Volkswagen Reviews

This vehicle’s headlights are proof that engineers hate mechanics. It seems preposterous that you’d need to disassemble a large chunk of the front of the vehicle just to change a globe, but that’s how it looks. But there is one thing you can try, and that is to remove the grille and then lower the front bumper slightly (still a major job). From there, you might be able to remove the headlight units for access to the globe-holders and change them that way, rather than with the lights in situ.

It all depends on how you define long and bulky. But no seven-seater is going to be exactly small, is it? That’s because, to accommodate the third row of seats necessary to seat seven a vehicle physically has to be a certain length and there’s just no getting around that.

But I take your point; a lot of the seven-seat SUVs out there do seem pretty big. Again, however, that’s not a bad thing if you plan to fill all three rows of seats and still have some room left for luggage. The smaller seven-seaters aren’t all that good at this as the third row gobbles up the luggage space, making these cars best for those who only need seven seats on an occasional basis. If that’s your situation there are lots of mid-sized seven seaters around, but they’re pretty much all SUVs.

And while it goes against your preference for a smaller vehicle, the very best seven-seaters aren’t SUVs. They’re usually people-mover vans such as the Ford Tourneo, Kia Carnival and VW ID. Buzz. In fact, some of these even seat eight. They’re also a lot better for accessing the rearmost row of seats and they’ll still have lots of luggage space even with all seats occupied. And, yes, they look big, but that’s physics for you.

In the meantime, you could look at slightly less bulky options including the Hyundai Santa Fe, Kia Sorento, Mazda CX-80 and Toyota Kluger. There’s also been speculation recently that Subaru’s seven-seat Tribeca might make a return to the Australian market.

It’s very likely to be a sensor problem. If the sensor in question starts to send false information to the car’s computer, the engine can do all sort of weird things. I’ve even heard of things like exhaust gas temperature senders on this make and model being mixed up during a DPF service with all sorts of problems as a result.

Beyond that a high idle can be the result of a fuel injector problem or even a vacuum leak through a split or missing rubber hose. Even the turbocharger’s trunking – if it becomes split or damaged – can cause this sort of problem, but usually the drama would be a permanent one until the problem was fixed. The intermittent nature of your problem has computer or sensor written all over it. A full electronic scan of the vehicle should be your first step. There’s a very good chance the onboard computer already has a pretty good idea of what’s wrong. You just need to ask it.