Turbopower4
Member
After looking it over we decided to go with the buyback on our 2012 Passat TDI SEL which was actually the 2,500 unit produced in Chattanooga in the first model year. It has been a great car with just 48,000 on it since new. We just took a trip this weekend and hit 51 mpg on the highway.... for old times sake. We found a loaded 2015 Beige over Black Passat TDI SEL in Bethesda at Ourisman VW and headed down on Saturday morning to see Earnest whom we understood to be a legend on this forum. He is all of that and more. A real nice guy and understandably successful in selling new and used cars. We were jerked around by a local dealer with a new 2015 Passat TDI SEL who could care less if we purchased the car or not. Relationship over after the first contact. I called Earnest to see if he had the car we were looking for on Friday afternoon. He said he would check and get back to me. 10 minutes later he calls back and says he has one. I asked if it had the deck spoiler on it. Again he said he needed to check and would call back. gain, Earnest called back and provided the answer. I asked where he was on price and he said it would be MSRP less the $5,000 0/72 deal less another $2,000 or if we decided to lease it was MSRP less $8,500 for a two year lease and an additional $2,000 off from Ourisman. We went down to see him the next day. The car was at the dealership, detailed beautifully for us to look at. Earnest gets us a tag and lets us take it for a test drive by ourselves and determine if this was the one for us. I can report we both saw no difference in performance compared to our unmodified 2012. We did not drive far enough to get a handle on mpg but I suspect it will be very similar as the new sticker on the door claims this from VW. We will see how that goes! We decided to lease the car taking advantage of the added $3,500 off MSRP and will buy it out when we turn in our 2012 later this month. Net net it looks like we will get a "new" Passat TDI SEL for around $2,343 after we use the buyback check to pay off the lease. Earnest was a pleasure to do business with and a real straight shooter. We opted out of any add on's which they did their job in trying to sell us before we finalized the deal. Anecdotally, this car was properly stored inside their parking garage and driven as VW required to preserve it during the stop sale period.
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