Volkswagen is amongst the first of the manufacturers sending out its SOS June sales numbers. Despite the numbers and the claim that they're enjoying the "best sales month since August 2006," the picture at VW is grim. if not for the new Tiguan, they'd be cratering with the best (worst?) of them. VeeDub's compact SUV-crossover-thingy sold 1044 units in June. Can the Golf-on-stilts keep-up the big Mo for the rest of the year? Equally worrying, has the Tiguan cannibalized sales of the Jetta and Rabbit, which were both down from last month? That's what should send Volkswagen of America boss Adrian Hallmark running for the Immodium. While a 1500 unit hit doesn't sound a lot, the percentages– Jetta down 11.3%, Rabbit down 18.9%– are straight-up scary. The explanation: unimpressive gas mileage from standard five-cylinder engines. Hello? Volkswagen has fleets of cars in Europe (under three different nameplates) that are all fuel efficient, fun to drive, and don't feel cheap. And none of them was designed or prepared for sale in the United States. A VW lineup including the Fox, Polo, Skoda Fabia or Roomster would be kicking ass in today's gas conscious U.S. market. The new U.S. diesel Jetta is great, but pricey (both to buy and run). Screwing itself, VW is.
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This really isn’t surprising. VW has a lot of cons in the US it must get over: bad dealer network (read: piss poor), dreadful reliability, and bad fuel economy when compared to competitors. I really have no idea why they sell the 2.5liter 5-cylinder; the only reason I can gather why they put it in their entry level cars is to show that they can ‘1-up’ the competition in the cylinder-count department.
When VW starts to fix its reliability vis-à-vis through its dealers, and starts to offer logical and efficient engine options, then they will be a contender. Until then, they will just be another car brand with waning sales.
Is VW a car marque in NA that anyone cares about?
They always seem to have a niche share of the market and never seem to expand.
Kind of like a mole on one’s skin. It’s been there for a long time and isn’t going anywhere, but it isn’t getting any bigger.
You’re dead on. I’d love an inexpensive, fuel efficient Rabbit, but there’s no such animal.
It’s just too bad that VWoA can’t seem to buy a clue about the US market. The Jetta TDI will likely do well in Canada, but Canada is a much smaller market than the US. When potential buyers see the EPA numbers and the pricing on the Jetta TDIs, they’ll go and buy a Camry or some other toaster. Which is a shame because VW could be selling a bunch of small, fuel efficient vehicles in the US right now. If only they offered them for sale…
I actually got an email from VW the other day recommending that I take my car in for a filter change to maximize my economy. I deleted it though because my Jetta regularly returns 50-52 MPG, and I also like to have money to buy food and pay my mortgage. Taking my Jetta to the stealer would cure that pesky “extra cash” problem.
Huh. In my ignorance I didn’t even know they had 5 cylinder cars. Would have thought you’d want even numbers.
Anyway, congrats to VW. In this market, stasis is an accomplishment. Even though my mom still curses the day she bought a Rabbit in the 70s. She still talks about how it was the worst car she has ever had.
toxicroach
Yup, Volvo’s been using them for years in the S60. VW’s only recent one is this 2.5 here. And I believe the GMC Canyon/Colorado base engine is an I-5.
KatiePuckrik
They’ve gone from about 2% market share to about 5% in less than a decade, but that’s still tiny. They’re mostly thought of as hipster cars, sort of like the iMac/iPod of vehicles–trendy, but far from mainstream. I still say it’s the best driving experience for the money, but most people here frown on the reliability of anything that can’t have the hood (bonnet) welded shut for 100k miles.
The five cylinders have been the specialty of Audi and VW from I think the 1970s.
I’d take one of the VWs like the article pictures. Give it to me at the weight of my ’84 Rabbit, at $15K and with a 1.4L turbo gas or diesel getting 65+ mpg. Or better yet with a battery and no engine but in that case I want Toyota or Honda involved.
Currently an owner/driver of three VWs and a Honda. Will buy both brands again. FWIW I do not ever let a dealer touch my cars. I do all of my own work.
VW NA also suffers from bitter, internecine warfare. I talked to some of their execs around the time they started the move from Auburn Hills, and they painted a lurid picture. Much of the problem, they said, is because the home office judges executive performance solely based on dollars.
For example, if they report warranty costs that the home office deems excessive, the execs in question will lose their bonus and possibly their jobs. Since the people being judged for the high warranty costs don’t have anything to do with quality control or engineering, their only recourse is to start denying warranty claims to bring the numbers down. Meanwhile, the marketing people get freaked out because they’re well aware that VW’s reputation for dealer service is abysmal, and every denied warranty claim is making their job harder.
Every once in a while somebody will make the argument that money saved in refusing to honor warranty claims, cutting corners on material quality, etc., is less than the company loses in lost sales and customer good will, but it apparently falls on deaf ears. The management of the company doesn’t have any mechanisms to keep the big picture in mind, and everyone is too invested in making their own target numbers to think that way.
This is how not to implement individual accountability.
Hey at least their ads are decent.
Yeah, whats the deal with the crappy 5-cylinders? Who thought that was a good idea?
a friend of mine just picked up a GTI yesterday. the salesmen told us the sell more GTIs then anything else this month. 0% for 60 months will do that.
I really hope Porsche gets in there and smacks some people around.
Drop the current GTI. Bring us the Scirocco as the new GTI
Bring us a Polo GTI and TDI
Give the rabbit a TDI
i would say drop the 2.5l but i dont think VW has anything they can replace it with. The twin charger uses premium. not what you want in a $15,000 car.
Is there really a difference between the GTI and the new Sirocco? The pictures suggest it’s hard to tell them apart.
the Sirocco gets a similar suspension setup as the Z06 and Ferrari 599.
VW should get some credit for keeping the small Diesel flame going in the USDM.
Aside from that I would not want to touch the rest of their product line with a leased 10ft pole.
VW has a naturally aspirated 1.4 liter I4 with 140 PS in Europe that they could use as a perfect replacement of the 2.5 liter I5 on this side of the pond. I think VW doesn’t think globally or strategically.
As well, as far as I can tell the Jetta in the UK only has the DSG gearbox as the automatic option; whereas in the US we are still stuck with the old 6-speed cog swapper.
I was shocked that the new Rabbit was well-received as a gas-hogging small car. Sure, it’s nice inside and feels very solid. It even looks nice. But 25mpg on a perfect stretch of highway, downhill, with a tailwind, in a tiny car?
That’s not what the Rabbit name implies. Bring back the frugal diesel engine and put the 2.0L NA and turbo in the thing and call it a day. The 2.5L is a nasty sounding turd.
Thank you for the inside scoop argentla:
“For example, if they report warranty costs that the home office deems excessive, the execs in question will lose their bonus and possibly their jobs.”
I have long surmised that this has to be what is going on inside many companies based on the observed behaviors. I’m sad to say that you confirm my worst fears in this regard.
VW is clearly not the only company with the problem of managing warranty costs the wrong way. The right way is obviously to build the product properly in the first place! Baring that, many companies would do themselves well to take 50% out of the advertising budget and put the money into warranty and good-will funding. The problem for A.D.D. management is that such a strategy, while sound, would take years to bear fruit … a for the most part nobody is looking past the month, quarter, or perhaps year bonus horizon.
I just wish I could have brought the (Rabbit) rental car I had in Germany. It was the more powerful of two TDi’s offered, maxed on the autobahn at typically up and down speeds of 100-130 mph, and still scored mid to high 30′ mpgs. I wonder how it would do here with my featherfoot borderline hypermiler driving habits?
VW does have capable engineering skills.
KatiePuckrik asked
“Is VW a car marque in NA that anyone cares about?”
According to
http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2008/06/30/3523038.htm
“In 2007, Volkswagen delivered 6.2 million vehicles worldwide, 329,000 of them in the United States. VW’s share of the U.S. passenger car market was 2 percent, according to its 2007 annual report.”
Apparently they’re looking to open a plant in the U.S. Real Soon Now.
The days of the old beetle times are definitely gone.The Rabbits from the late ’70s (Westmoreland production) simply were crap.VW laughted as so many others at Toyota in the ’70s, and now they are finding themselves being overtaken as the once prime importer of fuel efficient cars by the Japanese.They got passed already so many years ago and did not get it.Once a VW dealer was a sort of shrine selling the hip vehicles of the decade.Now it’s a shrine for ignorance.The greedy German Doctors and engineers are busy stuffing their pockets with dough and financing their union leaders with prostitutes instead of delivering product.
Instead of maintaining the peoples car idea they went upscale with the Touareg and Phaeton, proofing- hey big boys we can build real cars too.We can’t sell’em, but at least we are being taken seriously now.Well folks at VW, the train of small fuel efficient ,affordable cars already has left the station in the U.S, and you are not on it.
Consumer Guide’s Impressions of the 2010 Volkswagen Polo
Volkswagen is poised to take on the Honda Fit and other thrifty minicars with a baby Rabbit that should get 40-60 mpg. It’s the first-ever U.S. Polo, and it will be U.S. made to avoid German-car sticker shock.
What We Know About the 2010 Volkswagen Polo
Most Americans know the Volkswagen Rabbit hatchback (a.k.a. Golf). Now it looks like we’ll meet its kid brother, the Polo, which has been around since 1975 but has never been sold here before.
VW officials said last January that they were considering a smaller-than-Rabbit car for U.S. sale, provided they could get around the weakening dollar that’s making so many euro-denominated imports so expensive. As VW CEO Martin Winterkorn told trade weekly Automotive News, “The car would have to be built in the U.S. To make the Polo in Europe and bring it to America would not work.”
That’s still true. So is the general rule about smaller cars making smaller profits, one reason Detroit has paid scant attention to them over the last 10 years. But with record gas prices and rising buyer demand for thriftier vehicles, every automaker is scrambling to get out higher-mpg models, so it’s easy to imagine that a U.S.-market Polo has moved up on VW’s priority list.
It’s just as easy to imagine building it at the U.S. VW plant that’s slated to open in 2010 as a prime means for avoiding the weak dollar and consequent sticker shock. VW will soon decide on location–Alabama, Tennessee, and Michigan are in the running–and what the plant will build. Initially, VW said the facility would turn out core American-market models–namely the compact Rabbit and Jetta, a new lower-cost U.S.-only version of the midsize Passat sedan, and probably the just-introduced Tiguan compact SUV (currently sourced from Europe). But even with all three, the plant would still be some 50,000 units below its reported maximum capacity of 200,000 units a year, leaving plenty of room for a made-in-America 2010 Volkswagen Polo. And so much the better for VW, whose recently launched “Strategy 2018” aims to double U.S. and global sales within 10 years in an ambitious bid to pass Toyota as the world’s largest-volume automaker.
Then too, U.S. VW dealers certainly need a lower-priced car to take on the Honda Fit, Toyota Yaris, and other fuel-stingy subcompacts that are now flying off the lots. And as luck would have it, a redesigned Polo is due out in Europe later this year, so VW could have the newest econocar on the U.S. market.
European sources indicate the 2010 Volkswagen Polo will be about the same overall size as the redesigned 2009 Honda Fit and thus a little larger than the fourth-generation Polo it replaces. Models should comprise several flavors of 4-door hatchback. Two-door versions are possible as well. Styling is said to embody the crisper new corporate look that will mark the redesigned 2010-2011 Rabbit and Jetta. Like so many other small cars–and every Polo to date–the U.S. version has front-wheel drive, a strut-type front suspension, and a simple “twist beam” rear axle. Standard features are expected to include ABS brakes, electric or electro-hydraulic power steering, front side airbags, and curtain side airbags. VW’s ESP antiskid system and traction control may be standard with uplevel trim and will certainly be available. Ditto air conditioning. Options may include premium-class appointments like a navigation system, satellite radio, and sporty appearance and handling upgrades. The days of bare-bones small cars are long gone.
The Polo has long offered a wide choice of powertrains. The current fourth-gen line lists small 3- and 4-cylinder gasoline and diesel engines with and without turbocharging that span horsepower ratings ranging from 64 in base models to 180 in the sporty top-line GTI version. Those outputs may seem modest, but they’re more than sufficient for curb weights running around 2500 pounds.
For various reasons, the U.S. would probably get only two or three engines. We’d guess the base mill will be a 1.4-liter 4-cylinder with direct gasoline injection and perhaps 110 horses, though this could be an option to a more-miserly 1.2- or 1.3-liter “triple” with around 85 or 90 horses. Another prospect is an ultra-frugal Polo “BlueMotion” with a 1.4-liter 3-cylinder turbodiesel that would make about 80 horsepower and could rate up to 60 mpg in EPA tests by some estimates. A U.S.-based magazine recently reported a budget-pleasing 46 mpg in real-world driving with a 2008 Polo BlueMotion, aided by a specially geared 5-speed manual transmission, narrow low-rolling-resistance tires, and subtle aerodynamic styling tweaks. Availability would depend on clearing the turbodiesel engine with U.S. emissions standards, but VW is now rolling out a larger U.S.-legal “TDI” option for the Jetta, so it can probably qualify the Polo diesel, too. Gasoline models would likely offer a 6-speed manual transmission or the new lower-cost 6-speed DSG automated-manual that’s due to show up soon in other VWs.
Like Honda with the Fit, VW has decided that America is ready for a smaller, thriftier car than anything it currently offers. After all, the U.S. motoring landscape is rapidly coming to resemble that of Europe and many other lands where gas costs a small fortune and small cars are the mainstream norm. Assuming it’s the right car at the right price, the Polo could go a long way to helping VW reach its ambitious 2018 sales target. We’ll be watching with interest.
Volkswagen brings the Polo to the U.S. for the 2010 model year. The Polo has been available in Europe since 1975. The European Polo BlueMotion is shown here.
A Notable Feature of the 2010 Volkswagen Polo
VW is planning additional Polo models for Europe and other overseas markets, including an entry-level cloth-top convertible, a new version of the SUV-flavored CrossPolo wagon, and an extended mini-minivan. It’s possible one or all of these could reach the U.S., perhaps by model-year 2012, if only to one-up the competition. The same goes for the sporty 2-door GTI hatchback. More significantly, VW is planning a “mild hybrid” Polo that should be an interesting alternative to Honda’s upcoming “dedicated” hybrid hatchback and the gas/electric Fit expected around 2015, not to mention the sales-leading Toyota Prius. Like the Hondas, the Polo would not run on volts alone, but would include regenerative-braking battery charging and a fuel-saving engine stop/start system. VW recently teamed with Japan’s Sanyo Electric to develop advanced lithium-ion (LI) batteries for hybrid VW vehicles, one of several such joint ventures. Production reportedly begins in 2009. The LI batteries will likely appear in the hybrid Polo despite their relatively high cost, but reports indicate that plug-in capability wouldn’t be available until at least 2011.
Buying Advice for the 2010 Volkswagen Polo
The Polo has been one of VW’s major moneymakers in many markets, and the redesigned fifth-generation should be no different. Published tests of prior Polos suggest the newbie will be one of the sportier econocar drives, even with a low-power engine. It should also appeal for ride comfort, overall refinement, robust build quality, and high fuel economy. Mediocre value-for-money has been a consistent criticism, but serious number crunching may correct that on the 2010 Volkswagen Polo. Price is definitely up there with mpg as make-or-break factors in U.S. Polo sales, especially against appealing rivals like the Best Buy Nissan Versa and Suzuki SX4, not to mention the redesigned Fit. And new competition is on the way, including the Ford Fiesta and an additional entry just announced for Chevrolet. So to say the least, the Polo will have its work cut out for it. And so will you in deciding among the many choices. Consumer Guide can help you narrow them down, both here online and in the pages of our Car and Truck Test magazines.
2010 Volkswagen Polo Release Date: Though VW hasn’t yet confirmed a U.S.-market Polo, we’d be surprised if the company fails to capitalize on current U.S.-market trends. With the fifth-generation Polo due out soon–and with VW aiming to trim lead times between European and U.S. rollouts–we’d look for U.S. sales to begin in the second or third quarter of 2009 for the 2010 model year.
2010 Volkswagen Polo First Test Drive: If the launch timing above proves out, the Polo would likely meet the U.S. press on U.S. soil by spring of 2009.
2010 Volkswagen Polo Prices: The Polo is intended to be the new bottom rung on VW’s U.S. price ladder, though top-trim versions may overlap with low-end versions of the larger Rabbit. Assuming the necessary number crunching goes well, we’d look for base stickers in the $13,000-$16,000 range.
I don’t agree that the TDI is “pricey” to run. With the terrific mileage, even with the slightly higher price of diesel fuel (less than 3% more than Regular in CT), the cost of fuel is low.
Around here (WA) you are lucky to find diesel that is only 15% more than regular, at some stations it is near 20% more. The station near work was $3.75 for regular and $4.39 for diesel yesterday, not necessarily the best or worst around here just what I noticed at that particular station yesterday.