Selling a TDI in a post #Dieselgate world

So I thought that some of you might be interested in knowing what happened with our cars values after the whole dieselgate news came out this week. Just a little background about my situation, I had been planning on selling my car for a while now as I'd just recently moved 2 miles away from my work.

The vehicle I'm replacing my car with is a 2015 Ford F150 4x4 w/ the 3.5 Ecoboost engine (I wanted the RAM ecodiesel but its towing an payload numbers were unimpressive). I go the truck because we're going to be towing a 24 foot travel trailer with it (7000# GVWR). That being said, my TDI is paid off an not a financial burden, so I'm not selling as a knee jerk reaction, I just no longer need the car. Originally when I'd ordered the truck I was of the opinion that this car would be easy to sell. My wife and I have decided that if we can't get what the car is worth then we're just going to hold on to it for a while and I'll drive it for longer distance trips.

Below is a copy of the Ad:

1 owner VW TDI Sportwagen diesel w/ 56k miles. - $17000

- Purchased new by me at Herzog Meier VW
-Black exterior with black interior
-Panoramic sunroof
-6 speed DSG transmission
-Rear Bumper Lip
-OEM cargo barrier (no longer sold $500+ new)
-New Michelin all season tires.
-2nd set of rims w/ Michelin x-ice snow tires
-hitch receiver for bike rack
-OEM mud flaps
-fitted window shades
-clearshield clear bra front end protector
-comes with OEM rubber and cloth mats
-transferrable warranty to 110k miles
-fog lamps
All services done at VW dealerships (have all paperwork).
-TSB done for cold weather intercooler (not many cars have this done, regular intercoolers are prone to icing in colder weather).

I'm selling because I moved 2 miles away from my work and have purchased a truck. I've been meticulous about the maintenance on this car. It's been a great car and the next owner is sure to love it. I have the title in hand. Please contact me if you're interested.

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I will update this thread as to what I'm seeing for responses and offers on my car.

Called VW care yesterday to ask if they'll buy back the car, this obviously went no where.

Received an offer yesterday for 10k on the car, explained that the offer was due to the dieselgate news that just came out. I responded with an offer of his new price being $20,000.

Also someone from a local news station contact me this morning wanting to do a piece on the VW emissions scandal an how it affects current owners. I replied that I'd be happy to interview, we'll see if anything comes of it.

Interesting.....I definitely plan on keeping mine, but I wonder how long resale will be affected. It's a good time to buy one privately, not so much selling one though.

There will probably be a lot of car "flippers" making a ton of money off of this!

I tend to keep my vehicles untill kelly blue says they are worth -$200 usd.

Imho now with all the hype just isnt good placement for product.

Nuttendiesel said:

There will probably be a lot of car "flippers" making a ton of money off of this!

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Possibly, though I'm not selling mine due to the dieselgate scandal. I just happen to have very unfortunately timing for the sale of mine.....

Gawd, i know there is mega thread out there and so many questions possibly exceeding the comments. Can someone tell me in a nut shell what it really all means to a TDI owner in California? Does any of it really matter?

Rustydog said:

Gawd, i know there is mega thread out there and so many questions possibly exceeding the comments. Can someone tell me in a nut shell what it really all means to a TDI owner in California? Does any of it really matter?

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Currently it means absolutely nothing. You will eventually have to get some form of recall performed on the car and it seems that CARB will try to push to make this recall be completed before being able to re-register the vehicle. Other then VW got caught, admitted it, and set aside $7.3 billion, not much else is known.

CA seems to be a state of limbo right now.

Sorry I think you are kidding.... $17,000 for a 2011 is too much. KBB for an excellent car per your description, $14,800. If it where in pristine perfect condition, like new, $15,200. As far as the $10,000 offer, ha ha. Yea that is a line. Tell them to run along. they are scammers. The word NO, is a complete sentence. Did you make counter offer? Is the person serious? Doubt it. Black on black is a good color, but silver and white are more popular.

All your accessories, extra tires does not count, unless it was for a special right buyer, but you are better selling them separate. You always lose on accessories and extras you throw in, pennies on the dollar. It may mean you sell the car quicker, but it does not change price much.

Also did you really called VWoA and asked for them to buy your car? Come on. This thing just happened. They will reflash your car and it will get the same less power and MPG than before, but it will get sticker which is as low as 32 mpg I recall. There is nothing wrong with the car... so it has higher NOx output in some real world conditions... So what... it is a great car.

Don't panic. I would hold onto it, wait for VW to deal with it, or try and sell it and put your bottom line down...

Since I drive a VW diesel, some people I know have now asked me if I thought they could now get a good price on a newer diesel.

I don't think people care about VW's current predicament, if they can score a good car at a low price, they'll jump on it. I certainly do not expect any significant movement in the newer used market for the VW diesels. No one seems interested in NOx.

it will get the same less power and MPG than before, but it will get sticker which is as low as 32 mpg I recall

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I have no idea what this means...

MontrealTDI said:

I have no idea what this means...

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It means most TDI's today (with the cheat software) driven in mixed driving (city/highway) get in the low to mid 40's mpg. All highway you can get 50mpg. The sticker on these cars I recall was 42 to 32 mpg.... Most TDI's do better than sticker. My best tanks were 50, 52.5 and 49 mpg in a row on a long trip. I drive 60/30 highway/city and you can see my average below. I should be getting less than this for mixed driving according to sticker.

The fix per recall (conjecture) is likely they will change the cars computer (ECU) to lower emission; this will lower efficiency and power because they are going to boost the EGR (exhaust gas recirculation) and Regens.... This is too complicated to explain here, but trust me it will LOWER MPG. It will be in line with the sticker...

As far as power it will still be safe, but no doubt it will not have as much of the outstanding low end grunt... torque.

Yes both of those are important and what makes the car fun to drive. It does not mean the car will be total crap.... however 10% loss in mileage will piss people off... and yes I suppose lower the value, but not $5,000.

Perosnally could care less, I am not in a state that tests and not selling my car for $10,000 or $20,000....

Even sticker MPG is pretty descent.. my lip will stick out of course, but to be fair this car has allways performed better, power, handling, and eco wise than my old civic coupe, and it has waaaay more utility. Hopefully it goes just like the last reflash did in ny, dire warnings about maybe not passing your inspection, and not much else.

The only real bummer now is my Prius owning electric car officionado Uncle can really bust my huevos over my not so clean diesel lol.

Josh, please keep us updated on what kind of responses you get. I'm in Germany trying to sell a clean '11 JSW TDI manual in the next couple months due to a military move. I really don't want to eat the $1500 it's going to cost me to ship, just to wait for VW to figure out what they're going to do.

IMHO, it will definitely take the market time to stabilize. Until then, you can't blame buyers for not paying top dollar or close to it. I think ultimately, it will achieve lower mpg but it should still get the EPA sticker mileage (why wouldn't it if that is what it gets now in its test mode?) which is pretty damn good. There won't be the premium on resale that pre-owns get now but the car will sell just fine (after the fix is in).

The fix will be a big one. I for one am waiting to see what exactly will be done to fix the issue. From what I've read a buy back might be cheaper for VW (at least if only the US issues a buy back). I'm just waiting to see what happens next.

To quote an old NASCAR saying, "If you ain't cheatin you ain't tryin'". VW should re-program the ECU so that if some gizmo gets shoved up the tailpipe a tailpipe sensor detects a test and reverts to no power mode to pass the test. Just a different version of what we have now. I bet they could do that. This all such BS.

gmcjetpilot said:

Sorry I think you are kidding.... $17,000 for a 2011 is too much. KBB for an excellent car per your description, $14,800. If it where in pristine perfect condition, like new, $15,200.

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You have to start somewhere, I've sold cars before, never put the car up for what you're willing to take. Its a sales tactic, let the buyer come away thinking they also got a good deal.

gmcjetpilot said:

As far as the $10,000 offer, ha ha. Yea that is a line. Tell them to run along. they are scammers. The word NO, is a complete sentence. Did you make counter offer? Is the person serious? Doubt it. Black on black is a good color, but silver and white are more popular.

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I hate craigslist lowballers, they are the scum of the earth. I always respond to them with a higher price, so yes the higher price was my counter offer.

gmcjetpilot said:

All your accessories, extra tires does not count, unless it was for a special right buyer, but you are better selling them separate. You always lose on accessories and extras you throw in, pennies on the dollar. It may mean you sell the car quicker, but it does not change price much.

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Accessories do make a difference, aftermarket modifications not so much. Thanks for your opinion though.

gmcjetpilot said:

Also did you really called VWoA and asked for them to buy your car? Come on. This thing just happened.

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Yes, I did this knowing what the outcome was, this was for documentation purposes should I not be able to sell for fair market value. Remember, I bought a another vehicle with the reasonable assumption that this one would sell for fair market value and VW would not have done something illegal to hurt the value of my asset.

gmcjetpilot said:

They will reflash your car and it will get the same less power and MPG than before, but it will get sticker which is as low as 32 mpg I recall. There is nothing wrong with the car... so it has higher NOx output in some real world conditions... So what... it is a great car.

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My issue is the crappy timing of it, hurts me financially because of the timing I wanted to sell my car. I have to reiterate that I'm not selling the car due to this issue. I bought another vehicle (truck) and no longer need a TDI as I live 2 miles away from work.

gmcjetpilot said:

Don't panic. I would hold onto it, wait for VW to deal with it, or try and sell it and put your bottom line down...

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I'd prefer not to hold on to it and suffer the carrying costs of holding on to a vehicle I no longer need.



In other news, I have a reasonable offer on the table, the buyer is coming out to look at it on Sunday.

Palladin said:

To quote an old NASCAR saying, "If you ain't cheatin you ain't tryin'". VW should re-program the ECU so that if some gizmo gets shoved up the tailpipe a tailpipe sensor detects a test and reverts to no power mode to pass the test. Just a different version of what we have now. I bet they could do that. This all such BS.

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Yeah, the fix (whatever it's going to be) isn't quite as easy as you're making it sound. I'm sure it has already been covered in depth here.

Lets just say that my wife questioned not having DEF on these cars when we purchased it in 2011 (at the time she worked for a large truck manufacturer and dealt with after treatment systems).

FWIW we just traded the wife's 2011 JSW with DSG/pano roof with 82,000 miles in great condition and received $11K which was very close to the KBB trade in value. This is amount our VW dealer offered as a trade in value on a new Tiguan but after shopping more my wife preferred another brand. The ownership group of the local VW dealer also has several other brands who honered the $11K offer which we accepted.

I would normally sell the car myself but given the recent debacle I've not had one inquiry while having it priced at $13,500 as a private party sale.

Disclaimer: We did not sell the car solely because of the emissions issue but it did speed up our decision considerably as we did not want to wait around and deal with whatever is coming.

shamrok said:

Josh, please keep us updated on what kind of responses you get. I'm in Germany trying to sell a clean '11 JSW TDI manual in the next couple months due to a military move. I really don't want to eat the $1500 it's going to cost me to ship, just to wait for VW to figure out what they're going to do.

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$1500 to ship will be a better price than the hit you'll take attempting to sell in this new post dieselgate environment. Europeans are pissed at VW too. Maybe even more.

Keep it, but do NOT get the ECU flashed if you can avoid it.

I'd be interested in how this turns out for you and Josh.

Have a second interested party, right now their big hangup is the #dieselgate scandal. Should know tomorrow if they want to proceed with purchasing my JSW.

Namakan said:

FWIW we just traded the wife's 2011 JSW with DSG/pano roof with 82,000 miles in great condition and received $11K which was very close to the KBB trade in value. This is amount our VW dealer offered as a trade in value on a new Tiguan but after shopping more my wife preferred another brand. The ownership group of the local VW dealer also has several other brands who honered the $11K offer which we accepted.
I would normally sell the car myself but given the recent debacle I've not had one inquiry while having it priced at $13,500 as a private party sale.
Disclaimer: We did not sell the car solely because of the emissions issue but it did speed up our decision considerably as we did not want to wait around and deal with whatever is coming.

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Did you do this before or after this started?

Philpug said:

Did you do this before or after this started?

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After the debacle. We went to VW and others on Saturday and traded it in Wednesday of this week. My wife had planned on replacing it with a small SUV before it hit 100,000 miles however the recent events just sped up the decision.

Namakan said:

After the debacle. We went to VW and others on Saturday and traded it in Wednesday of this week. My wife had planned on replacing it with a small SUV before it hit 100,000 miles however the recent events just sped up the decision.

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Out of curiosity, did the dealer know about this? If not, I assume you didn't bring it up.

Traded in my 2011 Golf TDI about 4 months ago on a 2015 Subaru Crosstrek. The Sub dealer gave me $16000 Canadian for the TDI. It's still sitting on their lot as of yesterday. Might be their awhile.

Cogen Man said:

The Sub dealer gave me $16000 Canadian for the TDI. It's still sitting on their lot as of yesterday. Might be their awhile.

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I bet their are a lot of car dealers sweating about their used VW TDI inventory right now.

dgoodhue said:

I bet their are a lot of car dealers sweating about their used VW TDI inventory right now.

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That would be a safe bet. A buddy of mine just picked up a 2015 Tig with a trade of his 2011 Golf TDI. He signed the deal 2 weeks ago.

The value our our cars is already dropping like a rock. Last night I took my '12 JSW DSG with 47K miles to Carmax. It scored 100% on the inspection...they said it is perfect in every possible way. They only offered me $13,500 due to "uncertain market conditions"