2018: Keep, upgrade, swap, or return e-Golf

Not sure if it makes any difference in your decision making process, but the 2015 SEL can be fixed for the Clipper Creek EVSE problem. We bought our '15 SEL used last November and we had the car's charging system repaired under warranty at the VW dealer we bought the car from (Capital VW in San Jose, CA) a couple weeks after buying the car. We have a Clipper Creek HCS-40 and it has worked perfectly with delayed charging. etc. ever since the fix was applied.

I'll echo the concerns with cloth seats (wish VW offered real leather though). Seat heaters are also an important feature to us.

Regarding range, the 2017-2018 e-Golf doesn't do it for me. Still way too short for road tripping. Given we normally only charge around 3 times per week and live in a fairly isolated community (Santa Cruz, CA) any out of town travel beyond around San Jose or Monterey is handled by an ICE car anyway. The larger battery in the current model only would eliminate a charge or so per week, but not enough range to eliminate an ICE car. The 2015 SEL is perfect for our needs (my wife's daily and we use it together on weekends). We hope to keep it for a long time and once EV development gets to the point where we can get something with enough range to reduce the ICE car fleet we'll make that transition. We generally buy older cars anyway so the 2015 SEL w/~37k miles is still "new" for us.

I need to see at least 250 mile useable range (and that means in any California weather with creature comforts on and being able to cruise at ~80 on highways) before I give up my ICE car (currently a 2000 BMW 540i Touring--a pretty awesome road tripper) for road trips.

msvphoto said:

Not sure if it makes any difference in your decision making process, but the 2015 SEL can be fixed for the Clipper Creek EVSE problem. We bought our '15 SEL used last November and we had the car's charging system repaired under warranty at the VW dealer we bought the car from (Capital VW in San Jose, CA) a couple weeks after buying the car. We have a Clipper Creek HCS-40 and it has worked perfectly with delayed charging. etc. ever since the fix was applied.

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Another member here has PM'd me before about the fix. But my local dealer claims my on board charger works "as designed." Of course they're not using a Clipper Creek unit, they're using a Bosch. I may try a different dealer.

I'll echo the concerns with cloth seats (wish VW offered real leather though). Seat heaters are also an important feature to us.

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Is this for the black interior or the tan one? FYI at least for 2017, seat heaters are included even with cloth seats; not sure about previous years.

Regarding range, the 2017-2018 e-Golf doesn't do it for me. Still way too short for road tripping. Given we normally only charge around 3 times per week and live in a fairly isolated community (Santa Cruz, CA) any out of town travel beyond around San Jose or Monterey is handled by an ICE car anyway. The larger battery in the current model only would eliminate a charge or so per week, but not enough range to eliminate an ICE car. The 2015 SEL is perfect for our needs (my wife's daily and we use it together on weekends). We hope to keep it for a long time and once EV development gets to the point where we can get something with enough range to reduce the ICE car fleet we'll make that transition. We generally buy older cars anyway so the 2015 SEL w/~37k miles is still "new" for us.

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That's the thing...my car has averaged less than 600 miles/month in the 32 months I've had it. The furthest I've taken it is 40 miles to Downtown Disney and back, stopping on the way back to charge up. I have an ICEV (2017 Alltrack) if I need more range. But, even that car has just 8500 miles on the odometer, the overwhelming majority of it due to 3 road trips and couple more day trips to Palm Springs. Otherwise I just drive it once a month for about 50 miles to keep everything lubricated.

f1geek said:

You might be able to get $7,300 off the SE+DCFC MSRP in the SF Bay area, so that softens the blow to your wallet. Best of luck.

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I will be in the Bay Area in a couple of weeks, and I will definitely look up there. Any dealers I should keep an eye out for?

RonDawg said:

Another member here has PM'd me before about the fix. But my local dealer claims my on board charger works "as designed." Of course they're not using a Clipper Creek unit, they're using a Bosch. I may try a different dealer.

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Try VW Pasadena, CA. Find the thread here on it for Clipper Creek fix and bring that to service writers attention at Rusnak VW Pasadena. They fixed it for the original poster.

JoulesThief said:

Try Rusnak in Pasadena, CA. Find the thread here on it for Clipper Creek fix and bring that to service writers attention at Rusnak VW Pasadena. They fixed it for the original poster.

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Actually, I think it's just called VW Pasadena, formerly TransOcean Motors. I don't think they have any affiliation with Rusnak, and I really hope they don't, as I hated Rusnak's service department from my Audi A3-owning days.

RonDawg said:

JoulesThief said:

Try Rusnak in Pasadena, CA. Find the thread here on it for Clipper Creek fix and bring that to service writers attention at Rusnak VW Pasadena. They fixed it for the original poster.

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Actually, I think it's just called VW Pasadena, formerly TransOcean Motors. I don't think they have any affiliation with Rusnak, and I really hope they don't, as I hated Rusnak's service department from my Audi A3-owning days.

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You are correct, Rusnak is Audi.

JoulesThief said:

RonDawg said:

Another member here has PM'd me before about the fix. But my local dealer claims my on board charger works "as designed." Of course they're not using a Clipper Creek unit, they're using a Bosch. I may try a different dealer.

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Try VW Pasadena, CA. Find the thread here on it for Clipper Creek fix and bring that to service writers attention at Rusnak VW Pasadena. They fixed it for the original poster.

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I'm the "Other Member", and VW Pasadena was where the Clipper Creek fix was applied.

It's not so much a fix but a new charging unit (2016+) that has the fix baked in. There's no fix for the original 2015 charging unit.

I still have all the 4-way e-mails between me, Clipper Creek, VW Pasadena, and VW Germany when I was chasing the original problem down.

--Carlos V.

Thank you Carlos for your efforts! The repair seemed pretty routine for Capital VW in San Jose to do on our '15 SEL right after we bought it from them, thanks in no small part to your paving the way. Truly appreceated!

cctop said:

RonDawg said:

3. Like the cloth of the SE version better than my SEL's leatherette

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Know that you can stain the cloth seats just by looking at them funny.

I've honestly never seen a material so easy to stain and so difficult to clean, let alone one used for a car seat. Simply getting the seat wet with water will cause a mark. I really don't know what VW was thinking.

If you do get cloth seats, immediately ScotchGuard it or do something similar.

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I've got a water stain in the back seat that I can't get rid of...

Update on this: after a couple sessions of unsuccessful negotiations over trying to get a 2017 SE + QC for the price I want, I've decided to buy out the lease of my car.

FYI you can simply buy out the lease through VW Credit directly, or you can take it to the dealer to have the car "certified" as if it was going to go on their used car section as a Certified Pre-Owned car. If you go with the latter (which I did), they will do the 100 point inspection, repair or replace anything that is not working properly or is specified as part of VW's CPO program. For example, if the tires on my car (7/32 as of the day I made the deal) is considered too worn, they will replace them at no extra charge. That's $500-700 right there depending on where you buy them. You also get the CPO warranty which adds 2 extra years to the bumper to bumper warranty, up to 100k total vehicle miles, with a $50 deductible. It's similar to Audi's CPO program (I had a CPO'd A3) but that had a $75 deductible. Of course you also get the remainder of the powertrain and battery warranties.

Your car also qualifies for any special financing that VW is offering on CPO'd vehicles.

Getting the car certified did cost me a couple of grand over the original lease residual, but you might be able negotiate that with the dealer; you're essentially buying your own car off their CPO inventory. However I thought I got a fair price as I'm still paying less than what equivalent ones with similar mileage are going for, even non-CPO ones. A quick search of Auto Trader and Cars.com only comes up with 3 that are a bit cheaper than what I'm paying, and they have considerably more miles. Plus when buying someone's used car, you really don't know how well it was truly taken care of, or if there were problems that could never get fixed.

And when I mean "buying your own car off their CPO lot" I am not kidding. I had to re-do all the DMV paperwork, right down to the temp sticker they placed on the lower right corner of the windshield.

I did have to leave the car at the dealer to have the certification process done. They provided me a Jetta as a loaner. It's still at the dealer, when I get the car back I'll post what the dealer had done to the car.

Congratulations RonDawg. Adding CPO warranty and fresh tires into the mix makes a lot of sense. Enjoy your "new" car!

RonDawg said:

I did have to leave the car at the dealer to have the certification process done. They provided me a Jetta as a loaner. It's still at the dealer, when I get the car back I'll post what the dealer had done to the car.

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OK so I get the car back and this is what has been done:

The so-called 100 point inspection, though much of it won't apply to an EV.

2, not 4, new tires installed. I could swear that all 4 tires were around 7/32 as of last weekend, and the sheet says they must have a minimum of 4/32 per the program. But 2 were replaced. Oddly enough, they put the new tires on the FRONT, which is not the general practice today (more-worn tires on the rear promotes oversteer). But I will keep them up front and not rotate them until they are more evenly worn with the rears.

New wiper blades.

Battery test, says it did OK though they didn't include the results.

Unspecified "proper software updates."

I was annoyed when I picked up the car this morning. Apparently the whole thing was handled through the sales department, something the salesman didn't tell me, and because I had gotten there before sales was open the service department didn't know what I was talking about at first. Service manager was able to find the car and give me the keys, but I had to wait for the salesman to give me the paperwork. I ended up having to wait as the car had NOT been charged overnight and only had 30% charge left, insufficient for me to make it home. Salesman showed up while I was waiting for the car to charge up and was apologetic as he handed me the paperwork.

Regarding the delayed charging issue with the Clipper Creek HC-40. I have an early 2016 SE which had the same problem.
After sending to the Dublin VW service dept multiple times, working with Clipper Creek support (which was great service) and VW Care for over a month. They finally did this to my 2016 SE "replaced J966 high voltage battery charging module with part#5QE915022L and performed 3E2D software update as per techline case #EE - 146492" and fixed the issue. I told VW early on that it sounded like the same issue as the 2015's, so apparently my early 2016 must have the same mal-functioning charging module as the 2015's.