I don't know where to start with the electrical problems. There are so many. Every time I see an article or a commercial on the great design of the new Beetle, I want to scream "but what about the insides??

My Beetle is an 8-year old car with 56,000. It is our second car and is only used for work and shopping. It hardly ever goes on the highway. So when the warranty ran out I believe it had about 42,000 miles on it. The engine light has been on almost from the day we bought it. VW Burlington NJ couldn't fix it. Our local foreign car mechanic has never been able to fix it. Then both back windows have broken, one after the other. They would not close. They stopped half way down. One is still not working. It gets wet inside every time it rains. This happened after the warranty expired. The first window cost us about $550 to fix). The left driver side door hinge broke about two years ago, so that the door closes on your leg when you get in. It cost so much money ($500) to fix we just left it. Causes bad bruises on my leg when the door closes on me.

About 12 months ago the convertible top stop working and then broke all together. This will cost about $2,000 to fix. We still have to find the money to have this done before we sell the car. The driver's side manual lock doesn't work all the time. It just turns and turns. We lost the electronic key in the garden and it will cost $200 to replace. The back bumper rubber squares have fallen off since day one. The first couple of times we had the dealer do it. Then we bought our own bumpers and we stick them on ourselves. They have been stuck on for at least three months now.

We have this car serviced every six months, so far the engine doesn't give us any problem. But we only have 56,000 miles on this second car, even though it is now 8 years old.

Last year I went to see the service manager at Burlington Volkswagen. He was very curt and refused to help me with the payment on these problems. He said it was my responsibility and not that of Volkswagen. There was nothing he could do to help.

All in all we have been very disappointed in this car and all the little things that break on it. We would seriously suggest that anyone buying a Beetle check carefully into the history of these problems.

Personally, I will never buy a Volkswagen again. These continuous problems are a great inconvenience and very expensive to fix.

Renee Jones