try to liaise with VW in order to see if the van is within the batch of potentially affected engines. Seems it will be though.

David Lapping · Apr 26, 2016

BerndRos said:
You already have your answer by reading this forum.

I suggest you try to liaise with VW in order to see if the van is within the batch of potentially affected engines. Seems it will be though.

I did try this and they said they were not able to give this information due to privacy laws which sounds like a load of old tosh! The advisor even called me 'mate' which seemed very unprofessional, maybe they do this as they think we are all manual workers with builders vans?

I think I have now lost all confidence in looking at this vehicle and will start looking again for something slightly older or maybe push our budget for a 2012 onwards.

I imagine this will be worrying times for anyones selling a 2010/11 Cali

fred · Apr 26, 2016

Perhaps look at 140's if he/she wants to stick to budget, they're not affected

andrewjh009 · Apr 26, 2016

This thread won't be doing any favours for all those people with affected vehicles up for sale :Nailbiting

2into1 · Apr 26, 2016

andrewjh009 said:
This thread won't be doing any favours for all those people with affected vehicles up for sale

Not just this thread. Regular readers will be aware from BerndRos' thread.
It would pay one of those sellers who thinks they are being unfairly hit by the speculation to publish a quick guide on how to check...... How to find the engine code, engine number, how to establish the build date and finally what build dates are potentially impacted (to be best of available knowledge).
Unless clarity improves around this issue, all the early (and some of the middle) 180s will be hit.

WelshGas · Apr 26, 2016

David Lapping said:
I did try this and they said they were not able to give this information due to privacy laws which sounds like a load of old tosh! The advisor even called me 'mate' which seemed very unprofessional, maybe they do this as they think we are all manual workers with builders vans?

I think I have now lost all confidence in looking at this vehicle and will start looking again for something slightly older or maybe push our budget for a 2012 onwards.

I imagine this will be worrying times for anyones selling a 2010/11 Cali

Ask for the vehicle BUILD date that can be got from the VIN . This will be different from the 1st Registration date.
The affected engines are Model Year 2010 and 2011 BUT the Model year changes in June/July of each year . So Model Year 2012 starts in June/July 2011 and the fault was corrected at this point.

Hotel California · Apr 26, 2016

Hi and welcome on your first post!
if you do not feel fully in the comfortzone buying that Cali , just look for another , there are loads for sale as the T6 are beeing deliverd lots of 5-ers are coming on the second hand market.

raynormor · May 1, 2016

Paranoia coming on. Roof corrosion, Airbag warning lights, EGR. Cylinder liners. Maybe I'll leave it in the garage. My ambition shouldn't be to keep the mileage below 50k. Come on VW. Make me happy.