VW finds oldest running VW diesel in CA

[lbhskier37]

friggin hyundai dealership, what scum could possibly lower themselves to sell that garbage next to our beautiful sometime german some times south american built machines of complexity.

The kind of scum that maybe wanted to sell a high quality, high volume car because he wanted to sell enough product to feed his family.

 

[sassyrel]

>6 month lease

That guy was foolish to surrender the car for 6 months of leased nothing. I would have told VWoA 'no deal.' Or they return the 77 Rabbit after the lease is up.

thats what im saying--he got no "bargain" from vw--jacarsses

 

[MicroRacer]

I would have told them to keep the Toureg. If they couldn't give me a car that got the same mpgs then they could keep it. That $500 gas car is going to run out real quick.

 

[sassyrel]

ya--like in a lot less than a week!!!

 

[jbleu101]

Touareg V10 TDI and a $500 gas card to drive it.

What good is a gas card if they just "gave" you a Diesel!

I think it is pretty cheap to lease the car to him for 6 months. I hope there is a $1 buyout - I suppose that would be extra publicity for VW in 6 months. Reality is they just gave him about $6K for his Rabbit. I think I would take the Rabbit back. They are going to run that car all over the country and get PR out of it for $6K (less since that is a "business expense" for VW) and you could not even make a stupid commericial for a nationwide audience for that price.

Obviously, he got screwed. Heck, he is at the dealer. Who does'nt get screwed there? I hope they bought him dinner first.

PS Assuming 16 mpg and $2.89 for #2 Diesel, he would have to drive 2,700+ in order to blow thru his fuel card. I suppose if he goes to Vegas and back and thru a large section of CA (illegally, I might add. LOL) he might be able to burn that kind of fuel in a week. At a constant 65 mph that will take him a cool 42.58 hours.

 

[dauber]

He is only 4 hours from Vegas, so that will not work.

I was looking at this thinking now I can go test drive on with the V10 TDI if they have them in Bakersfiled, but then I read all the posts. Hopefully they will be here soon.

 

[06SpiceRedTDI]

looks like my 78, same color even. I was only off by a year.

 

[Prometheus]

The lease could perhaps be an incentive for him to drive it as much as possible in 6 months. That way he has to rack up 15,000 miles so he can register it legally in a CARB state under that loophole. VW would then get a lot of press as the car is driven all over to publicity events.

The article does say:

"He's first driving to Lancaster to show his father-in-law, then he's off to Vegas, "Frisco" and ... the world."

Plus he hopefully gets the previosuly suggested idea of a $1 lease buyout. This would aslo be good pr for VW.

By reading that VW did the lease to avoid having to make him pay for taxes I am hopeful they are also nice enough to give him the car at a good cost when the lease is up. It would really suck if they just take it back.

 

[Lug_Nut]

The lease could perhaps be an incentive for him to drive it as much as possible in 6 months. That way he has to rack up 15,000 miles so he can register it legally in a CARB state under that loophole.

Plus he hopefully gets the previosuly suggested idea of a $1 lease buyout. This would aslo be good pr for VW.

It's 7500 miles, same in MA and NY (also CARB states). The requirement is that the vehicle has to be previously titled and registered in a non-CARB state and have 7500 or more miles to be considered a 'used' vehicle and no longer subject to the emission restrictions on 'new' vehicles.
VWoA can't be the lease owners as they are considered the manufacturer. The title would not have been transferred from the 'manufacturer' and would therefore not be considered 'previously titled' for the purpose of circumventing the requirements.
If VWoA sold the truck to to an independent leasing company and then picked up the payments for the soon-to-be-disappointed ex-Rabbit owner, then the title would be in the leasing company's name. VWoA, to make good on a $1 buyout would have to pay the leasing company the value of the truck (title back to VWoA as owner, no longer as manufacturer) and then give the truck to the ex-Rabbit owner. That is far too likely to raise questions with the EPA and CARB.
My suspicion is that VWoA will take what is still their truck back and the former Rabbit owner will be walking in 6 months (or will buy a Hyundai from the same Bakersfield dealer).

 

[Andrei Rinea]

Total ripoff if you ask me. The Rabbit is worth at least 100k$ as a special vehicle. 6 months of having an ugly thing that has a gas-like mileage... What happens after 6 months anyways?

 

[jim04tdi]

The Big "Duh"

The big "Duh" sales event is perfect for the VW / Hyundai dealership.

VW celebrates 30 years by doing a diesel promotion yet they offer no diesels in present line-up beyond V-10 Guzzler. DUH!

Since this is our only offer and it needs special oil, filters, mechanics, blessings and multiple prayers, why not buy the gas. DUH, DUH!

Or hey, lets just walk 10 feet to the left and purchase a SanteFe for 25K and then buy a second and still be cheaper than Taureg. DUH, DUH, DUH!

Oh, and while we are over here and VW cannot offer the US a small car with either gas or diesel that does better than 30 mpg I'll just buy another Hyundai with cash I still have leftover. DUH, DUH, DUH, DUH!

I think perhaps VW should just abandon the US market if they have no intent on actually playing in it. They offer us token selection and by far the worst dealer network of all the car manufacturers. Although I cannot blame it all on the dealers. They work with what they get which is zero support.

In Israel they have advertisements all over the airport for VW's. There are like 10 models on the poster. All come with diesel options. I don't want to hear emissions as an excuse. They knew about it for years. The US market is ripe for killing with small and midsize fuel efficient cars. How come Honda, Toyota, Nissan, Hyundai, Kia, even GM can offer this? (although gas only) And yet not VW. All I have to say is - DUH.

 

[chewy]

Sorry buddy. VW will still be the first to offer a diesel passanger car for sale in all 50 states at a reasonable price. The 170 hp 2.5 now has decent fuel economy compared to the competition. Check out the Toyota 2.4 units, they don't do any better. The 200 hp 2.0 TFSI also gets very good fuel economy ratings.

 

[lbhskier37]

Sorry buddy. VW will still be the first to offer a diesel passanger car for sale in all 50 states at a reasonable price. The 170 hp 2.5 now has decent fuel economy compared to the competition. Check out the Toyota 2.4 units, they don't do any better. The 200 hp 2.0 TFSI also gets very good fuel economy ratings.

Sorry back to you but the 2.5 has wretched fuel economy. Real world fuel economy average for the 2.5 with an automatic is about 25mpg. My bigger 1992 buick regal V6 with more power and torque easily beats that. V6 Impala does at least that good and four cylinder Japanese midsize cars easily do it too. The 2.5 is a joke, I can't believe they give us that junk with all the good engines they offer the rest of the world. There is a reason the 2.5 is only offered in NA, no one else in the world would pick that engine.

 

[chewy]

1992 Buick Regal is rated 17/26 by new EPA mpg at best.

2.5 Jetta Rabbit Auto (170 hp/177 lb-ft): 21/29, Rabbit manual 22/29

Scion TC (161/162) 21/29 (21/27 manual) xb (158/162) 22/28

Considering that the 2.5 gained 20 hp and only lost 1 mpg with the new EPA rules, you would have to think that VW tuned up the engine a little. The 2006/7 version didn't line up too well with the competition, but it looks much better now.

VW's TSI engines require PREMIUM fuel. Average consumer freaks out that their 16k econo box requires premium fuel and cries high costs. Change that and VW's better engines have a higher chance of getting here.

 

[lbhskier37]

1992 Buick Regal is rated 17/26 by new EPA mpg at best.

2.5 Jetta Rabbit Auto (170 hp/177 lb-ft): 21/29, Rabbit manual 22/29

Scion TC (161/162) 21/29 (21/27 manual) xb (158/162) 22/28

Considering that the 2.5 gained 20 hp and only lost 1 mpg with the new EPA rules, you would have to think that VW tuned up the engine a little. The 2006/7 version didn't line up too well with the competition, but it looks much better now.

My regal might have only been rated at 17/26, but real world I average about 29mpg. The new ratings might give a more accurate combined rating, but the new rating system doesn't accurately show highway mpg at all on any car.

Accord is a much bigger car, rated 23/31 with new rating for the I4 manual, Civic is rated 26/34, the Impala with a big V6 and automatic is rated at 18/28 and that car is much bigger with more power.

 

[Steve-o]

My suspicion is that VWoA will take what is still their truck back and the former Rabbit owner will be walking in 6 months (or will buy a Hyundai from the same Bakersfield dealer).

Last I had read about it, VWoA did not stick a gun in the guy's ribs to make him hand over the keys to the Rabbit. He chose to take the Touareg. Now if he's not bright enough to figure out that, in six months, he'll be walking, that's his deal, not VWoA's. Or he knows he'll be getting the Rabbit back at some point. Looking at the situation, this guy doesn't seem like the type to make impulsive decisions. Hey, he's been driving the same car for 30 years! Maybe he's got a 20-year-old diesel Jetta in the next garage stall.

 

[ArnoldHarris]

I would not mind buying that 1977 VW Rabbit diesel. It gets slightly better mileage than my 2006 VW Jetta TDI w/5-speed manual transmission.

Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI

 

[g-wagen]

VW Mistake, CHECK IT OUT!

Though we already heard the results of the oldest and highest mileage competition, vw had the article, which I just received in VW's DRIVER magazine today, look for the highlighted mistakes, you'd think volkswagen would know at least a little more about their products than we do

http://pics.tdiclub.com/showphoto.php?photo=39357&cat=500&ppuser=46535

 

[jck66]

I am not sure a $1 buyout on the lease would satisfy the IRS that this fellow didn't receive $60k in extra income if it came down to an audit.

 

[MrMopar]

I am not sure a $1 buyout on the lease would satisfy the IRS that this fellow didn't receive $60k in extra income if it came down to an audit.

The IRS doesn't need to know about it . . .

It's like when I purchased my parents old car from them last year. Blue Book value for private party sales is about $2,000. We reached an agreement for a different price due to some bargaining and bartering, but I then found out the IRS (Illinois Revenue Service) still taxes a car at the time of purchase for a decent amount of money. So what did I do? I told the guy at the counter of the DMV that I bought the car for $1, and paid the minimum tax of $25. Do you think the IRS is going to come looking for me saying that I owe them money on "income" for paying less for a car than it was actually worth? Heck no, they're not going to do that.

Granted, I'm small potatoes to them. But I don't think the IRS could stretch a $60k car purchased for $1 into "income" for them to tax. Maybe if the guy bought the car for $1 and then turned around and sold it for $50,000, that might be considered income from an investment that appreciated instantly. Think of all the MSRPs that GM had on their cars, and then sold the cars for thousands of dollars less than that when no one wanted to buy a GM. Did the IRS track those people down and say "You paid $20,000 for a $24,000 car, that's $4,000 of income that you owe us tax on . . ." I'm no tax lawyer, so maybe I'm wrong.

 

[Judd]

You guys seem to forgotten that he has traded in another car for this vehicle. VW could value that vehicle very high therefor offsetting most of the cost of the new Touareg.

Judd