During a long-term test of the all-new Volkswagen Golf, German magazine Auto Bild discovered a fault in the air conditioning system that lead to water leaking inside the car. The magazine said wrongly installed drainage tubes caused the problem and added that 300,000 VW Group cars could be affected, including the Audi A3 and Seat Leon which share the same platform with the Golf. VW played down the report and said only 46 cars are in need of repair.
On Thursday, Auto Bild reported that the Golf is prone to leakage of water into the front passenger’s footwell because of wrongly installed drainage tubes linked to the air conditioning system.
“We have come to know this issue through individual cases,” a VW spokesman at Volkswagen told Reuters, adding the company was investigating the cause. The representative declined to comment on the 300,000 figure in the report, but said no more than 46 Golfs had needed repair for the water leakage problem. He also said VW had no knowledge that Audi and Seat models were affected.
The modular MQB platform used by the Golf and many other VW Group models may have a cost advantage for VW, but in a case like this, the high proportion of parts shared by the various models could expose the company to potential large-scale recalls such as those experienced in recent years by Toyota.
By Dan Mihalascu
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