Crackling sound and the saga continues.

[Malky]

@Malky do you have an update on this? Our van is at at the dealership at the moment with the creaking diagnosed as above. Ours is a '22 Ocean and we're being told that the fix will not be covered by the (now extended) warranty and will cost £988.

Hi sorry, I didn’t get an email notification from this post so only saw it yesterday.
In my case I got nowhere under warranty with the dealership, but once I was dealing with VW executive care things were much better. However, for the roof creak I moved away from warranty and quoted the consumer rights act, as I found evidence that this was an existing issue when I bought the van. This was documented in the pre sale work I got a copy of (I insisted at time of sale in fact). I think this is the only reason it was resolved.
I’m still waiting for a report on exactly what they did, but I can tell you it involved drilling out rivets as I found the metal swarf in the van! They had quoted 8hours labour to do the work. In practice they had the van for 2wks!
They did however resolve the issue, no more annoying creaking noise.
I would go to executive office if you get nowhere with the dealership. Quoting that this is a common issue and you know of others that have had this work resolved.

 

[ThisIsChristoph]

Hi sorry, I didn’t get an email notification from this post so only saw it yesterday.
In my case I got nowhere under warranty with the dealership, but once I was dealing with VW executive care things were much better. However, for the roof creak I moved away from warranty and quoted the consumer rights act, as I found evidence that this was an existing issue when I bought the van. This was documented in the pre sale work I got a copy of (I insisted at time of sale in fact). I think this is the only reason it was resolved.
I’m still waiting for a report on exactly what they did, but I can tell you it involved drilling out rivets as I found the metal swarf in the van! They had quoted 8hours labour to do the work. In practice they had the van for 2wks!
They did however resolve the issue, no more annoying creaking noise.
I would go to executive office if you get nowhere with the dealership. Quoting that this is a common issue and you know of others that have had this work resolved.

Many thanks Malky, this is super useful. Sorry, but what/where is VW Executive Care?

Any update on our situation:

We went to our dealer - same one we ordered and purchased the van from in 2022 - with two issues: 1. the leaking bellows: we hadn't used the van much, or much in the rain. That changed at Easter this year with the usual and well-documented leaking along the seams.
2. the the cracking/creaking noise in the front roof area.

The dealer's workshop investigated both and diagnosed that we indeed had leaking bellows and 'found cross member between pop up roof and windscreen is cause of the creak. Stripped out roof lining and removed cross member. Removed cross member and carried out adjustment and then re-sealed ad re-tested all okay.' The main parts charged were 7H7875120A and 7H7875119B.
The clincher is that VW has changed its warranty policy and now no longer covers the leaking bellows. The garage said that VW sees both these issues as 'trim' and are thus not covered under warranty. I am being billed £950 for the creaking roof and £1600 for a replacement bellows. I made a complaint to VW Customer Care saying these were integral and structural parts of the van and are not trim. They are offering £500 for both issues and have closed my case.

I'm keen to escalate this further so any advice would be most welcome. Thank you!