TDI Bought-Back - Any Leverage For Buying a New VW?

My (2) TDIs were bought back at the end of 2015. We initially went away from VW and bought a BMW and a Subaru. We're looking at SUVs again and the Atlas is on our radar.

As anyone been successful using your [bad] buy-back experience as a leg to stand on for new car price negotiations?

Leverage!? Not likely ....

Absolutely not. Some VW will obviously try to sell you a new car because you did a buyback and probably want a replacement. But there are no special deals made by VW itself.

Only deal you can scrap up would be the same as any other deal joe blow walking in off the street could get.

You should be able to beat truecar prices if you really push it, just don't act like you need the car and wait until the end of the month and don't waiver from your price that you want to buy it for, be prepared to walk away if the dealer is being stuborn.

When we bought out Alltrack VW as offering customer loyalty discount of $1,000 off, dealer offered another $1250 off MSRP, I had to provide active registration of my 2010 at the time. Sadly Alltrack prices have tanked since Jan 2017 and if we had waited 8 months, we could have saved about 6-7K more.

Leverage? They might open the door for you.

When I sold one of the TDI's back to my local dealer, my wife purchased a GTI. They gave us the free maintenance plan up to 30k. Price wise, whatever you can negotiate but they were not offering anything else for TDI owners.

Just recently purchased another TDI from them too, 2013 Golf with tech and 6MT.

I'm selling my 2012 Golf Tech 6MT back to VW tomorrow. 121,000K miles on it. It's a great car, sad to see it go, but too good of a deal.

Is your 2013 a post fix with low miles? What did you pay for it?

IIRC VW did offer some incentives to TDI owners when the buybacks started, but I'm sure those are long gone. The buyback is between TDI owner and Volkswagen; beyond being the venue where the buyback occurs, the dealership has virtually nothing to do with the transaction beyond perhaps being paid for the use of the space.

My guess is if you ask for something off the price because of your "bad" buyback experience and they give it to you, they would have given it to you if you had asked before because it was cloudy that day...

Jimbo70 said:

IIRC VW did offer some incentives to TDI owners when the buybacks started, but I'm sure those are long gone. The buyback is between TDI owner and Volkswagen; beyond being the venue where the buyback occurs, the dealership has virtually nothing to do with the transaction beyond perhaps being paid for the use of the space.

My guess is if you ask for something off the price because of your "bad" buyback experience and they give it to you, they would have given it to you if you had asked before because it was cloudy that day...

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per their court order I didn't think they weren't allowed to offer any special deals to TDI owners, I sure don't remember anything when I bought back in Jan '17

But they did have VW customer loyalty rebates they kept extending month after month after month, this applied to anyone with a valid VW registration.

740GLE said:

per their court order I didn't think they weren't allowed to offer any special deals to TDI owners, I sure don't remember anything when I bought back in Jan '17

But they did have VW customer loyalty rebates they kept extending month after month after month, this applied to anyone with a valid VW registration.

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I'll ignore the double negative and say that I thought the whole "special deals" thing was directly involved with the buyback transaction. That being said, the dealer we returned our Passat to was the dealer I had been let go from about a month and a half prior, so considering loyalty offers from Volkswagen wasn't at the top of my mind.

goodysgotacuda said:

My (2) TDIs were bought back at the end of 2015. We initially went away from VW and bought a BMW and a Subaru. We're looking at SUVs again and the Atlas is on our radar.



As anyone been successful using your [bad] buy-back experience as a leg to stand on for new car price negotiations?

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I sold my ‘12 B7 TDI back to VW last Oct. It was VW’s opportunity to lose. They blew it. They knew I was interested in a ‘15 B7 TDI w/5k miles at a decent price. Their arrogance cost them my business. I purchased a ‘14 MB E250 Bluetec 4Matic w/100,000 mile Motor Train & Electric warranty. The mpg’s aren’t the same but the performance and creature comforts are superb.

FYI there has never been a B7 that touched the US shore and sold by a VWoA, it's the NMS Passat, difference is about 20K worth of car

Jimbo70 said:

I'll ignore the double negative and say that I thought the whole "special deals" thing was directly involved with the buyback transaction. That being said, the dealer we returned our Passat to was the dealer I had been let go from about a month and a half prior, so considering loyalty offers from Volkswagen wasn't at the top of my mind.

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ha, my bad.

Another thing is VWoA rebates vs sweet heart deals from the local dealer. VWoA wasn't able to offer specific TDI related rebates.

Way back in 15-16 we did get a slew of mailers from Volvo and few other makes, that stated if you owned a VW tdi they'd slash a few bucks off.

I think there has been a certain amount of confusion in this thread among the normal "incentives" available to any buyer who walks into a VW dealership and something that is linked to the buyback. I agree with "740GLE" in that the latter were specifically prohibited in the legal settlement. However, there is no reason why the traditional "loyalty" incentives, or those available through bargaining with the dealer or with a car buying service can't be used. When we bought our '13 Passat TDI, I obtained a Costco certificate (but didn't go near the dealer they listed) to bargain. A dealer offered a lower price than that on the certificate, and we bought from them.

It is kind of odd. I turned my Golf TDI in last year at the end of January and a sales rep gave me his card and I did express interest in a Wolfsburg Golf. I even called and never got a reply. Ok. I guess I can concentrate my attention elsewhere.