Flint: VW’s Sinking Ship?

[regfootball]

car connection

"But they are in the dumps again. VW has been losing $1 billion a year in America. Sales last year were down to 224,000 VW models from 256,000 the previous year. What's wrong?"

[regfootball]

"The quality level of the cars, particularly the New Beetle, was terrible. Owners who loved their car gave up because they couldn't take the repeat trips to the dealer. Possibly the quality has gone up, but when you've got that bad reputation, it sticks. It takes a huge warranty to win customers back - Hyundai's ten-year warranty did it - and VW isn't doing that."

[ReD-DaWg-OnE]

good read... i would like to see VW doing well... they make nice cars with nice interiors and i love the TDIs but they just need to get the quality up and rid themselves of the Unions.

[usa1]

Well, I for one would not miss VW if it cessed to exist.

Mark

[caddycruiser]

Well, I for one would not miss VW if it cessed to exist. 

Mark

I would. I love their vehicles, especially the level of general design and engineering that goes into making them so Germanic for mostly reasonable prices....I just wish they could get their overall reliability/real-world quality up to typical perception levels.

A co-worker with a '99 Passat V6 had the car until 95k last summer with no issues whatsoever (only a check engine light twice in the 6 years, due to a bad sensor) and then replaced it with a last gen '05 Jetta TDI diesel which has also been trouble-free so far. She loves the styling and interiors, and just the way they drive, so continues to buy them and has never had a problem. I've driven both, and was seriously considering buying a used model Passat there for a while, even with the typical bugs, since I loved it so much.

VW seems to know how to do things right, but then at the same time still falls short in a few areas...take care of that, and get back to a little more interesting vehicles that are "people priced" and market share will rise again. As is, a Jetta that looks like your neighbor's hum-drum Corolla and has a noisy, weird 5-cylinder in it doesn't help matters...even as just one example.

Edited March 1, 2006 by caddycruiser

[Guest lance armstrong's Testicles]

hey jerry flintdick, VW sales are up over 20% this month

go suck it

[PurdueGuy]

good read... i would like to see VW doing well... they make nice cars with nice interiors and i love the TDIs but they just need to get the quality up and rid themselves of the Unions.

Stories I've heard from those working directly with VW for many years indicate that they EARNED the unions in their NA plants. I'd love to see every company consistantly treat their employees well enough to cause the unions to have no point in existing, though.

[njtex]

VW has also had several tough years in Europe too for basically the same reasons. Lack of exciting new models, high prices, quality issues, and strong competition (from asia too for the first time). The German domestic brands are now facing all the same problems that Detroit has been dealing with for the past few decades.

Moving (retreating?) up market has been the accepted solution for mass-market German domestics. But they're also getting caught in the middle because BMW and DCAG are going down-market into the same premium segments that the mass producers want to move up into.

It's clear that VW totally blew their attempts and lots of cash so far on their "pie in the sky" projects while they let their volume products rot.

Seems that Opal my be the bright spot in all this. Their stategy of fighting-it-out in their existing segments may just work. The buzz in Germany seems to be growing that Opal is now building more attractive, exciting and quality products that represent a better value compared to VW.

[Shantanu]

When 1 Euro was worth 90 cents, Volkswagen could compete in America.

With 1 Euro being worth $1.20, they can't compete.

Not as much of a problem for the German luxury brands because they have bigger profit margins.