Going to be looking at a VW Eos (Petrol version) for a mate and just wandered if anybody has one or has had one ?
Or if any of you lads have worked on one ?

Had a quick look at on-line but you cant beat a bit of Locostbuilder knowledge

Its an ugly thing all right but as it uses golf floor and suspension that side should be ok. All down to the hardtop working properly and not leaking, expensive fix if any things wrong there..

My mother in law has one with the petrol engine. Apart from replacing a wing mirror and a position sensing switch for the roof, it has not needed anything in 4 years. My father in law maintains things very well, so he does a lot of preventative maintenance, but the Eos requires no more than a Golf really.

I have worked on a few. They are generally as reliable as a Golf ( whether you consider that good or bad).

Most seem to leak on the front corners of the roof. There is a special lubricant you need to put on the seal every 6 months or so.

Get the engine code and google for all the common faults.

I have experienced a few FSI/TFSI failures, if the service intervals have been overrun/missed listen for rattly tappet sounds when the engine is hot, as the oil pump gets weak, and the high pressure fuel pumps can leak fuel back into the oil and wear the camshaft lobe that drives it, a bright torch on the dipstick should reveal fine swarf/glitter in the oil.
If the hp fuel pump is weak you may notice jerkyiness and lack of power under full throttle, more noticeable when hot, it will get quite bad before a fault code/em light is tripped.
They can leak oil from the plastic filter housing where it meets the block, they distort and replacement is the only cure.
If the balance shaft unit siezes, it will break either the drive chain or sprocket drive pin&bolt, and as it contains the oil pump will give an instant low oil pressure light - if driven on will wreck engine and turbo, stopping may be enough to save both but i've not had a customer do that yet!
The turbo diverter valves can suffer split diaphrams, there is a superceeded version that is more reliable.
They also have carbon fouling problems on the inlet valves which require media blasting to clean up when it starts to cause misfires.
DSG gearboxes need oil changes at 40k, the shift quality drops quite quickly if this interval is exceeded, it is usually recoverable with an oil change and re-adaption of parameters with vag-com. The mechatronic unit can also fail with oil ingress into the electronics/solenoid failure - it is not a cheap repair.
More of the faults do seem occur with the cars that get driven hard and not maintained to spec, and are more common with the TFSI than FSI.

With the roof, the special lube also stops creaking/clunking while driving, and the only common failure i've seen is the tailgate latch solenoid position switch wires breaking, which is repairable if you strip out the latch mechanism and solder in new wires.

Dave

Thanks everyone for you comments

In particular Dave as that is really useful Thanks

We came very close 5 years ago because the Mrs used to have a Golf and she loved it......we bought a Mini Cooper S Covertible (supercharged R53) and she loves it. I think we made the the right decision, we've still got it.