HOMEMAKER Beverly Wong was overjoyed when her husband bought her a brand new red VW Golf GTI for her 38th birthday last month.

Her euphoria lasted all of three weeks. Last Saturday when she was out with her hubby and 22-month-old son at around 5pm, the three-week-old $120,000 200-horsepower performance car got stuck in first gear.

"It happened suddenly. Then the lights indicating the gear positions started flashing wildly, and we just couldn't get the transmission to change gear,'' Ms Wong said. "We even tried going to manual mode, by using the paddle shifters on the steering column.''

The GTI is equipped with a high-tech double-clutch semi-automatic transmission called DSG. VWs with DSG here include the Jetta, GT and R32.

Volkswagen Singapore, the manufacturer-owned importer, distributor and retailer of VWs here, admitted that Ms Wong's car had a "gearbox failure", and that it was the second such case in a month. It was unable to say what the problem was, but said "DSG is a very reliable and solid gearbox and we have had minimal issues in the many cars we've sold so far".

The Golf GTI has been available here since 2005, but the glitch is said to affect only this year's batch of cars. Up to September this year, Volkswagen sold 81 GTI's here.

But the transmission breakdown was only half the disappointment Ms Wong felt.

After calling the Volkswagen roadside assistance hotline, she waited half an hour for service personnel to arrive. They told her the car needed to be towed back to the workshop as it had a major fault that could not be fixed there and then. She was handed a taxi voucher; and was told that a tow truck would arrive within the hour. It turned up three hours later at 7.45 pm.

She also complained that the company did not arrange a temporary car for her.

"This is a premium car I bought, and it's barely 3-1/2 weeks old. They should have given me a temporary car to use,'' Ms Wong said. "We had a baby with us, and a lot of bulky things in the car, including a childseat.''

After haggling with Volkswagen Singapore, she finally got a replacement car, which arrived at 9pm. All in, she and her family wasted four hours of a Saturday evening.

"I know mechanical things do break down. I was from the car industry, so I know,'' said the former staff of Audi distributor Premium Automobiles, fuming. "But Volkswagen should have helped make the bad experience a little more bearable. I am totally disappointed with their service.''

Volkswagen Singapore spokesman Deborah Chia said: "We view this incident with much unhappiness. We empathise with the customer and will rectify the situation immediately.''