Quick Emissions Fix/Resale of 2011 Golf Buyback

CHawk

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Joined
Apr 22, 2016
Location
The Great Pacific Northwest
TDI
2011 Golf TDI 4D DSG (gone buyback)
I sold my beloved 2011 Golf back to VW on February 1. A cared-for one-owner car with only 44K miles and pretty much like new cosmetically (always garaged), I hoped it was a candidate for the emissions fix and resale to an appreciative buyer. Apparently, it never left the dealership. I googled the VIN and found it was listed for sale on the dealer website on February 15, two weeks after buyback, and it's already been sold.

Looks like dealers may be getting first dibs on the best buybacks to stock their used inventory. Still, surprising that vehicle ownership could transfer from me to VW to the dealer, with emissions fix and any other maintenance, inspection, and detailing, in only 2 weeks.
 

spark143

Member
Joined
Jun 6, 2017
Location
pa
TDI
2014 jetta
Emissions Fix/Resale

I turned my 2014 jetta on march 9 2018. The sales manger conducted the buyback process. During the process he asked if my car had been in any accidents or had any mechanical trouble. I replied no, why do you ask? He then told me, the dealership had the first opportunity to buy the car from Volkswagen and then sell it. I asked how long the turnaround for resale was? About 4 to 6 weeks depending on what fix and how busy the dealership was.
 
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CHawk

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 22, 2016
Location
The Great Pacific Northwest
TDI
2011 Golf TDI 4D DSG (gone buyback)
I guess the dealers are performing buyback triage. My buyback transaction was definitely handled by a contractor, but there's probably been an agreement between VWGOA and the dealers to give the dealers first shot at top-condition/low mileage buybacks. Certainly a win-win-win (VWGOA, dealers, and used car buyers).

I'd be curious to know which vehicles go to the crusher and which end up in "other" sales channels. When I googled 2011 Golfs, it looked like most of them were being sold by VW dealers, probably the best of the buybacks. But there's got to be close to 400,000 TDIs that have been bought back by now. Where are they? I don't see nearly as many on the roads as I did 2 years ago. Did 300,000 go to the crusher? Did they get exported?
 

flargabarg

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Joined
Jul 31, 2005
TDI
2011 Touareg Lux TDI
The crusher across the street from my work has been doing a brisk business in generation 1 TDIs.
 

2010TDI

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Nov 2, 2011
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USA
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2010 Jetta Sedan TDI 6MT, 2010 Jetta SportWagen TDI DSG (sold), 2014 Jetta Sedan TDI DSG (sold), 2015 Golf SportWagen TDI DSG

flargabarg

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2011 Touareg Lux TDI
Have not taken any lately. I will grab one tomorrow if I remember. There is usually a pretty good stack of them behind the fence.
 

flargabarg

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Joined
Jul 31, 2005
TDI
2011 Touareg Lux TDI

Here you go. Look at the back row. There are new TDIs there most days. They never go out on the lot for parts, just from the truck to the crusher to the stacks of scrap.
 

CHawk

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Joined
Apr 22, 2016
Location
The Great Pacific Northwest
TDI
2011 Golf TDI 4D DSG (gone buyback)
Here you go. Look at the back row. There are new TDIs there most days. They never go out on the lot for parts, just from the truck to the crusher to the stacks of scrap.
Thanks for posting. It's a shame to see this. Seems like somebody on this planet could replace a pollution-spewing 30-year-old car with one of these and we'd all be better off. But EPA says otherwise.
 

MichaelB

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Aug 11, 2009
Location
SE Wisconsin
TDI
2014 Passat SE DSG
Thanks for posting. It's a shame to see this. Seems like somebody on this planet could replace a pollution-spewing 30-year-old car with one of these and we'd all be better off. But EPA says otherwise.
Well, many of those cars are there because the buyback money was too good, this includes many of the members of this forum. You can not blame the EPA VW Lied and cheated. How many of the drivers of the 30-year-old pollution spewing cars would have bought them if they were put up for sale? Not many me thinks. ;)
 

flargabarg

Veteran Member
Joined
Jul 31, 2005
TDI
2011 Touareg Lux TDI
Many of these are likely to have major mechanical or cosmetic faults. VW is not stupid - if they can get more money fixing and selling them, they will do that, since they are allowed to do it. Think of people who did full deletes on the cars they sold back, or filled them with fish guts, or whatever. Given the thousands of cars parked at the storage lot nearby so far they are not actually crushing as many as you might think. I agree that if they could replace very old cars with these it could be a huge win, but there really isn't a good way to do that inside of the existing system.

In short, I get it, even if I don't love it. At least the steel and aluminum will be reused, which saves a fair bit of energy.
 

flargabarg

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Joined
Jul 31, 2005
TDI
2011 Touareg Lux TDI
Just walked by and checked. Those are all already crushed. It is clearly an operation that includes pulling no parts.
 

2010TDI

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Nov 2, 2011
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USA
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2010 Jetta Sedan TDI 6MT, 2010 Jetta SportWagen TDI DSG (sold), 2014 Jetta Sedan TDI DSG (sold), 2015 Golf SportWagen TDI DSG
Just walked by and checked. Those are all already crushed. It is clearly an operation that includes pulling no parts.
Crazy stuff, thanks for the pic.
 

CHawk

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Joined
Apr 22, 2016
Location
The Great Pacific Northwest
TDI
2011 Golf TDI 4D DSG (gone buyback)
Well, many of those cars are there because the buyback money was too good, this includes many of the members of this forum. You can not blame the EPA VW Lied and cheated. How many of the drivers of the 30-year-old pollution spewing cars would have bought them if they were put up for sale? Not many me thinks. ;)
Sure, the money was good. That's the main reason the majority of us took the buyback. But the fate of the cars bought back was dictated by EPA in the terms of the settlement. That included NO EXPORT for unfixed vehicles. That took a lot of creative options off the table, including permanent export to countries where the emissions fix could have been done cheaper and where most of these vehicles would be an improvement in emissions AND safety from vehicles currently on the road. This could have been done under the auspices of an NGO. EPA's action condemned probably hundreds of thousands of these vehicles to the crusher (cost of repair + warranty + dealer prep + transportation + transaction costs + profit [risk] > sales price).

My argument with EPA, from my perspective as a scientist who specializes in environmental impact assessment, is that EPA never did any science on the NET environmental cost/benefit of taking all of these high-mileage vehicles off the road and replacing most of them with lower-mileage vehicles that required energy and materials to construct. Protecting the environment is EPA's job and science is the foundation of any action to protect the environment. They didn't do that. This was a political decision. Any decent environmental assessment would have also examined alternatives that might have led to environmentally better ways of handling the buybacks than the crusher.
 

flargabarg

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Joined
Jul 31, 2005
TDI
2011 Touareg Lux TDI
I recall there being a quote about the overall impact being considered. Where did you see that it was not?
 

CHawk

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Joined
Apr 22, 2016
Location
The Great Pacific Northwest
TDI
2011 Golf TDI 4D DSG (gone buyback)
I recall there being a quote about the overall impact being considered. Where did you see that it was not?
I never saw any mention that the environmental impact was analyzed, and repeated searches of both EPA and California Air Resources Board websites have failed to turn up any scientific analysis. EPA is not required by law to do environmental impact analysis of Clean Air Act enforcement actions, which is what the VW case was, but the law doesn't preclude them from doing an analysis in cases where the environmental benefit is not clear. Given the magnitude of the VW case, with hundreds of thousands of late-model, high-mpg vehicles heading for the crusher, an environmental impact analysis should have been done.
 

flargabarg

Veteran Member
Joined
Jul 31, 2005
TDI
2011 Touareg Lux TDI
I thought I saw mention of it in the court transcripts. I would have to go back and look to be certain.

I know the consideration to allow a fix that did not meet original emissions targets came out of an environmental impact assessment of some sort, as it was absolutely mentioned in the court transcripts. On mobile right now, so they are a headache to search.
 
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