I can. My friend drives a 2016 VW Touareg which he got used - I was present during the purchase and the previous owner told us that the coolant needs to be topped off from time to time - nothing big, but he said that the authorized service center shrugged this off as something they won't bother fixing.
There's a difference between "half a cup or so ever few months" and "I have to carry coolant around with me." The reserve tank will comfortably make up the first in any reasonable driving situation, the second is a problem.
Water pumps not weeping a tiny bit is a rather new innovation in cars. They typically use coolant to lubricate the seal, and some will get through.
Water pumps "weeping" coolant is a sign of failed seal, not by design.
The GP commenter's buddy was sold a car by someone who was trying to pass off a needed repair; likely a leaking radiator or failing head gasket if they were unlucky. If they were lucky: a bad radiator cap or a failing coolant system hose.
If they were really, really unlucky: a failing heater core.
About a litre every 4-7k km. Was like that from the start according to the previous owner. I found it unusual, because I never had to think about such things in any of my cars, including my old 2000 Corolla.
Yeah but Tesla fans will defend bad stuff by pointing out not so great stuff from the competitors. In that respect you can say they're just like Apple fans.
These things are not comparable.
on the rare occasions we have car shopped, VW was removed from the list (along with e.g. Jeep) because of what appeared to be continually poor QA and reliability. Led us to give up on the idea of trying to go biodiesel (dodged a bullet there...).
But Tesla seems to have a really remarkable problem.
Out of curiosity, what's wrong with that?
Maybe the VW plants in America are different but my family in Germany will buy VW (or Skoda/Seat) again when the cars give up eventually. Just this time no Diesel.
This was until about 2008 when I switched to Mercedes, those too were pretty reliable until the last one, which was a recent vintage C class. Now I drive an oldie (25 this january).
I think the difference is likely just that the average backstreet garage knows all the faults on a 2005 VW Jetta and how to fix them, they have the right diagnostic equipment to plug them in and read the fault codes etc.
In the US I suspect they'd be the same with most GM / Ford / Honda cars of the same era but would think twice about touching a VW or Mercedes.
This is why vehicles that need oil changes every 15,000 mile (~24,000 km) are more reliable than ones from a few generations ago that were essentially constantly being serviced.
The first is a minor inconvenience, the second is likely to leave a lasting impression of "this car is unreliable".
No recall, just a ‘known’ defect. Oh, and because they know my car has a defect they made it clear that my trade in value would suffer if I wanted to upgrade to their latest and greatest model.
not even in the same ballpark.
not even on the same continent, for that matter.