CAR ISSUES & SPARE PARTS

HEAT & MISSING PARTS " DESTROYED " THE CARS IN THE MIDDLE EAST!

For well-known and also inexplicable reasons, spare parts have never been available for the Cup Edition Millennium Beetles!

The reason for this is, that at no time the parts used for the upgrade in Puebla , were entered into the vital IT Systems KVS & ELSA! No idea how they managed to build a series of 80 cars without any online documentation ? ... according to the Puebla pilot department !

This is also one of the reasons why so many cars have been literally "repaired to death" with other parts available on the market and in "hobby workshops" all over the Middle East.
There are plenty of such examples to seen here ==> more!

In the official VW database, these cars appear only show up in the configuration, like they rolled off the assembly line in Puebla as "Standard New Beetles" - all PR numbers indicate a Standard New Beetle and are recorded as such in the cars (PR stickers and service booklets). The FACT that the cars were completely rebuilt by the pilot department in Puebla at a customer's request using genuine VW and Audi parts and delivered to a single "customer" in UAE - according to repeated statements from VW employees, is not documented anywhere in an accesssable database for the Client Service OR VW Support Team. Not a single car in any museum (… according to the person in charge there ), and none is mentioned in any book about the New Beetle, the Käfer, or any other commercially available VW documentation. Only an inquiry to "AUDI/VW Middle East FZEVW Product Support" in the Dubai Freezone yielded the following response via email:
YES - we imported the cars, there were never parts for and had them serviced at the dealerships. But we ourselves are surprised that there is no documentation to be found about these cars anywhere and that the Headquarters in Wolfsburg & Puebla have never replied to our requests on your question?

How did/does one obtain spare parts for the Millennium Cup Edition Beetle?

Spare parts for the installed body kit could ONLY be ordered and purchased indirectly and through connections to friendly VW dealers – essentially illegal! This required the VIN (vehicle registration document) of an "RSI Beetle" known in the official VW systems, and the friendly VW dealer who would then order the spare parts by pretending to have an "RSI" known to the VW system (…I handled it this way for my own vehicle)!
According to them, the VW racing department in Wolfsburg was involved at the time to make this possible. However, this process has since been handed over to the "Classic Car Division"! Even now, many parts are no longer available for the RSI, even there!

Why were so many spare parts needed for the Millennium Cup Edition Beetle?

Due to damage from accidents, the countless speed bumps, and the often very high curbs in the Emirates, many cars could only be repaired with existing and similar parts. Unavailable parts were replaced and adapted with parts from tuning suppliers... see the picture with the oversized spoiler in the PROBLEM GALLERY ! The decals were somehow modified or enhanced by street artists!

On top of that, there was the problem of the heat, which affected almost all VW/Audi cars in the UAE. The plastic parts became brittle due to the heat and began to break. The soft-touch coating on the handles, glove compartment, dashboard, and switches turned into a sticky mess – similar to chewing gum! And then the roof interior literally fell "from the sky" :(

TÜV regulations in the UAE

Furthermore, the UAE vehicle inspection authority (TÜV), which prohibits stickers on private cars, was also partly responsible for these beautiful cars losing their distinctive design. The striking Millennium Cup Edition stickers, for example, had to be removed during the inspection to pass – and were subsequently unavailable as spare parts. :( That's why you now see most cars with homemade stickers or no stickers at all.
Only very well-known personalities with the appropriate connections – princes of the ruling family, for example – could escape this stumbling block! Cars that are still unpainted and still have their original stickers on them therefore also point to a long-standing owner from a probably "high-ranked family"!
According to owners, there are very few presentable cars with original paint and decals still hidden away in garages in the Middle East. One particularly great car is in Spain – taken by a sheikh to his spanish estate and then apparently sold to a spanish dealer, and is shown on this website alongside of a car registered in Germany and imported from the UAE!

Impact of this VW spare parts policy

These facts are also the reason why, with very few exceptions, all the cars sold slowly but surely "fell apart" over the years and literally rotted away, or were "repaired or repainted to death" in various backyards using Indian, Palestinian, or Pakistani "know-how" and ingenuity. Spare parts were patched together, invented and produced in-house, front and rear bumpers from the standard Beetle were installed, or the cars were all converted into "show cars"! Unrealistic performance upgrades often only lasted a few bursts of acceleration, or the cars, with their "mangled" 450 hp, were finally laid to rest in the scrap yard!