Seriously. VW is clueless in the U.S. market.

I’m sure VWs are at least somewhat better than they used to be. They couldn’t possibly be worse, and once you’ve owned a few crapcan VWs from new you want a reliable car, which is one reason (among many) VW isn’t doing well here.

16 trips to the dealer in the 1st 5 years my parents had their 2000 GTI VR6. 11 trips to the dealer in the first two years my client had his 2012 Range Rover.

No, VW really did build lots of unreliable crapheaps for years. Many of my customers had them, and I made good money fixing them over and over since the replacement parts VW made were cheap junk too. A typical example: 2000 GTI VR6, bought new. From 2000 to 2007, and 60,000 careful senior citizen miles, the car broke…

VW has been consistently failing in the U.S. market since the mid 80s, why do you think they’ll wake up now? The Explorer was the runaway sales hit of *1992*, fer crying out loud. Nothing from VW. The entire minivan market came, peaked and went away over ~15 years without a single credible mainstream effort from VW…

Two huge and critical differences that explain VWs’ failure in the U.S. and Subaru’s success:

A new plastic dash (without gauges, top lid, trim, HVAC controls or anything else) for a 2005 Ram pickup lists for $2145.00. And they *do* crack from sun and age. This is a good deal for this type of part.

Yup. After years of fixing VWs at the shop I owned, and 25 years of my family driving nothing but VWs I’ve never felt better about driving Hondas (Civic si, CRX, now Fit) myself for the last 18 years. Because the last thing I want to do after fixing broken customer cars all day is work on my own daily driver nights or…

Super CP. This car is a liability, and screams to anyone who knows Porsches that the owner is a tasteless idiot.

If you’re buying a new Tahoe for $60-65k I doubt fuel mileage is a significant financial concern.

Bitter much? Jeez. Some people like the food, the weather, the nice scenery, etc. Lighten up, Francis.

Nope, he’ll be pulling fouled injectors out to be ultrasonically cleaned.

You’d think so, right? That someone would add up the potential downside to cheaping out by a few pennies per part?

I sold a ‘58 Olds hardtop to a Swedish buyer off craigslist. He sent a Swedish guy with cash, and I towed the car to the port in Norfolk.

A sulky is a horse-racing cart:

It's VW, of course they're going to screw it up in the U.S. every way possible.

...aaaand even more wrong. :)

Not in PA or NY, at least. Last time I looked, the state made something like 4 bucks for each sticker issued.

That’s great, but the usual comparison is with regular gas.

Obviously. It’s just that, you know, you’re wrong.