Gentlemen, start your “German Engineering” jokes! The Windsor Star reports that Chrysler’s Windsor Assembly Plant has received a “no build” order for Routans in the month of February, despite workers returning from a long winter break on February second. According to a union local official, VW requested a month’s furlough of Routan production, “in order to adjust their inventory. Sales are slow across the board and VW is no different.” Local 444 President Rick LaPorte calls the no build order “worrisome in terms of volumes.” Windsor had been assembling 300 Routans per day, but with 30k of the rebadged Caravans sitting in the VW dealer net, slow sales are becoming a major concern. VW sold 8,812 Routans last year, falling well short of the pace needed to meet sales goals of 35k units per year (3k-4k per month). Read TTAC’s review of the Routan here.
Shocka.
I would have thought all those women trying to get pregnant just so they can buy some real Canadian, err, German engineering, would have propelled sales of this thing.
Amen.
Bunter
At the risk of going slightly off topic, I’m slightly surprised at something.
Clearly, there is a market in North America for minivans. So, why don’t Ford bring their Ford Galaxy over to NA? I’m not a big fan of Ford’s cars, but I take my hat off to Ford for the Galaxy. It’s a good little minvan/crossover car.
If the competition in this market is the Routan, then, they’ll romp home with this segment.
And before anyone says it, what I mean by “bring the Ford Galaxy over to NA” is bring the plans over and build it in NA.
I guess it’s really true – you CAN’T fool all of the people all of the time. Apparently only about 8800 a year.
Under normal economic circumstances, that would probably be a great idea (galaxy).
As for the Routan, well, I found that ad campaign offensive, disgusting, irritating, and I don’t want to see any routans to remind me of it. And I don’t want to see Brooke Shields, either.
I also find it irritating that after such a nice Microbus concept, VW would rebadge a Xler minivan and pretend it was theirs. If it weren’t so outrageous, it probably would have diluted the brand to the level of homeopathic medicine.
I dunno, something about the combination of Chrysler build quality and VW service makes me want to run away from this thing. Far, far away.
I dunno, something about the combination of Chrysler build quality and VW service makes me want to run away from this thing.
Add to that the fact that buyers have been running away from minivans for the past three years and this was bound to fail.
Clearly, there is a market in North America for minivans. So, why don’t Ford bring their Ford Galaxy over to NA?
Because then it would be really, really hard to sell the much-higher margin Edge and Flex. Never mind that people aren’t buying Edges or Flexes anyway, that’s not the point: when they were selling, they’d have gotten killed by by the Galaxy. I’m not expecting a passenger version of the Transit for the same reason.
There is a market in North America for cheap, fuel-efficient people movers. Unfortunately, there’s little margin on such cars, which is why they’re sold only by niche players. The big manufacturers are hedging their bets on a recovery of the truck market, so that they can start selling F-150s to people who don’t need them.
It’s not a bad per se, but you’re asking a lot of the buyers.
Minivans are bought by very practical, very rational people who read Consumer Reports when buying blenders. Getting them to part from Siennas and Odysseys will be hard, and the only reason Chrysler is still in this game at all is that the Caravan is just so much cheaper that it’s hard to ignore.
Getting them to pay Sienna money for a Caravan is really, really hard.
Exactly why did VW not build the Microbus Concept? Yes it costs money to build a new model, but they did it with the Beetle, why not the bus? And they rebadged a Chrysler minivan, and actually had the gall to mention German engineering in the same breath?! The mind boggles.
And VW talks about building a brand new model with presumably a new nameplate in the US, a sedan, just for the NA market. Why not build the Passat, the Octavia, the Polo and others in the US instead? They don’t have to start from scratch.
And what was so wrong keeping the Golf the Golf? Why the Rabbit?
And why is the latest Touran called Touran 2? Why not just call it the Touran?
Seriously, I just don’t understand VW…
Consumers are smart enough not to pay $30K for a Routan, when they can get a two-year-old Caravan for $10K.
with employee pricing plus plus plus they could probably get a brand new caravan for $10k. The vw brand has been so utterly tarnished by this. I sold my VW and went to BMW because of this car. Believe it.
This drop off in demand is actually quite scary as US reproduction rate must be going down for the VW Routan to suffer this much to halt production!
Of all the “Cars You Are Happy Got Snuffed Out By The Global Economic Meltdown” I must say I am happiest about this one.
Good riddance. And to that horrid ad campaign and spokes-monster, too.
At least all the VW dealerships have new customer shuttle vans now…
A VW-USA deathwatch would be pointless, right?
I mean, their sales have always been kinda marginal, even when the Jetta and Passat were the hipster cars of note.
The only really notable thing to me is how much of a disaster CP+B has been for them.
Wait, looking at their adds, why does anyone employ CP+B, their campaigns are horrible.
Boom = fizzle
They must have spent more paying Brooke Shields than the profit they made on this. As bad an idea as the Aztek and Cimmaron.
I simply don’t understand why anyone at VW thought that this thing would sell in the first place…Dire economy or not.
I am a simple potato eating schmuck and I could have forecast this from day one?!?!? As could everyone reading this.
I hadn’t seen the Brooke Shields Routan commercial, and so I just went looking for it.
Unfortunately, I found it.
Even worse, I found THIS Routan commercial.
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/1919755/hippies_volkswagen_routan_commercial/
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? I can’t believe that they thought THIS was going to sell a van to anybody.
Waydaminute….at last years’ sales rate and the current in-the-pipe pipeline, there is a 3.4 year supply already built. What makes the workers think this is a 1-month furlough and not a 41 month furlough ?
Pleiter,
I was thinking the same thing. I am guessing the Nitro, Compass, Caliber, Patriot, Durango, Aspen, Sebring, Commander, Dakota and Durango are in the same bucket. Chrysler really can’t restart its factories until inventory falls to the 60 day mark, which remains months away.
And they continue to dream about electic cars, rebadged Fiats and future Cherokees. Sorry, guys, but the Feds will cut you off long before 2011 comes around.
I thought that hippie commercial wasn’t a bad move to try to sell a new VW van. It’s not the add campaigns fault the car is a re-badged Chrysler.
Well, technically speaking, the Routan was designed while the Germans owned Chrysler, so it does have that special German engineering thing going for it…..I think Dr Z blinked at in the design studio, that counts doesn’t it?
Now you can get Routan suspension tuning on the Chrysler badged van…
TTAC had an interview with VW’s Routan marketeers lined-up. They backed out. Now we know why.
This is how models get disappeared. No messy announcements to tarnish existing stock. No explanations, defenses, shooting of the guilty.
Just quietly suspend further production one month at a time, forever.
Unlike many here, I actually like VW. On the other hand, The Routan, along with it’s advertising, were downright bizarre. I was at the dealer yesterday; the lifesize cardboard cutouts of Ms. Sheilds left me feeling cold, and somewhat nervous. Her unusual expression created a peculiar and uncanny sense of unease in my psyche. Not sure the message VW was trying to send.
On another note, while getting my car serviced (the sun visor needed replacing which took all day as they had to completely replace the headliner–who designs these things?) I decided to camp out among the 40K CCs and 36K EOS. Other than those seeking service, no one came in to even look at the cars. I almost felt sorry for the salesmen as they tried to talk me out of my low milage, in for service Jetta.
@psarhjinian
Exactly. For some reason VW believes it is top level. The market has been showing it how strongly they disagree. But I guess Vw’s executives’ heads are too far up their own asses to notice. Yes, if the Routan competed prce-wise with the Dodge, they’d be getting some sales. But trying to sell this thing off at Sienna and Oddy prices….Well, good luck!
“….. sales goals of 35k units per year (3k-4k per month)”
OK, VW was seriously deluded. The VW brand is in the toilet in the US market thanks to massive quality problems in the not distant past and a generally clueless management.
Tossing a barely warmed over Chrysler minivan at this marketplace is likely to fool very few people. The minivan market has shrunk precipitously, and most of those who are still buying minivans are replacement minivan buyers who don’t care what fashion dictates. These are NOT the people VW has a shot at enticing into their showrooms in volume.
What a stupid idea this van was/is. How much do the people who make these decisions get paid?