Who else is keeping theirs?

I will likely keep mine as well, for a while anyway, as it's in the shop right now for a new turbo. I might as well use it for a while since I just put $3000 into it.

my 2012 Golf hasless than 24k at this point...I got it for a attractive figure when the car had less than 17k (January 2012). I love the car, is almost paid. I would love to keep it but the buyback numbers are good as well. I normally drive manual but enjoy the torque and the DSG along with the mileage. On the other hand if I would take the buyout I possibly can find another one , prob not with the mileage. My biggest concern at this point would be if buyback is considered income...Having to pay income tax if buyout would complicate things at a high level.

I have a cracked DPF ( at 125,000) and need a tb in 500 miles (130,000) so leaning towards selling it back, only way I would keep it is if I can not find anything to replace it with, before the cracked DPF I was 95% keeping it , now more like 20%

Buy Back the Buy Back

I'll repeat something I posted previously.

VW may, repeat may, be able to modify some turned in cars and then resell them on their used car lot.

My buyback is $28,727 and Modify is $7200.

If I keep car and pocket $7200 I would need to sell it for $21,727 to equal the buyback.

I'm thinking my 2013 SE Passat may come back on the market for as little at $11,000 (it will be 5 years old) and certainly less than $21,727.

I think a way to work both sides of the street may, repeat may, be to do the buyback and then buy back your own or similar car.

Gary Barnhill said:

I'll repeat something I posted previously.
VW may, repeat may, be able to modify some turned in cars and then resell them on their used car lot.
My buyback is $28,727 and Modify is $7200.
If I keep car and pocket $7200 I would need to sell it for $21,727 to equal the buyback.
I'm thinking my 2013 SE Passat may come back on the market for as little at $11,000 (it will be 5 years old) and certainly less than $21,727.
I think a way to work both sides of the street may, repeat may, be to do the buyback and then buy back your own or similar car.

Click to expand...

You're onto something, Gary. Jason was talking about this same thing a few weeks ago.

I love my 2010 Sportwagen 6-spd. Love it. But I had decided I would take the buyback. Despite 101k flawless miles (I won't count the dead stereo) I got my first CEL last month (glow plug pressure sensor cylinder 3???) and thought "Oh boy, here we go." I need a new timing belt soon. What if the HPFP decides to self-destruct? What about when the DPF goes belly-up? Best get out while the getting is good. So I started doing some used car shopping. Ever shopped for a used car in the 100k mile range? It's not pretty. People are slobs. My car looks brand new compared to what I'm finding on the market. And what about MPG? The mid-2000s C-class Mercedes I've been looking at gets 21 overall MPG. 21!!! And that's on premium fuel! I filled my TDI tonight and logged 44.8 MPG on Fuelly. I will literally double my fuel bill every month by going to the little Mercedes!

Seriously thinking about hanging onto it now. Because I know the car. And because I can't seem to find any sellers who treat their car like I do. Basically the only person I'd be comfortable buying a used car from is...me.

Gary, look at seth's post above yours. From what I'm reading here deferring maintenance is going to be common with the turned in cars. And as CDubber writes above this post, not all cars are treated the same by their owners.

I'd be more inclined to take the restitution and keep the car you have. It's the perfect used car: one where you know exactly how it's been treated and maintained. That would be worth a cost premium to me.

We also don't know what VW will try to charge for the repaired cars. If there aren't any new TDIs for a while (or ever) they may not be inexpensive.

Indigo, that's a great point I hadn't thought about. Keeping our cars takes out the "unknowns" about buying a used car. Maintenance, was it driven hard, etc.

Cdubber, good luck finding any car that can do what our cars can do. They're literally in a class of their own, IMHO. I'm driving mine to Massachusetts next weekend to pick up a 13' fiberglass camper and will tow it all over the NE before heading back to Oklahoma. According to DerekG's fuel logs, I'll be averaging right at 30 mpg WHILE TOWING. A lot of gassers don't get that without a load. Not to mention the wagons immense storage space, great torque, excellent fit and finish, huge pano sunroof... I hear people talking about selling theirs back to VW and honestly, I don't understand it. To each his own, but what else even gets CLOSE to this car?

How to play the buy back.

Gents, I wholeheartedly agree with your observations about deferred maintenance and how others don't treat their cars with "love".

The only way I would follow through on my scenario is buying back MY OWN CAR, which is low miles (43,000 at 5 years), has been loved, and has a rear camera added. I will also spring for one annual oil change on my nickel but not any exotic high dollar inspection based on mileage.

My GM says he plans to meet each person returning a car. As he explains; an independent will buy the car and then gives the dealer and opportunity to buy the car from him.

The GM will take the potential resale cars and the rest will be shipped off immediately to who know where. Likely to the crusher.

So, at turn in time; I intend to have a sit-down with my GM (not just a sales guy) and see if we can work something out.

The worst he can say is "heck no" or yes, due to scarcity you can buy it back for $63,000. But, as I don't plan on turning in until late 2018; I will know how "scarcity" pricing is shaping up.

As a precaution: when turning in I will set aside the rubber floor mats, second key, phone charger, and manuals so they don't get "lost" during the modification process. If we can't make a deal; I'll give the dealer all the items I've set aside.

A rational man would think VW would offer an additional incentive payment to those who choose to keep their vehicles.

respond2us said:

Cdubber, good luck finding any car that can do what our cars can do. They're literally in a class of their own, IMHO.

Click to expand...

For me I think the only legitimate replacements would be a Passat TDI wagon or BMW 5-Series diesel wagon with AWD (and some beefy reserves in the bank for repairs ).

only problem with deferring maintenance, selling to VW, then buying the same car back would be if your Timing belt or something like that is done. Do you trust the dealer to do a correct full job on the Timing Belt?? (water pump, TTY bolts)

Since I seem to be the deferred maintenance person I will chime in, I have done all my maintenance when it has been due, as I stated I have no problem doing my TB as it is upkeep if I was gonna keep the car, the cracked DPF is what has pushed me towards the buyback, in the 5 years I have owned it since getting it new I have put in $3500 in repairs ! not upkeep but repairs , and this is having repairs done at a guru not a dealer for 95 % of the repairs and that is not counting if I did the DPF, and I have no idea if I did it VW would not just rip it out with their " fix", Putting 5 grand into repairs on a car I bought new is not what I signed up for, tires, DSG service hell any service i am fine with and have done then expecting to keep the car another three years and it would have gone to me son when he got his DL. I am also not including my HPFP that went in my cash out lay bc VW paid for that. As stated I am having a hard time finding something to replace it with but I am thinking the cracked DPF may be a sign it is time to get out of this car.

IndigoBlueWagon said:

Gary, look at seth's post above yours. From what I'm reading here deferring maintenance is going to be common with the turned in cars. And as CDubber writes above this post, not all cars are treated the same by their owners.

I'd be more inclined to take the restitution and keep the car you have. It's the perfect used car: one where you know exactly how it's been treated and maintained. That would be worth a cost premium to me.

We also don't know what VW will try to charge for the repaired cars. If there aren't any new TDIs for a while (or ever) they may not be inexpensive.

Click to expand...

There are lots of posts here more concerning than yours if I were looking at purchasing a bought back car. Yours was nearby. People who aren't changing their oil, servicing the DSG transmission, replacing brake pads, you name it.

I've bought a bunch of older TDIs over the years, and usually there's a bout $2K in deferred maintenance or repairs to do on one of those cars, if you pay for the labor. My point was that buyers of repaired common rail cars may face something similar, or worse, the failure of a major component as a consequence of ignored maintenance. I wouldn't be happy if I had go buy a DSG clutch pack, for example, because someone had not serviced the transmission. And if I bought one of these cars near the timing belt service interval I'd have it done regardless, just like on an older TDI. This will all add to the cost of the car.

seth1065 said:

in the 5 years I have owned it since getting it new I have put in $3500 in repairs !

Click to expand...

Yikes!!! I bought my car new in 2010, have 102k on the clock, and have only had to replace the battery and the dead factory stereo (which royally stunk anyway - thankfully my $500 gift card from VW bought me a vastly superior CarPlay unit from Pioneer). My current CEL indicates a potential glow plug replacement (I hope that's all it is), which shouldn't be much more than $100.

Did I get lucky and get one of the "good ones?" Or am I just enjoying an extended calm before the storm?

I'm likely keeping mine. Atleast another couple of years. I bought it last year august after always wanting a tdi. I love all the engineering that goes into these machines and despite all the worry about hpfp and dpf's. I got the car as CPO so I should be covered for another 15k miles until I hit 60k

My guess is you got a good one, mine was ok, but I had some issues from year 2 , I wa out of warranty , not complaining , in fact year 4 to 5 was shaping up as the year I put no repairs in until the DPF cracked, the dealer wanted $2600 to replace this " maintenance part", enjoy it, they are great cars and really nothing like them in their price range.

CDubber said:

Yikes!!! I bought my car new in 2010, have 102k on the clock, and have only had to replace the battery and the dead factory stereo (which royally stunk anyway - thankfully my $500 gift card from VW bought me a vastly superior CarPlay unit from Pioneer). My current CEL indicates a potential glow plug replacement (I hope that's all it is), which shouldn't be much more than $100.
Did I get lucky and get one of the "good ones?" Or am I just enjoying an extended calm before the storm?

Click to expand...

seth1065 said:

My guess is you got a good one, mine was ok, but I had some issues from year 2 , I wa out of warranty , not complaining , in fact year 4 to 5 was shaping up as the year I put no repairs in until the DPF cracked, the dealer wanted $2600 to replace this " maintenance part", enjoy it, they are great cars and really nothing like them in their price range.

Click to expand...

Before the diesel fiasco hit, I was contemplating selling my car and getting a used BMW 3-series. I talked to a local shop that specializes in European autos and told him I had a 6-spd TDI with 90k+ miles and not a single issue. He told me I'd better hang onto this car until the day it dies.

Yeah, there are good ones out there like mine for example, original everything down to Turbo and yes even brake rotors and pads. I ditched DPF at 180k, it was about 3/4 full. now chugging at 232k miles.

I'm on 3rd battery. 2nd Interstate. OEM lasted 2 years in harsh FL climates. 4th set of tires and 3rd set of rims. OEM rims didn't last long, bent and vibrated like there's no tomorrow. last set of steelies was bent but didn't vibrate too bad but gotta go. Now she drives like new. just ordered Bilstein HD shocks, rotors and pads and CP3 fuel pump.

Cdubber, that was sage advice. I do love the 3 series BMW though. And for a toy, the z4 seems like it would be a hoot.

respond2us said:

Cdubber, that was sage advice. I do love the 3 series BMW though. And for a toy, the z4 seems like it would be a hoot.

Click to expand...

I'm starting to think about a 10-year-old Boxster to keep my JSW company.

I love the idea. You can find those for seriously cheap money. I looked into them a year ago, and finding a nice one under $10k was simple. 60k miles or so as I recall. I'd prefer a Cayman, but those might not be so cheap.

Side note: Did you notice we have the exact same car? Except mine is tan interior.

Cptcrnch said:

I've been planning on keeping mine from the beginning. People are very short sighted. They see a big payday right now and are not thinking long term. When (not if) fuel prices go back up they'll regret taking a few thousand dollars as they're filling up their 25mpg gasser at $5 a gallon. Even if I'm paying the same for a gallon of diesel I'll happily motor by getting 45mpg.

Click to expand...

Well, I'm giving VW my car for the money then I'm going to turn around and buy a 1.9 Golf or Passat.

Cptcrnch said:

I've been planning on keeping mine from the beginning. People are very short sighted. They see a big payday right now and are not thinking long term. When (not if) fuel prices go back up they'll regret taking a few thousand dollars as they're filling up their 25mpg gasser at $5 a gallon. Even if I'm paying the same for a gallon of diesel I'll happily motor by getting 45mpg.
If the fix looks reliable I'll take it and the VW cash which will go straight to savings. If not I'll just keep the car as is and motor on - VW did nothing to me and the car operates just as promised when I drove it off the lot when I bought it. I've already taken care of the DPF issues and on friday will take care of the HPFP issues with a CP3 pump. Obviously this is just my take and what makes sense for me. Every situation is different and you gotta do what's best for you.

Click to expand...

I thought long-term when I bought my Golf TSI gasser. I didn't get 25 mpg on my last tank, rather I averaged a hand-calculated 39.8 mpg, in mostly rural driving with some autoroute. I'm getting much better fuel consumption than I anticipated with this car.

I have no DPF to crack, no expensive HPFP to ruin my entire fuel system, and moreover on average, if you factor in winter and summer prices, diesel here is slightly more expensive than RUG (the 1.8 TSI runs on RUG, it doesn't require premium).

Thrown in $3k more for a TDI (list price of a Trendline+ just before dieselgate broke), and I think on a cost-per-km basis my "25 mpg gasser that gets 40 mpg" is not doing so bad, thank you. And for this retired dude, total cost per mile, not fuel consumption, is what matters. Especially since I'm retired and my annual driving has decreased by about 50%

Mind you I also didn't have a cash handout from VW, I traded just before dieselgate broke mainly because my TDI was a garage queen and gave lots of grief. But we still have my wife's Golf TDI wagon (which has been almost flawless so far) and it will be a tough decision if VW offers a similar deal in Canada (which I doubt, we're less litigious here), we would probably spring for another wagon, but a TSI. The value proposition of CR TDIs just doesn't add up for me at the moment.

A VW Holiday in Mexico


Happy Holiday Folks

I'm writing this as an informative as well as entertaining narrative.

Prolog

I would strongly recommend if you own a VW TDI vehicle and you plan on keeping it (modified to comply by VW) to reconsider the possible consequences after 120K miles. If you are going to submit the car to VW for buyback I would strongly consider parking it until the car is to be turned in at the dealership.


Chapter 1 "Oh, What a Wonderful Car!!!"


I bought a beautiful VW TDI Sportwagon with moonroof for my dear wife Marianne in August 2010. She always said she wanted a Subaru, but in the end loved this car. Between the government turn in your junker deal, buy a low emissions car deal, VW’s we want to be your friend 1K funny money and the VW buyback deal we probably only paid like $3700 for this car. We drove it for 6 years and over 120,000 miles getting more or less 50 mpg on the highway. Marianne would say we got less MPG, because she has a lead foot. Over the life of the car the dealer did the maintenance for free the 1st 30,000 miles, then I took over the maintenance. The maintenance and repairs always had some entertainment value.

One time when I took the car into the dealer and got it serviced. I walked out to the car with John the service manager and opened the hood after they were finished. Popped open the battery cover and the terminals were totally crusty. John the service manager showed me how to effectively dress down your service Techs. Then there was the malfunctioning intercooler. John spent a good hour with me going over how to replace it and explained that if a rock or something hits the plastic underbelly pan just right it will damage the intercooler underneath. He diagnosed this without looking at the car. I drove away and got about a block, pulled over, and decided to look under the hood. Low and behold I found the intercooler switch wiring harness on top of the engine had been chewed up by a rat that had crawled up next to the warm engine in the middle of the night. Drove back down and showed it to John and he chuckled and said the 2 cars I had parked next to had similar wiring problems from rats. Turns out VW uses soy-based materials in the silver heat shielding wire insulation and rats really like it.

Then there was the air conditioner failure. Turns out VW uses a clutchless AC system. The AC system failed and all the dealers wanted around $1300 to fix it. The compressor needs to be replaced they said. There is a refrigeration control valve on the compressor that takes the place of the clutch. Dealer wants to replace a $900 compressor, I bought a new refrigeration control valve off Ebay for $35 and recharged the system. Total cost, about $100. I gave John the old refrigeration control valve so he could show other costumers how to fix the problem on the cheap.

This car was the most amazing wagon though. We could go from Sacramento to Ensenada, MX for $35 in total comfort. We did that every year too. All while emitting so little emissions nobody would ever see our carbon footprint wherever we went... We loved this car.


Chapter 2 "Volkswagon,... YOU LIED to US"


So then the news hits and you know all about it. Turns out VW has written a routine into their engine control computer to sense when the car is on a smog checking machine at a smog shop that will tune the car to put out less nitrous oxides, then put out 40 times the legal EPA limit after it hits the road. We were really stunned. This was a car that fit right into our environmentally conservative lifestyle and we were so happy with. It would run forever and was so clean, not really? Marianne drove around in the car feeling shamed and ready to move on ASAP from this beast that was a social automotive outcast, fraud, PITA, PoS,... I got lots of letters and emails from many law firms asking to join their class action suits against VW. The courts convened, and the settlement took forever, but they finally came up with a pretty good agreement. I registered the car for the VW buyback online under Marianne's name even though our registration and title for the car was under "Marianne or Me" as the online registration didn't have any way to register for the buyback for ownership of a car the way we were registered. Besides we were going to turn it in in Sacramento. How hard could that be?

We left one weekend to go up to Woodland for a baseball tournament. Turned out that one of my son's team mates father had a VW TDI he was turning in as well for buyback. He said he was going to park it in the garage so nothing would happen to it even though he wouldn't be able to turn it in until the paperwork and buyback process was done in a few months. I thought this was being a little paranoid. Even if it get's in a wreck, insurance would fix it to drive it back in. VW would buy it back regardless of what it looked like as long as it could drive onto the lot under its own power, right? What could happen?


Marianne drove the heck out of that car. To work, on political campaign all over the place,...


Chapter 3 "Thank's Giving Road Trip to Mexico"


Marianne's parents live happily in Playa Corona, Mexico. They're both getting along in life and this is a great place for them. They own 2 little cabana's next to each other about 100 feet from the rolling surf in a retirement vacation community. Life is slow and easy here. Manana Land.

The only drawback of living in Playa Corona, about 50 miles South of the US border, is that the rest of the family lives in Sacramento, CA or the foothills above there about 550 miles away. So we decided to make a Thanks Giving trip down to Chuck and Sidney to wind down and vacation for a week. Marianne mentioned that the glowplug idiot light flashed a couple times a few days before, and I told here I would check it out when I was changing the oil and filter before we left. I changed the oil and saw no warning lights. By the time we left we were all pretty excited about sun and sand South of the border as it was already raining quite a bit in Northern California. We piled everything into the car, including our aging lab Sammi. This was a much easier trip this time as Andrew our son was learning to drive and could share wheel time with mom and dad. In fact, he took my shifts ;-) We filled up in San Diego at a Mobile gas station I found using GasBuddy on my Iphone. Total gas bill was cheap. The expected $35. Onward, Southbound we went. We arrived in the evening and lounged for a couple days acclimating ourselves from the drive to the beach. Playa Corona, miles of sunny beach, Manana Land. Even the dog was chilling hard.

Winding Forward to Thanks Giving. My son Andrew asked me if I would let him drive around town with him. He’s getting his drivers license. No problem. So we drove around town for about a ½ hour then started down highway 1. On the way back down highway 1 he commented he had the gas peddle floored and the car wouldn’t go any faster than 35mph. I looked at the speedometer and noticed the glow-plug idiot light was flashing. So we struggled along back into town. We pulled out of a stop sign with no power and I had him pull into a side street. I popped the hood and looked things over. No magic smoke. Andrew turned it over and nothing happened. I called Marianne and she said she would come out with Chuck to pick us up. They came by and picked us up and we returned home to Playa Corona for Thanks Giving dinner. After dinner a local friend of the family came by and we went back to the car and slowly towed it back home to Playa Corona.

I do IT and have been a problem solver all my life. So it’s not surprising that I was up until 3am in the morning looking for the solution on the web. It was one of 2 things. Either the intercooler had water in it. We had driven through a huge puddle/lake from the rain a couple times or The high-pressure fuel injection pump had self-destructed. Water in intercooler was easy. Loosen the hose clamp, dump the water out. But the high-pressure fuel injection pump (HPFP) was a different story. Hundreds of people had claimed they had this problem and documented it online. They even had a serious class action suit lined up.

Basically, the shaft of the HPFP was originally made of tooled steel and VW upgraded it after they discovered it wasn’t up to snuff. When it goes out it distributes sand size steel and aluminum particles throughout the entire fuel system of the car from the tank to the injectors, destroying the tank fuel pump, and lift pump in the process as well. The repair involves replacing all 3 pumps, the filters, and cleaning all the fuel lines, sensors, injectors,… to a operating room sterile level of 2 microns. Nothing can be present in the system larger than 2 microns. Volkswagon Dealer shops charge $8K-10K to do it!!!


First thought that went through my head. Repair car for $8-10K (Plus tow to border and into US shop) to be able to drive the car onto the lot to get $15K buyback (VW requires car to drive onto lot under its own power). Wow that doesn’t sound good,…does it now.


3am in the morning after Thanksgiving I snuck out to the car to check the odometer. Turn the Key.


120,551 miles


REALLY?


I slunk off to bed. Thinking it is what it is. Hoping, praying there is water in the intercooler.


So the next day we called the local recommended mechanic Carlos. He came by and we put the front wheel trailer rig on the car and he towed it back to his shop. Obviously we were not first in line. I went back to the family and we worked out a plan. I drove Marianne and Andrew up to San Diego, got them a rental car and they drove home. I was staying as “the man on the ground”. So the next day I submitted all the documents online for the Volkswagon buyback process. Both the registration and title designated both my “wife OR me” as the owners of the car. This was intentional. By doing this either one of us can handle anything to do with the car. Volkswagon required copies of the ID of the owner, registration of the vehicle, and title of the vehicle to be faxed, mailed, or uploaded online. I uploaded all of the files in PDF format. 3 hours later they sent back an email refusing the owner ID. I called up and they said that they needed only Marianne’s ID. I said it was there. They said it was not. I told them Marianne would not be able to return the car to the dealer. I was the only one who could do it. They said they had to reset the portal for me to resubmit the info. As the database had Marianne as the primary owner. I should reregister online for the claim in 3 days.


I went to Carlos’s shop and checked on the car. I had found a DIY write-up to fix/clean the fuel system replace the pumps and get the car running. I showed Carlos the write-up. He had a couple cars in front of me, but was going to look at it. Still didn’t know if it was the fuel pump or intercooler. I explained the best I could how to find out but there was a bit of a language barrier, and he was pretty absorbed in the cars in front of ours. The next day I went to an Internet Café and printed out a copy of the DIY fix in color and took it down to him to look at. He opened the fuel filter and it had ¼ inch of metal sand in the bottom. Really Bad. Bad, Bad Bad.


So we discussed the DIY info I gave him. He looked at the material list and thought he could get them cheaper in MX than I could in San Diego. I told him I would check back the next day. I translated the DIY repair write up to Spanish and got it printed at the internet café the next day. I took it down to Carlos. He had checked the local supply house prices and they wanted a $1000 for the HPFP. I told him I could do better in San Diego. So I went back to the house and started pounding the net.


Turns out that the dealers in the US want about the same for the HPFP as MX. However, they want a $100 core charge. Turns out you can buy a remanufactured HPFP for $500 if you ask for it. They won’t tell you that unless you ask. I drove to San Diego the next day. I was driving my father inlaws Chevy Uplander the whole time while this was going down (Thanks Charley and Sydney). If you have ever driven from Mexico across the San Diego border you will know that getting from the edge of Tijuana to the border is different ever time you try, is risky because people drive crazy, have no insurance, people and animals run in and out of the street, and it takes about 2-4 hours. Stressful. I drove into San Diego and got the pump and drove back. 100 miles and one day of driving. Dropped off the pump the following morning. After I got the HPFP so cheap, Carlos sent me back to San Diego again for the other 2 pumps!!! Ughh!!!


I left Carlos to do his magic. I checked the VW claims portal and they said it wasn’t reset. I called Volkswagon and told them it wasn’t reset yet. YadaYadaYada. They said to wait a few more days. I wrote a short summary of what was going on and emailed it to Lieff, Cabraser, Heimann, and Bernstein’s law offices who was dealing with the VW litigation.


Then I started waiting,...

I walked the beach for an hour or so a day in the sun. I researched used cars to replace this car. I ate a lot of street tacos and tamales. I was very lucky to have brought my Mac Air. I installed Kodi and watched a lot of movies in the evening. Marianne lost her debit card and mine got shut down too. The only cash I had down here now was cash in my pocket, and money I got back from Raspberry Pi Kodi (bought a few while in San Diego) boxes I built for the locals. I missed my family,...


I checked on Carlos a couple times, and he was working on it. I really didn’t want to rush him because I knew from personally working on diesel fuel systems before that this was tedious work. 2 microns. No dirt, no dust. In Baja Mexico. I talked to VW again and they said that they were working on it.


While I was car shopping I realized some things obvious, and something’s not. The obvious was buying a new car off the lot was stupid. It would depreciate the minute it hit the curb. But we are now reaching a transportation paradigm with hybrid cars as a well-established norm, and electric self driving cars right around the corner. Straight internal combustion (ICE) cars are out. The 2nd realization was that the car we would be buying was only temporarily going to be Marianne’s. In a couple years Andrew would inherit that car and Marianne would be buying into one of the new used cars whether it was a hybrid or electric. The new used car was going to be a used hybrid.


So I got a call from Lieff, Cabraser, Heimann, and Bernstein’s law offices and explained what was going on. The representative spent about 2 hours in the evening going over what had happened and my recourses available and it turns out I was doing all the right things. He didn’t understand why the Volkswagon contracted claims handling company was so stupid. Saturday morning rolls around and Carlos calls. The car is running!!! OMG! I asked him how much it was going to cost in labor.


11,700 pesos.


I almost passed out right there. 11,700 pesos = $567.49!!! Materials were $800. Total repair cost was $1367.49. Plus food and fuel,… I dodged a big bullet. I love Mexico.


No Wall Please…


I had a buddy drive me down to the bank on Monday and it turned that it was a Mexican national holiday “Day of the Virgin of Guadalupe”. The banks were all closed. I couldn’t wire any money or anything. So my buddy pulled the $560 bucks out of the bank ATM, and I paid him back with Paypal. Then paid Carlos and got the car back runnnnning. Turns out Carlos had 33 hours in labor into fixing it. You do the math. I parked the car behind my in-laws house and figured to drive down when I have a buyback date from VW and drive it to the boarder, then 11 miles to the dealer in San Diego. It runs great, but has a check engine light and the engine diagnostics is showing 2 codes leading to a worn intake gate linkage of some sort. Marianne asked if I was driving up after I got it fixed. Hail no!!! I’m not tempting fate. I could see it now. Stuck in Bakersfield with a clogged injector or some sh...t. No way!!! Cut my losses.


I wrapped up business in Mexico (it’s been 2 ½ weeks of car-chaos) and bummed a ride to the border from a friend, caught a trolley to the train, and Amtrak’ed to Sacramento for $75. So I’m on the train in the rain thinking, watching the beach go by and thinking damn I’m glad I’m not staring at brake lights in the rain. I call up Volkswagon for the 5th time and the lady asks me for my wife or she can’t talk to me about the settlement. Nobody asked for Marianne before. What gives? Thank god for smart phones. I conferenced her in and went on to do business. Turns out that after 5 calls somebody on the other end actually looked at the owner ID file I uploaded and SCROLLED DOWN to find Marianne’s ID was in the file I uploaded to begin with 3 weeks ago. But because they reset the portal I have to download and resubmit the same owner ID PDF file and call back on Friday. She said she could reset the name on the file so I could deal with buy back in San Diego without dragging Marianne down from Sacramento.


So I called Volkswagon on Friday and the lady says she needs to talk to Marianne before she can talk to me. Conference called here in,… Lady says she needs to reset the portal to change the name so I can go pick up the car (last call the lady said she didn’t have to do that). I finally lost it. She told me she would have to hang up if I didn’t stop the profanities.

· The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, and expecting a different response.

· When you do the same thing over and over again and get a different response repeatedly. What’s that?

I tell her I need a manager, and he says I can use a power of attorney and that I can download it from the claim site. We never/don’t need a portal reset or whatever. Well now a different better response that sounds much more promising.


So now here we are at present. I have my Claim Offer and called Volkswagon again. This is a typical call to Volkswagens Claim line. It took me 52 minutes to complete the call. The lady didn’t ask for my wife. Really… She did confirm that the wrong Power of attorney PDF online was the correct one to submit. The power of attorney file she confirmed was correct basically was a document to confirm we have given up all ownership of the car to Volkswagen. That’s definitely not the document to give Volkswagen before you get a check from them. I have submitted all the correct paperwork now and am in waiting mode. I still have to go back down to Mexico to get the VW TDI wagon and bring it up to the border to the dealer to bring it in. This odyssey’s not over yet.


We bought Marianne a pre-owned Prius and we’re really happy with it.

PlaneCrazy said:

I thought long-term when I bought my Golf TSI gasser. I didn't get 25 mpg on my last tank, rather I averaged a hand-calculated 39.8 mpg, in mostly rural driving with some autoroute. I'm getting much better fuel consumption than I anticipated with this car.
I have no DPF to crack, no expensive HPFP to ruin my entire fuel system, and moreover on average, if you factor in winter and summer prices, diesel here is slightly more expensive than RUG (the 1.8 TSI runs on RUG, it doesn't require premium).
Thrown in $3k more for a TDI (list price of a Trendline+ just before dieselgate broke), and I think on a cost-per-km basis my "25 mpg gasser that gets 40 mpg" is not doing so bad, thank you. And for this retired dude, total cost per mile, not fuel consumption, is what matters. Especially since I'm retired and my annual driving has decreased by about 50%
Mind you I also didn't have a cash handout from VW, I traded just before dieselgate broke mainly because my TDI was a garage queen and gave lots of grief. But we still have my wife's Golf TDI wagon (which has been almost flawless so far) and it will be a tough decision if VW offers a similar deal in Canada (which I doubt, we're less litigious here), we would probably spring for another wagon, but a TSI. The value proposition of CR TDIs just doesn't add up for me at the moment.

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Well we ARE getting the same deal as the US after all, and once the VW paperwork comes through (probably in the spring) it will be a new TSI wagon for us. The end of our TDI adventure is near. Only one remaining will be my son's (formerly wife's) 2005 Passat with nearly 300k km on it and lots of rust.

Sent my 12 golf back and bought two salvage jsw's and rebuilt one. Swapped in a cp3 pump while changing the timing belt. Plan on keeping it for some time. Will probably go stage two soon as well. All paid for by the 12 golf buyback with tons left over. TDI's are too good for long distance driving to give up for me as my life is currently. It also worked out getting a bigger vehicle going from the golf to jsw. I love the amount of room in the back.

calimustang said:

...just ordered Bilstein HD shocks, rotors and pads and CP3 fuel pump.

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Please let me know how you like the Bilstein HD shocks on your car. I know your car is a JSW and I have a Golf, but I'd still like to hear what you think. I'm wanting them too, but haven't heard many reports about them on TDIs. I loved them on my previous car, but it was a heavier machine.

PlaneCrazy, that fuel economy is amazing! I had no idea gassers could do that well. Cool!

McGuirk said:

Sent my 12 golf back and bought two salvage jsw's and rebuilt one. Swapped in a cp3 pump while changing the timing belt. Plan on keeping it for some time. Will probably go stage two soon as well. All paid for by the 12 golf buyback with tons left over. TDI's are too good for long distance driving to give up for me as my life is currently. It also worked out getting a bigger vehicle going from the golf to jsw. I love the amount of room in the back.

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McGuirk, when we heard about dieselgate, we pulled the trigger on 2 rebuilt JSW's (perfect when we got them). Not because we wanted payout cash, I just figured we were already wanting them before...now they might be getting a lot harder to find. So we picked up 2 just to drive long term. These are our 4th and 5th TDI's and we've been so impressed with them. My MKIV Jetta had 292k on it when I sold it ($3500, btw) and still ran like new.
Enjoy those JSW's. I'm certainly enjoying mine.