Tracking a buyback car possible?

AGreen

Well-known member
Joined
Jul 8, 2014
Location
Jupiter, Florida
TDI
2002 Golf TDI, 5 speed; 2015 Passat TDI, DSG
Is it possible to track down my car after it is sold back to VW?

I would like to purchase back my 2014 Passat SEL if it is possible to locate it on the wholesale market (assuming it is not crushed). We were going to keep the car and opt for the emissions modification, but the spread between the buyback and the restitution payment is just too big. Our offer is $27.5k buyback and $7.5k restitution on a car with a street value of $12k. I see similar cars locally and may go that route, but I would prefer to buy mine back since I know it’s history since new and it’s been a good car for us. If not, well, we have plenty of other choices.
We spoke with the local dealer sales manager recently and asked if they ever opt to keep any buyback cars. He said the price they pay VW to keep them was too high and that all of their buybacks went out on a truck. He also said buybacks have slowed to a trickle and he encouraged us to get it done asap.
 

FloridaJohn

Veteran Member
Joined
Mar 25, 2012
Location
Palm Beach Gardens, FL
TDI
2012 Golf DSG - sold to VW
I'm pretty sure the agreement with the government prevents them from putting them back on the road unless the fix is applied. On most cars, the cost of the parts and labor to install the fix is more than they can sell the car on the used market. Plus you have the buy back dollars spent on the car already.


It's probably cheaper for VW just to crush them then to make them road worthy again.
 

akjdouglass

Veteran Member
Joined
Oct 3, 2013
Location
Jefferson City, Missouri
TDI
2012 Jetta w/premium (sold to VW); 2014 Jetta Value Edition; 2015 Jetta SEL; 2003 Jetta GL
The dealer you talked to is lazy and doesn't want to sell anything, apparently.

Regardless, the buyback dealer has the first option to purchase the car after you turn it in and VW comes up with the amount to be offered to said dealer. If buyback dealer declines, then all other VW dealers are given the opportunity purchase your car. If still not taken, the car will be sent out for public auction, or crushed.

Find a dealer willing to do the transaction with you. You will be without a car for a couple weeks while they apply the fix.
 

TDIforDays

Veteran Member
Joined
Feb 27, 2017
Location
USA
TDI
few of each 2.0 and 3.0
akjdouglass is 10000% correct.

Dealer that facilitates the buyback appointment gets first opportunity to buy the car from VW. After appointment, dealer has to "ground" the vehicle in their internal portal. Once thats done, VW sends them the price that VW wants for the car. If it doesn't get sold, VW puts it on VW dealer only website for other VW dealers to buy. If it doesn't sell there, it will go to wholesale auction where it will eventually be sold.

Tell the manager that even if its too high, can he please tell you the price at which he would be able to sell to you after they apply the fix.

I turn in a LOT of cars and sometimes the manager asks me if the car has any issues that I know of because he wants to buy it for his lot.
 

saucer

Veteran Member
Joined
Jun 4, 2010
Location
Fayetteville, AR
TDI
2015 Passat SE
If you know the VIN, you might be able to track it with CARFAX. I recently purchased a 2015 Passat and can see exactly when and where the fix was applied, and when it was subsequently sold at auction.
 

AGreen

Well-known member
Joined
Jul 8, 2014
Location
Jupiter, Florida
TDI
2002 Golf TDI, 5 speed; 2015 Passat TDI, DSG
Thanks for the replies.
The dealer did not refute that he could buy the car from VW, just that his price from VW on the cars was too high and with their “reconditioning costs” it wouldn’t be competitive with the other sources for these cars. That doesn’t make much sense considering the costs of shipping a car to a collection site, storage, auction fees and whoever else skims money from the car along the way. He was nice enough to hear my proposal, but I think he simply didn’t want to deal with it. I’ll try another dealer just to make sure. I thought if I left them a deposit and wait however long for the paperwork to clear, they could make an easy ($1k?) and retain my business with the service department. His response was “take the buyback” and “can I sell you something new from the lot?” A gas VW is currently not on our short list of replacement cars. He also told me that the buybacks have slowed considerably and he was one of the few remaining dealers to do buybacks in this area and cautioned me about the 85% quota being reached.

We are definitely taking the big stack of cash and if I can track our car down and buy it back from the secondary market, I’ll give it a shot. I’ll keep an eye on Autotrader, car gurus and try the Carfax route (thanks Saucer) to see if I can locate it after the buyback.
Does anyone know where the collection point is for South Florida?
Thanks for all the sage advice.
 

tadawson

Veteran Member
Joined
Jun 14, 2013
Location
Lewisville, TX
TDI
2013 Passat TDI SEL, 2015 Passat TDI SEL
85% means nothing - the program continues to it's mandated end date no matter what.

I think that you are crazy if you think a CPO 2014 SEL is only worth 12K as well . . . . Oh, and the 2013/2014 fix is a software flash only, so very little cost to a dealer . . . a couple hours time at best . . .
 

AGreen

Well-known member
Joined
Jul 8, 2014
Location
Jupiter, Florida
TDI
2002 Golf TDI, 5 speed; 2015 Passat TDI, DSG
Tadawson - good to know about the program end. I skimmed through the thread on that topic awhile back, but didn’t come away with a consensus from all the dialogue. So far this is the only dealer that I talked to and his words were that VW may terminate the program at any time and he warned me to expedite my buyback. We didn’t make the rules, so we chose to drive it to September or 79,999 miles based on the economics of the deal. It’s alot of money to lose if we’re wrong and we basically hit the mark, so we submitted the paperwork this week.

Yes, it’s a software fix on the 2014, so that would seem like a minimal hassle deal.

Regarding the valuation I made of the car, that was from KBB based on 2014 Passet SEL TDI with 80k miles, the fair purchase price is $12,051. There is a similar car for sale locally with only 48k miles for $13.5k - that’s before haggling. I’ve seen 2015’s with much lower mileage for sale around the $15k range. I have not looked at any of these in person, so maybe they’re bad cars. I’m in agreement with those that speculate that the general public isn’t passionate about diesel cars and that once the enthusiast market is saturated, the prices will continue to decline and even more dramatically as more buyback cars hit the market. I agree that CPO would increase the sell price, but will they CPO a 5 year old car with 80k miles? I didn’t ask for CPO, but, on the other hand, would be willing to pay some premium if they would. We never got to the point of taking numbers though. He basically said he was not interested in retaining any diesels for resale. He also speculated that electric cars were coming in the not too distant future. I said that I’d seriously consider a Tesla Model 3 if they had one available. :D
 

two

Member
Joined
Feb 7, 2018
Location
snohomish
TDI
2 2013 golf 4 door dsg's
http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=486210

hey guys I made a thread on this previously and have some updates:

The 5 sales managers I spoke to on the phone had varying degrees of interest in helping me - none were too keen - and none said that the dealer that did the buyback would have first crack at the auction.

They did say that a lot of the time the values seem high - too high to make a profit and that unless they are logged in all the time - which they are not - then there's a good chance they would miss the auction.

I decided in the end to do the buyback and buy another one - maybe - and if mine comes up - buy it - if not no big deal.
 

AGreen

Well-known member
Joined
Jul 8, 2014
Location
Jupiter, Florida
TDI
2002 Golf TDI, 5 speed; 2015 Passat TDI, DSG
Thanks for the reply - two. Interesting and it seems like we are wrestling with the same math and we had a similar experience with the dealers. Maybe i missed it, but did you attempt to buy back your blue car? Your last post was from Feb of this year.

Getting my own car back is monetarily worth something to me - just not $8k or even $5k. If the spread was $2-3k, then I’d go for the fix. Here in Florida, sales tax is around 6.5% and we can transfer the old tag to a new car to save a few DMV fees. I guestimate it’s around $1k to $1.5k in fees to sell/buy and the hassle of looking at a few cars. The upside is we can reset the clock with a lower mileage 2015 for a few bucks more and still be ahead. Or, we get something entirely different. They’re still making cars.

We have other cars to drive, so I’m not in a hurry to do anything. Maybe there will be some deals at the end of the year on last minute buybacks that come out. 2019’s are coming out too, so everything is a year older now. I’m betting prices on TDI’s continue to fall and VW will try to get these off their hands as quickly as possible. Pure speculation that they’ll want to capitalize on the enormous write off before the end of the year.
 

tadawson

Veteran Member
Joined
Jun 14, 2013
Location
Lewisville, TX
TDI
2013 Passat TDI SEL, 2015 Passat TDI SEL
Tadawson - good to know about the program end. I skimmed through the thread on that topic awhile back, but didn’t come away with a consensus from all the dialogue. So far this is the only dealer that I talked to and his words were that VW may terminate the program at any time and he warned me to expedite my buyback. We didn’t make the rules, so we chose to drive it to September or 79,999 miles based on the economics of the deal. It’s alot of money to lose if we’re wrong and we basically hit the mark, so we submitted the paperwork this week.

Yes, it’s a software fix on the 2014, so that would seem like a minimal hassle deal.

Regarding the valuation I made of the car, that was from KBB based on 2014 Passet SEL TDI with 80k miles, the fair purchase price is $12,051. There is a similar car for sale locally with only 48k miles for $13.5k - that’s before haggling. I’ve seen 2015’s with much lower mileage for sale around the $15k range. I have not looked at any of these in person, so maybe they’re bad cars. I’m in agreement with those that speculate that the general public isn’t passionate about diesel cars and that once the enthusiast market is saturated, the prices will continue to decline and even more dramatically as more buyback cars hit the market. I agree that CPO would increase the sell price, but will they CPO a 5 year old car with 80k miles? I didn’t ask for CPO, but, on the other hand, would be willing to pay some premium if they would. We never got to the point of taking numbers though. He basically said he was not interested in retaining any diesels for resale. He also speculated that electric cars were coming in the not too distant future. I said that I’d seriously consider a Tesla Model 3 if they had one available. :D

The 2015 model year is already out there in CPO in significant quantities, and I think that other years are beginning to be as well - the main gating factor is the condition of the car at buyback and mileage - not the age. As I think I noted prior, considering that the fix for the G2 Passats is just a flash, there is almost zero cost to CPO one of those above and beyond what it would had not of the shenanigans happened. KBB, as you noted, is used with zero CPO warranty, so if you want someone elses headache, you can go that route. Others won't . . . Myself, I know the history on my car, and don't want any unknowns, so took the fix and walked away happy . . . It's not all about just $$$$ . . .


Looking at CPO pricing, the only SEL Passat I can find on a quick check is a 2013 that is about 16K. In the 2015 year, the SE trim seems to be going closer to $18K, which would make me think that an SEL would be $20K or above . . . Note that the CPO I see is 50K miles for the 2013, and more like 30K on the 2015's, so not sure where you are finding any relevance to 80K miles . . . (other than perhaps that's what your car has on it . . .).
 
Last edited:

two

Member
Joined
Feb 7, 2018
Location
snohomish
TDI
2 2013 golf 4 door dsg's
Im doing both the blue and the black currently - never went through with it all until now. I am waiting now for my papers to get approved.

Beware on the 2015's - they are made in mexico and my experience in the past has been the mexican VW's are lower quality.

The only WVW (first 3 in vin) recent TDI's are 2010-2014 golf.

Also in 2015 they changed the engine - made some improvements and some things were made worse - its debatable which engine is superior.
 
Last edited:

AGreen

Well-known member
Joined
Jul 8, 2014
Location
Jupiter, Florida
TDI
2002 Golf TDI, 5 speed; 2015 Passat TDI, DSG
That’s a thing to ponder and in reading the content here, I’m not convinced that the 2015 is a better engine. People say it may be more “complex.” The prime factors for me are reliability and cost of ownership. Any minor power, economy and emissions differences are not strong concerns since this is the wife’s car and she just doesn’t notice things like that. One major disadvantage for me is the bottom side oil changes on the 2015. I really like the convenience of the topside changes on the 2014 (except for that poorly placed hard pipe that makes the oil filter nearly impossible to remove without making a mess).
 

two

Member
Joined
Feb 7, 2018
Location
snohomish
TDI
2 2013 golf 4 door dsg's
good points there - another thing I noticed was that the ea189 has piezzo injectors which are 4 times faster than the solenoid type on the 15+
 

GoFaster

Moderator at Large
Joined
Jun 16, 1999
Location
Brampton, Ontario, Canada
TDI
2006 Jetta TDI
I looked at some passats tdi vin #"S and they all started with a 3 : mexico.
Although there is a youtube video showing passats being made in TEN, not sure which ones though tdi or what.

EA189 vs EA288:

http://www.jameshalderman.com/images/vw/2_liter_tdi_common_rail.pdf

http://pics3.tdiclub.com/data/517/820433_EA288.pdf
All 2012-on Passats for the US and Canadian market, regardless of engine, are assembled in Tennessee, and there is no other VW plant worldwide that builds that car. The rest-of-world Passat is an entirely different car, built elsewhere, and not available in the US and Canadian market. Don't care what the VIN says - this is the situation.

Brief Google searching finds that the VIN for a US/Canadian Passat in that model year range starts with a 1, so if you saw something that started with a 3, it would have been some other model ... i.e. a Jetta, which is indeed assembled in Mexico (and nowhere else).
 

two

Member
Joined
Feb 7, 2018
Location
snohomish
TDI
2 2013 golf 4 door dsg's
ok thanks for confirming 2009 ?+ passat tdi origin. - I will add passat to my search when its time to buy another one.
 

Nurse Diesel

Member
Joined
Aug 18, 2017
Location
Florida
TDI
2014 Jetta Sportwagen 6-spd. MT
Not sure this is the right thread, but I imagine you all will let me know if it's not ;-)

I'm looking at a 2015 GSW that was sold back to VW in July 2017 but didn't go to auction until August 2018. I'm wondering where it was in the interim. Can anyone tell me how I can find out?
 

740GLE

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Aug 19, 2009
Location
NH
TDI
2015 Passat SEL, 2017 Alltrack SE; BB 2010 Sedan Man; 2012 Passat,
ok thanks for confirming 2009 ?+ passat tdi origin. - I will add passat to my search when its time to buy another one.
There were no Passat TDI from what 2006 until 2012, they were all gassers.

Passat TDI 2012-2015 were all USA assembled in Tenn.
 

AGreen

Well-known member
Joined
Jul 8, 2014
Location
Jupiter, Florida
TDI
2002 Golf TDI, 5 speed; 2015 Passat TDI, DSG
I called some more local dealers with my original proposal. Seems like a win for all parties given the situation, so I had to try again. At the dealership where we bought the car new, the buyback specialist was really nice and well informed. I spoke to the sales manager and he gave me the same story as the other dealers - that it was not cost effective to keep any cars turned into their location and that a truck comes once a week and picks them all up. However, he did say that they recently started buying them for their lot and based on sales, they are ordering more - huh. They currently have a 2015 Passat TDi SEL Premium CPO available with 30k miles for $20k and a 2013 JSW with higher miles for around $13k. Those are used car asking prices, so I assume they’re negotiable. I also assume that a VW dealer is only going to get the nicer cars.

We have our buyback approval letter and now have to upload the notarized copies. We were also just under 80k miles and the buyback amount seems to go down $500 if we go over 80k. We are considering trade in sometime early December. That gives us 3 months more use of the car for $500. It also gets us past a busy time and hopefully there will be better selection of cars then.
 

AGreen

Well-known member
Joined
Jul 8, 2014
Location
Jupiter, Florida
TDI
2002 Golf TDI, 5 speed; 2015 Passat TDI, DSG
The VIN on our 2014 Passat starts with a “1” and the sticker in the drivers side door jamb says Manufactured in Chattanooga.
 

740GLE

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Aug 19, 2009
Location
NH
TDI
2015 Passat SEL, 2017 Alltrack SE; BB 2010 Sedan Man; 2012 Passat,
They currently have a 2015 Passat TDi SEL Premium CPO available with 30k miles for $20k

For perspective, our new '15 Pasat SEL with 60 miles was about 27K, I'd offer then 17K out the door, they prob will still make money.
 
Top