Initial repairs under warranty

12th June 2025

Problem #1. Drivers temperature going up by itself

Three days into owning my Volkswagen ID.3 I found my first fault. It was a hot day and when I got into the car, it was like an oven inside. The climate control came on automatically and began cooling things down. Then, just before I was about to set off I heard the touch tone from the Infotainment system and saw a popup on the screen showing that the driver's side temperature had been increased. I was pretty sure I hadn't done this inadvertently.

Then a few seconds later it increased again. I turned it down, it went back up by itself! Soon enough, we were in a battle and I was pressing the controls so quickly it triggered the shortcut which turned on the steering wheel heating as well! I ended up driving around with the windows open and warm air blowing at me!

After that journey, the next time I started the car, it behaved perfectly. Then a few days later, it did it again. I searched online and discovered that other ID.3 owners had experienced the same issue. It sounded like this wasn't a problem that would be fixed by a software update but rather, was caused by a faulty component. This sounded expensive unless covered under warranty. Fortunately, my 2½ year old car still had some warranty left so I booked it in with my local Volkwagen dealer for investigation.

Problem #2. Intermittent Wipers didn't work with rain sensor

The first few weeks I had my ID.3 it didn't rain. Then, when it did, I noticed that the intermittent wipers didn't work at all. You either had to do a single flip-wipe or had to have the wipers on continuously at either slow or fast speed. My previous 3 Volkswagen Golfs all had Auto-Wipers and I'd always found these to be pretty much set-and-forget. I knew something was wrong. Again, a search online revealed I was not the only ID.3 owner to have this problem.

It's not until you loose something that you miss it and I sure did miss having intermittent wipers. However, I read that you could turn off the Rain Sensor in the car's settings and the intermittent wipers would revert to old-fashioned, fixed time interval wiping. I did this and this was a good temporary workaround.

The Repairs

The dealer's first attempt at fixing these issues involved updating my car's ID Software from version 3.2 to 3.7. I didn't think this would solve the issues. It was clear straight away that the intermittent wipers still did not work with the rain sensor, and a few days later, the driver's temperature issue re-occured.

I knew the chances were low of the driver's temperature issue occuring whilst at the dealers. However, I read a good tip online which was to take a video with your smartphone the next time the intermittent problem occured and you could then show this to your dealer. A few days later I was able to do this and booked my car in for more investigation.

Whilst I waited for the second visit to the dealer, the driver's temperature issue never re-occured. I was so glad I had the video evidence. When I dropped the car off with them, I mentioned again that I doubted they would be able to reproduce the issue but I had video evidence. It took a few attempts to get the video (which I had uploaded to YouTube) emailed to the right person, but after a few hours I got a phone call to inform me that they had investigated both issues and there were fixes but they just needed new parts which would arrive the next day. That sounded promising.

Next day, I got a phone call saying my car had been fixed and was ready for collection. I asked what they had done and they said the driver's temperature issue needed a new Infotainment module and the intermittent wipers issue needed a new rain sensor. Both repaired free of charge under warranty.

It's a shame they needed to replace the whole infotainment system since I suspect the problem was only with the driver's temperature controls underneatht the screen, but I imagine these cannot be replaced separately. I know they replaced the Infotainment module because the screen had a screen protector on it when I picked it up! Almost felt like new car!

A couple of weeks have now passed and I've had no further problems with the car. I'm very happy. I feel I've certainly had my money's worth from the remainder of the Volkswagen Warranty.

If you have any requests or questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.