Bigger payout if you park the car and wait?

I was just looking at Mileage Adjustment and have a question:

Doesn't it make sense to wait as long as possible before turning it in to increase adjusted mileage benefit if you can park the car?

If car is parked for 10 months, your new adjusted mileage is 10K miles less which gives you more money back.

Am I correct or is my math wrong?


Thanks

Correct. If you're talking about the Q7, I think you get 1,500 miles per month.

Correct, though there may be other costs associated with that--interest on a loan (if the car is financed), insurance, registration, etc. But it's a factor to consider.

Edit: But you don't get 1500 miles/mo on the 3-liters; you get 15k/year, or 1250/mo. I got tripped up on this myself in a different thread.

Is the replacement car your driving going to be getting better MPG than the TDI your parking. If not the extra money you get back by not driving the TDI will just be used to pay for gas in a different car.

IMO most would be best off holding on to the car for as long as possible and driving at your normal rate.

I didn't want to be specific regarding exact mileage because there are plenty of 2.0 and 3.0 owners here and didn't want to start the exact mileage argument

Thanks for confirming my hypothesis

There is a ceiling, but this is more a factor for later model years. Our turn-in maxed out in February. Holding it until December 2018 would have gained us nothing. However, waiting until February netted us an extra $600 vs. a January turn-in date.

foggedz said:

Is the replacement car your driving going to be getting better MPG than the TDI your parking. If not the extra money you get back by not driving the TDI will just be used to pay for gas in a different car.

IMO most would be best off holding on to the car for as long as possible and driving at your normal rate.

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This!

Not to mention the battery and other oddities that will need to be fixed by sitting so long.

jdyno718 said:

This!

Not to mention the battery and other oddities that will need to be fixed by sitting so long.

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Not everyone has only 1 car or no space to store cars. Not every state even requires you to have registration or insurance if the car is just sitting.

If calculated right, this can be very lucrative for some people.

jdyno718 said:

This!

Not to mention the battery and other oddities that will need to be fixed by sitting so long.

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fixed? just jump it and drive directly to the dealer. you should have seen the one my friend turned it.... yea, that was a mess.

my car was basically parked from early December till 2 days ago for my turn in. put maybe 500 miles on it since December as I was driving my winter beater jeep or a beater MK4, I dropped my insurance to minimum as well.

Aside from the money you will have tied up in an idle investment sitting in your driveway, things happen to cars that just sit. Rubber parts can continue to deteriorate, things rust or corrode, moisture builds up and is not driven off by the heat of operation, etc.

I would think that if you were going to do that, you would at the minimum want to put a battery tender on the car, some algae preventer in the fuel, etc. Plus, if a tree falls on your car, and its uninsured, you may be wandering off into dispute territory.

Yes, I own an 11 Treg that will be maxed out mileage wise in July 17, no benefit to hold it. The 09 Q7 can earn until the end of the program due to high miles.

jdyno718 said:

This!
Not to mention the battery and other oddities that will need to be fixed by sitting so long.

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Then,

Rodent, rats, bugs, chewing on stuff.

I did the math for this very scenario. I haven't driven mine since July. Had I turned it in in the fall, I would have gotten $23,627. Letting it sit, I will get $25,697 if I turn it in Sept 2018. Thats a gain of $2,460. Car is paid for, took off insurance and registration. I start it up and drive around the cul-de-sac every 3 months to keep it going. Thats a guaranteed 10% return. Had I kept driving the TDI, I'd only get less than $20,000 when I turn it in Sept 2018. Meanwhile...bought and driving 2008 Grand Cherokee diesel. 22mpg. Will cost me about $800 extra fuel per year over the TDI. I still come out ahead and drive a much better vehicle. There isn't a downside. All it has to do is run when I turn it in and it will. The best thing is I bought the car when it was 6 months old for a smoking deal of $20,500. I'll walk away with $5k more than I paid for it and drove it for 2 years!

The biggest factor that no one has mentioned is the depreciation on the car you are driving instead of the TDI. You get 1000+ miles for free on your TDI and 5 cents per mile after that. You can't get depreciation that low in a replacement vehicle unless it's an old beater. Just because you don't have some tables that clearly spell out how much value your replacement car is loosing doesn't mean it's free.

Depreciation definitely isn't free, but I get well over $5k in free depreciation on the Jeep. If I kept driving the Jetta it loses the $5k because of mileage. I drive the Jeep for 2 years and it depreciates $5k. Its a wash, but again I am driving a much better vehicle during that time. Sitting on the Jetta for that long is a big benefit because it pays for the depreciation. There is no downside to this.

Mine goes to the dealer Monday afternoon. I've pushed my luck by driving with a check engine light for 4 months. My last gamble will be driving 200 miles today to see my niece before she moves off to take her first big girl job. World I'll warn you that she likes to play dumb blond but she has a doctorate in nuclear physics and a masters in nuclear engineering.

jheen said:

Depreciation definitely isn't free, but I get well over $5k in free depreciation on the Jeep. If I kept driving the Jetta it loses the $5k because of mileage. I drive the Jeep for 2 years and it depreciates $5k. Its a wash, but again I am driving a much better vehicle during that time. Sitting on the Jetta for that long is a big benefit because it pays for the depreciation. There is no downside to this.

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In your case you already have and are driving (and depreciating) the Jeep so the comparison is the cost differences between getting your buy-back money now or letting it sit for 2 years. 24 months * 1025 miles = 24600 miles adjustment, worth something like $2000. $30,000 buyback is worth approximately $3000 of safe investment return at 5%/year after 2 years. Are you sure that makes sense?

gulfcoastguy said:

Mine goes to the dealer Monday afternoon. I've pushed my luck by driving with a check engine light for 4 months. My last gamble will be driving 200 miles today to see my niece before she moves off to take her first big girl job. World I'll warn you that she likes to play dumb blond but she has a doctorate in nuclear physics and a masters in nuclear engineering.

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Impressive credentials amigo.

Be careful during those 200 miles.

The buyback $$$, the relief at turn-in and - above all - seeing your niece should put an outrageous smile on your face.

ez

Just make sure, as you park your "risk free investment" for an extended period of time, that it is not subjected to an attack by hungry rodents with a taste preference for wiring harnesses. That could render the car undriveable, and require a costly repair.

Some mice being sucked into the turbo probably would not go well either.

@k1xv,

Indeed. An if you drop insurance, you might want to put it somewhere where a tree can't fall on it. Keeping the car for another year is low-risk, but it isn't quite risk free.

Obviously, this thread is only relevant for people who don't have to actually use the car. I won't even go into trying to schedue as few miles as possible, or using some computer program aka UPS or FedEx to try to shorten trips. Not why we bought the car!
Our Passat is in regular use, and it will be used regularly with no particular thought of any "mileage intervals" until we turn it in. Yes, if it was like several of our neighbors, one of which has a toy Corvette that sits much of the time under a cover, and the one who has a leased MB 350E that he unabashedly calls his "toy," that would be something else entirely. We have no such vehicles, nor do we plan to have.
OTOH, it makes sense in so many other ways (discussed in other readily available threads) just to keep the car and drive it until the latest available date in 2018, when we will bid farewell to our first (and, it appears, our last) diesel and jump back into the gas world with a car to be named later.

jheen said:

Depreciation definitely isn't free, but I get well over $5k in free depreciation on the Jeep. If I kept driving the Jetta it loses the $5k because of mileage. I drive the Jeep for 2 years and it depreciates $5k. Its a wash, but again I am driving a much better vehicle during that time. Sitting on the Jetta for that long is a big benefit because it pays for the depreciation. There is no downside to this.

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info on the jeep? is it one of the older 07s?

Wait, what? I just read this thread and I completely misunderstood the buyback.

First, I thought we had until like March-May of 2018, not September?

Second, I thought if we just stayed below the monthly allotment of miles there wouldn't' be a reduction of a payback. Those monthly allotments actually accumulate into more money on the buyback?

If that's true, I've been looking at this thing all wrong!

dashbarron said:

Wait, what? I just read this thread and I completely misunderstood the buyback.

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Apparently so.

First, I thought we had until like March-May of 2018, not September?

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You thought incorrectly. You have until September 2018 to file your claim, and until the end of December to complete the buyback.

Second, I thought if we just stayed below the monthly allotment of miles there wouldn't' be a reduction of a payback. Those monthly allotments actually accumulate into more money on the buyback?

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You can gain value by not driving for a while, depending on the specifics of your situation. Suggest you do a bit more reading.

dashbarron said:

Wait, what? I just read this thread and I completely misunderstood the buyback.

First, I thought we had until like March-May of 2018, not September?

Second, I thought if we just stayed below the monthly allotment of miles there wouldn't' be a reduction of a payback. Those monthly allotments actually accumulate into more money on the buyback?

If that's true, I've been looking at this thing all wrong!

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Well, I don't know about "all wrong," but you were evidently mistaken about a few things:

1. The final turn-in date (when your appointment to turn in the car will be) is December 31st, 2018. (This is on a Monday, but it's also New Year's Eve...so it would depend on whether or not VW is actually doing any buybacks that day. I'll probably schedule ours for the week before Christmas. It would certainly be advisable to register and make that appointment far enough in advance. The class counsel, in a recent interview, recommends registering now, and then making an appointment when you want.

2. The mileage calculation is somewhat involved, but it is what the legal settlement says it is. The more the car is driven, the less the buyback amount. In the same way, the less it is driven, the amount increases. How this actually works is something I won't go into in this post, because it's been completely covered in other threads. There is a nice thread posted as a sticky at the first part of the "Scandal" section of the forum that makes it easy for this month (March 2017).

The more you know........

Thanks guys for the clarification!

Edit:

So now that I have my head on straight(er), it looks like if I waited until the 39th on December, I'd get an additional $1920 than I do now, assuming I park the car today. Assuming the math is good.

dashbarron said:

Thanks guys for the clarification!
Edit:
So now that I have my head on straight(er), it looks like if I waited until the 39th on December, I'd get an additional $1920 than I do now, assuming I park the car today. Assuming the math is good.

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Good luck getting anything from the dealer waiting until that date.

wild03 said:

Good luck getting anything from the dealer waiting until that date.

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Dec '18 is the 39th month, FYI, for calculating BB value.

wild03 said:

Good luck getting anything from the dealer waiting until that date.

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I haven't gotten a dime from any dealer so far in this process, but I've gotten about $65k from VW. I don't plan to wait until 2018, but there's no reason to believe they won't honor any valid claims submitted by 9/2018.

Just got the appointment reminder email for my '11 Jetta. It has been in the garage with monthly battery charging since August. The final offer letter 2 months back but dated in Nov 16 showed $16,487 coming my way. Now the figure in the appointment reminder is up to $17.087. This is nice given that I only paying $22/month to insure it. So good things do come to those who wait.