VW, I've given up on you now

Wonderful, as long as I wouldn't have to deal with VW, VWoA, VW stealerships, their clueless, dishonest service depts. and a company with reliability results that are worse than even GM and Chrysler. Been there, done that and will never, ever own a VW or VW produced vehicle.

 

You had a bad experience with VW and will never purchase another. That's fine, my Uncle had a bad experience with a Ford in the 50's and hasn't considered one since. However the general public may be a bid more objective.

VW quality is on the rebound, just like the rest of the German brands. Even Consumer Reports, so revered here on Prius Chat, has started to change there tune on VW quality. If you notice, the 5th generation VW vehicles such as the Jetta and Golf are now "recommended buys" while some Toyota products such as the latest Camry aren't.

 

You can do this today, just go buy the Honda Civic Hybrid. You'll also have the benefit of the huge aftermarket support that Honda gets with the Civic platform, too, if stock is not sporty enough for you.

 

If they do their research and look at VW's reliability hopefully they will be very objective. And if they are objective, they will come to the same conclusion I have. Unfortunately, I'm not the only one who has experienced the "joys" of VW ownership. A very little bit research will turn up a plethora of people that have had unacceptable dealings with VW, VWoA and their dealerships. The problems are systemic, not just with the POS cars they sell but it permeates through the entire VW organization.

But if you want to put your money down on one, that's fine by me.

 

I had a '84 Saab 900 Turbo 4-door, I considered it my swiss-army knife car, and in this way it was very similar to my Prius except it had a sun roof which alas my Prius does not. The Saab carried everything from a dining room table and 4 chairs with all doors closed, to bundles of 10-foot pvc sprinkler pipes (sticking through the sun roof), to 8-foot railroad ties for landscaping (the trunk lid was open for those). The Saab could be a sports car when you wanted it to because of the turbo, or if you eased up on the gas pedal it would get good mpg. I also loved the ignition and window switches in the center console that you could roll up or down all 4 windows at once. It was my family's all-time favorite car until the Prius came along. I also had a trusted Saab mechanic close to my work for the few times I needed one, it was actually pretty reliable until it got over 110k miles. Now I have a new favorite car, my Prius. However my '71 Superbeetle... I got rid of it at some mileage over 150k miles, the speedo cable was broken. I always had a spare fuel pump for that sucker. I used it as a Jeep in the boonies when I was single.

 

We bought a 1975 Rabbit and at that time it was a great car, handled well, great mileage, front wheel drive and a hatch back.

Our Prius is the same for us 33 years later. Lots of comparisons to be made. Of course you won't find us on the kitchen floor at midnight using a carburetor rebuild kit so we could get to work the next day with the Prius.

 

If you notice my signature I already have put my money down on one 6 years ago. 170K miles later it remains trouble free with only routine maintenance. I've even had a pleasant experience with my VW dealership when they replaced a trim piece and fixed a squeak under warranty.

Feel free to hate VW if you'd like. Maybe in 50 years you'll still be telling your story like my uncle.

 

The civic is an excellent platform, but I don't buy sedans. If they had kept the hatchback like Si version of the last generation Honda would have had a sale.

 

I see by your signature that the VW you've had is a 2003 - this was a decent year, I actually owned a 2003 TDI wagon and it held up well. It had no major issues other than cleaning the intake at 75k. Actually this was more of a maintenance thing in my mind and I did it before I had problems. I did have the infamous MAF failure, but other than that it was a good car.

The newer ones - 2005.5 and above are a lot worse as fas as quality is concerned. Let's see we had the ignition lock fail, rear brakes only last 30k, fan controller fail, battery fail, the rough idle and check engine light when pulling up to a stop,and of course there is the DMF failures in the DSG as well as the manual transmission. It's interesting that VW has recalled these over seas but not here in the US. Instead they are blaming the customer and handing them a $2000 bill.

I think it's great that you had a great experience from the one dealership, but for the rest of us that had to fight with VW tooth and nail to honor the warranty that was just not the case. VWs are great cars IF you don't mind doing the repairs yourself and having a new car with no warranty. Almost all of the issues I had with my 2005.5 are common issues with these cars. VW knows about them but has taken the stance of charging the customer for their flawed design.

While the 2005.5 was a fun car to drive, I do not miss it at all. I don't miss wondering when it will break again, wondering when the MIL light will come on, or wondering how much of a fight I will have with the dealership. If VW would get ther service up to par and honor their warranty I could ignor the reliability issues.

It is sad because it is a decent car