- The suggestion was startling: Maybe VW should give up on selling cars to America’s masses.
It was late January, at the Detroit auto show, and Herbert Diess, the global chief of Volkswagen AG’s namesake brand, was sounding out U.S. dealers as the company grappled with the biggest crisis in its modern history. Perhaps, Diess wondered aloud, VW should stop trying to compete with the likes of Toyota Motor Corp. in America and go back to focusing on higher-end models.
“It was near crickets in the room,” said Alan Brown, chairman of VW’s U.S. dealer council.
After stunned silence came anger, Brown said. He and 11 other dealers are heading to company headquarters in Wolfsburg, Germany, next week to tell executives they fervently oppose throwing in the towel on the mass market. They want the company to stick to the commitments it has made for new models and keep U.S. prices where they are now.
. . .
“Volkswagen dealers don’t want to sue,” Brown said. “But if you take away our future, on top of you plugged us with a bad name with this EPA scandal, it’s a double cut. We have no choice. We have to take action.”
About 40,000 miles down the road the coolant light would have come on. This is VW saying "it's time to change the coolant." You would then have discovered that magic VW coolant is only available from VW and Audi dealers, who will charge you $70 a gallon. Also, their parts department isn't open on weekends. Also, if you mix garden-variety prestone with $70-gallon magic VW coolant, the shit will turn into gelatin. Inside your engine. Because VW hates you.
It is most assuredly not like that with all cars. Green and yellow - fine Green and blue - fine Yellow and blue - fine Blue and orange - death Yellow and orange - death Green and orange - death Orange and orange, if one of them is VW - death VW uses "Hybrid Organic Acid Techology" (HOAT) coolant, which is available from VW and VW only.
They must be so fucked. http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=EURUSD%3DX+Interactive#{"range":"5y","allowChartStacking":true} Know what that graph says? It says that a German car you sold in 2011 for $28k you can now sell for $22k from exchange rate shenanigans alone. When Mitsubishi stopped selling the 3000GT in the US, its high end MSRP had gone from $34k to $68k, also just on exchange rates. They basically priced themselves out of the market. These things matter. And the fact that Volkswagen is suddenly saying "maybe we can't make any money with a 30% tailwind" is them basically saying "maybe we can't make any money." Don't let the door hit ya where the good lord split ya, assholes. I'd love to see sanctions against Germany for unpaid VW fines. I'd also love to see all the stupid yuppies stuck trading for parts like Saturn and Oldsmobile drivers. Mutherfuckin' fahrvergnugenschadenfreude, bitchez.
For a brief moment, VAG passed Toyota as the #1 car seller in the world (though I think Toyota took the title back). I'm sure American dealers probably won't be the only one feeling the hurt in the near future. They took a risk trying to change direction in sales, they took a stupid risk with the emissions cheating, and chances are these probably won't be the last business decisions that will come to bite them in the butt. Bugatti released a new super car though, so at least they have that going for them.