Depending on the fix, and depending on the amount that VW offers to buy it back, at the moment I'm leaning towards letting VW buy it back.
I always said I would never buy a new car, but the Sportwagen was good enough to me that I ordered it from the factory and waited 5 months to get it. I thought I had bought a car that I would be able to keep for 15 years. I knew of the HPFP problems and was willing to accept some risk there. I added (and did almost all of the work myself) a towing package and necessary wiring, tinted windows, the expensive floor mats, bumper cover on the top of the rear bumper, mud flaps, I had just upgraded to very good Michelin tires, I just upgraded the braking system, I bought the VagCom system, I bought specialty tools and sockets for the car, I bought 10 years worth of oil filters, I made interior hauling accessories, I bought exterior towing accessories specific to the car... I had every intention of keeping this car for a long time and you could say I'm heavily invested in it. But now I'm to the point where a major service is coming up and I'm not sure if I should perform it or wait to see what VW's answer will be. And I've been in this limbo for almost a year now.
If they offer $5k with no fix... that's tempting because it's still the car that I bought. But I need to know what the fix is. If the fix is made mandatory, I'm selling the car back. If the fix is something that will likely result in no spare parts being available of the original design, I'd probably sell the car back. If the buy back price is the $21,000 I estimated according to KBB + $5k... I think I'll sell the car back and go back to riding my motorcycle, driving my old 4Runner, fixing my '82 Suburban up a little more, and paying off my backhoe.
I still get a little irked every time I get an e-mail from VWCredit asking me to make another payment on the car. I only have payments until November, but it makes me a little annoyed that I have to live up to my end of the contract when I feel like they didn't live up to theirs.
I still need to figure out what I'm going to do with the $500 goodwill dealership card too.