Volkswagen Dealers Seek Compensation For Lost Sales To DieselGate

The problem with being an owner of a VW franchise is that Porsche and Audi are often sold at the same site and the loss of the VW sales in some cases is enough to tank the whole dealer. So if VW dealers divest, that means a potential loss of Porsche/Audi sites too.

Even if dieselgate had not happened, VW was in deep caca anyway with a truly uncompetitive product line. TDI buyers are not normal buyers nor are they numerous enough to keep the entire franchise afloat.

VW does not understand the need to make products for the American market. Hyundai does and has grown much larger over the past 20 years while VW has stagnated.

Turning VW into a near-premium brand is ridiculous. Even without dieselgate, the perception of the VW brand in the USA is mainstream like Toyota. All dieselgate did was show that VW is a dishonest and unscrupulous manufacturer and that is not what would cause people to spend near-premium money on their products.

MDarringer: VW had been struggling in North America before Dieselgate. My understanding is as follows: public perception of the VW brand is that it's a practical people mover, yet the sticker price is higher than one would expect for what they get. Also, the repair frequency and cost, and routine maintenance costs are out of line with "practical people mover." In other words, what Joe Buyer expects from VW, what he gets, and what VW charges, don't match up well.

Dieselgate added an additional problem by highlighting that VW is a "questionable" company. We must remember that Dieselgate isn't just one thing: VW admitting to using a "cheat device" to pass an emissions test. It's a number of things:
- VW constantly upgrading their cheat software to make it harder for authorities to detect it
- VW vehicles emitting up to 40x legal test level while in actual use
- VW boasting about "clean tech" for years, while they were actually lying
- VW falsifying fuel economy numbers (higher than legal EPA test program)
- VW falsifying other emissions (CO2, related to actual fuel economy)
- VW selling vehicles illegally in Mexico (40,000+ vehicles not legally certified)
- VW defrauding several countries' tax system (car tax based on CO2 emissions)

There are more examples, but you get the idea, and they've been going at it like this for years! It demonstrates an ongoing, widespread, systemic way of being that's dishonest.

While it's true that the VW brand was not doing well in North America, and VW dealer franchises there were obviously affected, it's equally true that Dieselgate and its related fallout made a bad situation much worse here. And in Europe, where VW vehicles are far more popular, Dieselgate has also negatively impacted sales. So yeah, Dieselgate has been a hugely bad experience for VW dealers, all around, through no fault of their own, and through massive ethical and legal breaches on the part of the VW company.

MDarringer, you are usually correct about VW/Audi but you also seem to have many foes on this site, hence your low votes.
VW is dead in the U.S. and Wolfsburg just doesn't care. Their current lineup for America -aside from dieselgate- is sound proof of that.

The minus votes bother me in no way. Here's the irony though: the people who minus me make it their hobby to do so and in doing so they wasted time on me. They apparently lack wit because not responding is the bigger control + alt + FU. LOL

The foes like to pretend they know something about the auto industry but they aren't in it. My perspective is from the perspective of a dealer and restomod car flipper.

I have actually enjoyed sparring with Matt - and have never left him a minus. THere was a time when I was younger that I specialized in rebuilding transmissions for some classic cars - and while TVR was not among them - It allows me to follow Matt's logic in many ways that few are able to. As a world traveler for my job - I get to see lots of cars that don't get here - and have found lots of good reasons why. However - as far as VW - they made their reputation in the USA on the Beetle and Bus. These were inexpensive cars to own - they had little in the way of things in them to have problems with - and when they did break - they were cheap to fix. However - as soon as their day ended - VW went off producing weird nonsensical cars hardly suited for ANY market - people bought them - but eventually - that slowed. In europe - where the diesel engine is king - the reliability of their diesels was better than other manufacturers so their cars sold in big numbers - making them a force in the AUTO industry. AND for some reason - AUDI took off when they were largely just rebadged VWs. (Back then). However - the problem with VW in the USA rests with two problems - and it is not that they did not try to make a car for the USA - they did (Passat)- but it was TOO conservative for the market. THe problem was - their small turbo engines - which they went to early - were unreliable - and VERY expensive to repair - their Auto Transaxles were also impossibly expensive and unreliable as well. Faced with Bills like $5000 for a transmission on a small VW - that was a disaster. In addition - their nonstandard implementation of OBDII and other computer protocols meant that few outside repair people could afford the computerized testers needed for their cars too.People only make that mistake ONCE. And they remember that for a LONG time. So - today - in order to generate sales - their cars MUST have things that are not available on other cars in the same price range (They don't) - and have Pizzazz beyond other to make them desirable (Not even close). Ie - they need another reason to try again - and they simply have dropped the ball producing odd product that simply fails to be marketable here.

Seems that the dealerships in America are a disaster. Here in Europe the VAG marques are seen differently, and dealers tend to be very good indeed, as also the reliability and quality of the vehicles. VW does seem to have had difficulty adapting to the US market indeed. We love them here in Switzerland, and sales have not been badly affected at all overall by the diesel problem. One does have a feeling that in the absence of really good American built vehicles (apart from some newer Lincolns and Caddys), with the makers, over the last 20 years or so, having generally lost their traditional chutzpah in favour of copying German or Japanese cars, the opportunity of hitting out at the German car industry was taken in a rather exaggerated manner.