[Ciano]

So until you pay them to do the suspension bush work
they wont put it thru the MOT as part of the 5yr warranty and service?

 

[Rory]

No, it passed the MOT, but with an advisory.

It's meant to be a warning to get something fixed before it becomes a failure.

The issue with the warranty is that it makes it a bit dodgy to get the car fixed using non-genuine parts.

 

[Vixvet]

How can that be not under warranty??
My partners car Mercedes has problem with a suspension arm - and its covered under warranty - theg r fixing it in two weeks. Nothing to pay.

 

[Rory]

I dont know - I was gobsmacked, but, to be fair, opinion of people I've asked in pretty divided.

Even if it's considered hard luck, I'd say it should be SEAT's hard luck, not mine , if the part doesn't make it through the warranty period.

 

[hubcap]

I've registered on the ateca forum after repeated failures to register on tiguanforums, possibly because I tried a username with an apostrophe in it. Anyway, I wanted to see if my experience might be of some help to Rory, whose post to tiguan forums first caught my eye, then I found him on here. Hi Rory!

I'm still a relative Tiguan virgin, having bought mine in Nov 2020 with something like 43000 miles on the clock. Its MOT from 2020 (its first) notes wear on the inner edge of the offside rear tyre. A check on tyre date stamps shows the rear tyres to be original to the car, but the fronts are newer.

Several decades of VWs on twisty roads in SW Scotland have taught me that worn front lower arm rear bushes will predictably produce wear on the inner front tyre edges. So I checked the front offside tyre on the Tiguan, and it was clearly wearing on its inner edge, showing the early stages of the same wear pattern as the offside rear.

At this point I opted not to even try claiming on the VW Approved Used warranty but replaced the bushes myself as I normally would. The outer metal of the bush on the front offside was almost completely separated from the rubber, though it's almost impossible to see the bush without removing the arm from the car first.

If I had any doubts about the bush deterioration being the cause of the tyre wear, these disappeared on the first trip out after they were replaced. After some 20 miles, the tyre pressure monitor went off, but the tyre pressures were all fine. That was the first and only time the tyre monitor has ever sounded, and I concluded that the system had detected a new and different rolling circumference from the tyre which was no longer scrubbing on the front offside. So I reckoned I had correctly identified the original problem.

I'll never know for sure, but I suspect that a front - rear wheel swap was carried out early in the car's life, shifting the unevenly worn tyre to the rear, possibly at a VW service. In time the swapped fronts would reach end of life without arousing suspicion and would be routinely replaced, leaving an unexplained (and uninvestigated) uneven wear pattern to be subsequently commented on at the first MOT. If I'm right about this, it suggests that VW will work hard to prevent these bushes falling victim to warranty claims.

So my conclusion is that these bushes are probably beginning to weaken within the first three years of the life of a Tiguan, because that is the only plausible explanation for the wear history on my car. It would be interesting to know if front - rear wheel swaps are carried out at dealer services, because that has the effect of removing the evidence trail, if uneven tyre wear due to bush wear should show up later.

I am aware of the outside possibility that uneven wear is occurring on the rear tyre in that position, since this apparently can happen with this suspension type. This doesn't remove the bush as the cause of the wear on the front tyre, however, I'm satisfied I've got that right.

Incidentally, the VW manual pages state that no alignment check is required after replacement of these bushes.

I hope there's something in this for you, and best of luck whatever you end up doing!

John

 

[Rory]

Thanks for that, and welcome! Thanks for taking the trouble to find the forum, register and write that up.

It's the possibility of gradually increasing tyre wear that was bothering me. I realise that these bushes are pretty notorious across the VAG range - as mentioned previously, it's a different design on our mk1 Tiguan but they were changed under warranty at 3yrs/18K as the technician blabbed on the video that they were starting to split.

I recall when the Tiguan ones were done I asked about alignment and they said it wasn't neccessary. SEAT dealers's solution is to change the whole arm so maybe then it becomes more important.

I do find it a little odd that no-one has popped up on the mk2 Tiguan forum with the same issue - I searched using various words - although it seems many of the owners on there buy new and change at 3yrs

 

[Rory]

It's on a 5yr warranty .....

.
Interesting development here is it turns out the dealer forgot :roll: to apply the 5yr warranty - and it has to be done pre-registration.

Their solution is to say "oh dear - fill in this payment form and we'll give you the money back." I'm just gobsmacked (again).

It does open up some options though - I could cancel the service contract (although there's apparently a nasty penalty) and either switch to SEAT All-In (hardly any more expensive than the service contract so the warranty becomes almost free) or just take the car out of the network and get it looked after by one of the million trusty VAG indies that exist.

The only snag with the latter is the "peace of mind" I was after by having the car covered for 5yrs goes away - but that's not working well so far anyway.

 

[rafletcher]

I think that point about the warranty warrants (sorry!) a letter to one of the newspaper consumer pages! And to the Chief Exec of SEAT and calls to customer care. That's disgraceful.

 

[Rory]

While it's unbelievable that the dealer forgot (and comments made make me think they knew, but did nothing about it) I think (although perhaps wrongly) that if pushed SEAT might agree to add the warranty, or the dealer could say they'll regard it as being in place. From where we are now, that's probably not my best solution.

What's further annoying is I spoke to the service manager at mid-day on Monday - he'd been off for two weeks. Had what I thought was a good call with him, he was aware of the issue from being copied on emails and said he'd look at options and come back to me that day. And he sounded 50/50 about the suspension bush issue.

Not a dicky bird since. I called mid-day Friday and got the "he's in a meeting" thing. Was assured he'd call me back. No prizes for guessing that he didn't.

 

[gshep224]

Ateca's first MOT at 3yrs/31K miles, done at the dealer - but miffed to get a warning from the technician, and an MOT advisory for: Front Suspension arm pin or bush worn but not resulting in excessive movement both (5.3.4 (a) (i))

It's the rear-most bushes on the arms - the ones that sit horizontally.

Was even more miffed when dealer said not covered by warranty as 'wear and tear'.

Anyone else had this?

A mere £624 to change both arms!

Hi , I noticed a slight creaking or knock at low speed on full lock and I was told that the plastic in the bushes were to hard and they replaced them under warranty , but only one side , that was at 10000 miles , then the other side started knocking at 16000 mls and they are about to do that under warranty as well , which is just as well as I've only got just over 4 weeks warranty left .

Ateca's first MOT at 3yrs/31K miles, done at the dealer - but miffed to get a warning from the technician, and an MOT advisory for: Front Suspension arm pin or bush worn but not resulting in excessive movement both (5.3.4 (a) (i))

It's the rear-most bushes on the arms - the ones that sit horizontally.

Was even more miffed when dealer said not covered by warranty as 'wear and tear'.

Anyone else had this?

A mere £624 to change both arms!

Hi Rory

 

[Rory]

Hi , I noticed a slight creaking or knock at low speed on full lock and I was told that the plastic in the bushes were to hard and they replaced them under warranty , but only one side , that was at 10000 miles , then the other side started knocking at 16000 mls and they are about to do that under warranty as well , which is just as well as I've only got just over 4 weeks warranty left .

Thanks - was that the original 3yr warranty? On our mk1 Tiguan I noticed on a service history printout that they put the bushes down as "customer reports knocking" when they did them (video health check pointed out splitting at 3yrs/18K).

I think, due to mess up with the 5yr warranty on our Ateca, and the service advisor seeming to get it into his head that they were guilty of miss-sellling (don't know if that's correct) they changed both front arms (can't really do bushes on their own on Ateca/mk2 Tiguan) as "goodwill" but I wouldn't be surprised if they somehow put it through as a warranty claim.

These bushes do seem pretty rubbish - even if people are getting greater time and mileage out of them, they must be deteriorating and causing things like excess tyre wear.