This vehicle was purchased second hand by my wife on June 30, 2009. She had and extended warranty with VW that just expired on July 31, 2013. Just after the warranty expired, she noticed that a dashboard light was coming on and not shutting off. We checked it out in the manual and discovered that it was the air bag warning indicator light.

We took it to the local VW dealer in Nanaimo, where she purchased it. The VW service department said that we would have to pay for the diagnostics to determine where the fault may lie. The charge-out rate was $115.00/hour but the service manager and general manager of the dealership said they would only charge us $75.00.

When we went to pick up the vehicle two hours later, there were two slips of paper at the service desk. One was an invoice in the amount of $100.80, the cost of the diagnostics. The other slip was a "tentative" invoice in the amount of $1745.60 which I quote was for: (1) "REQUIRES WIRING HARNESS FROM SPIRAL SPRING TO AIRBAG FIRST; AND (2) REPLACE WIRING HARNESS FROM SPIRAL SPRING TO AIRBAG (THIS NEEDS TO BE DONE FIRST) MAY REQUIRE AIRBAG AFTER INITIAL REPAIRS".

Needless to say, I asked what were the consequences if this was not done. The answer from the service department manager was, and I quote again: "There could be a possibility that the air bag MAY NOT DEPLOY in an accident!"

We were and still are very upset over this, being that VW would charge us on a potential dangerous incident if someone driving the car had an accident. Not only for ourselves, but, for others who will buy this car at a later date. We told both the service manager and the general manager that this was not good enough. That VW should bear all costs being a safety issue and that if it were HONDA, they would have responded with positive feedback (which they did on my 2001 Honda that I still drive). Honda Canada issued 2 recall notices at separate times on a potential hazard with the air bag deployments and Honda covered the expenses 100 per cent. I mentioned this to VW and they came back with a counter offer of $600.00.

Counter offer! What a bunch of crap! I called VW Canada Customer Support in Montreal 4 times and only made it to the second person "up the ladder" with the 3rd person saying "Yes, we checked out your issue with the Nanaimo dealership and yes, you do have a potential safety issue in that the airbag(s) may not deploy upon impact, and that we will "cut you a better deal". I've been waiting for the guy by the name of REZO to call me back and for over 8 days now...no reply.

Why would a huge corporation such as Volkswagen Canada even fight this issue? It's one of safety and I asked one of the people there, "What if it was one of your family members that had this car?" Dead silence at the other end of the line.

So our only approach seems to be and I hate to do it, is bad mouth Volkswagen where every we go and hang out from time to time at the VW dealership looking for potential customers and tell them about our experience. VW CUSTOMER CARE TOTALLY SUCKS!!!.