Chaps,
I had the propshaft coupling replaced on the Freetrack last May; I was so chuffed with the results that I even posted a thread about it, along with some photos of the failed coupling. Much happy driving followed.
After hearing a familiar sound last week, as well as feeling that familiar vibration (oo-er), the chariot went up on the ramps at the weekend and somewhat amazingly, the new coupling has failed, albeit in a different manner to last time, as the rubber damper has, quite literally, ripped itself away from the main body of the bearing.
The part came from TPS and in order to try claiming under warranty, I'm having to book it in to the Main Stealer, pay a "diagnostic" fee of nearly £90 and let them lift it up on a ramp and visually inspect the coupling, which is about two minutes' work. This just adds greatly to my annoyance and disbelief of the failure of a new (10 months, 10,000 miles) and very expensive part.
Has anyone else had the indignity of the coupling failing so soon after its just been replaced? Seems seriously unlikely to me, but I thought I'd ask.
Also, given that the same part is common to the Golf, A3, Yeti, Superb, Octavia, Tiguan and more VAG models, why is it that only the Freetrack seems to have this obscenely high failure rate? It seems like nearly every Freetrack owner on the forum is either experiencing the problem or has had to have the coupling replaced. Given that there are only 600-700 Freetracks in the UK, the percentage failing seems rather high and I suspect that, on a more popular model, there'd be a recall. What's so different about the Freetrack that this part fails so often? There's clearly a design fault with the vehicle, isn't there?!
R.
I had the propshaft coupling replaced on the Freetrack last May; I was so chuffed with the results that I even posted a thread about it, along with some photos of the failed coupling. Much happy driving followed.
After hearing a familiar sound last week, as well as feeling that familiar vibration (oo-er), the chariot went up on the ramps at the weekend and somewhat amazingly, the new coupling has failed, albeit in a different manner to last time, as the rubber damper has, quite literally, ripped itself away from the main body of the bearing.
The part came from TPS and in order to try claiming under warranty, I'm having to book it in to the Main Stealer, pay a "diagnostic" fee of nearly £90 and let them lift it up on a ramp and visually inspect the coupling, which is about two minutes' work. This just adds greatly to my annoyance and disbelief of the failure of a new (10 months, 10,000 miles) and very expensive part.
Has anyone else had the indignity of the coupling failing so soon after its just been replaced? Seems seriously unlikely to me, but I thought I'd ask.
Also, given that the same part is common to the Golf, A3, Yeti, Superb, Octavia, Tiguan and more VAG models, why is it that only the Freetrack seems to have this obscenely high failure rate? It seems like nearly every Freetrack owner on the forum is either experiencing the problem or has had to have the coupling replaced. Given that there are only 600-700 Freetracks in the UK, the percentage failing seems rather high and I suspect that, on a more popular model, there'd be a recall. What's so different about the Freetrack that this part fails so often? There's clearly a design fault with the vehicle, isn't there?!
R.
