Volkswagen has decided to cancel the ID.7’s arrival in America. Now, automakers canceling cars isn’t anything new, but this one was particularly sad. American journalists reviewed the ID.7 and it was supposed to come out last year, but Volkswagen has sort of given up. But at the same time, it sounded like the car wasn’t going to be cheap or super competitive, anyway.
As I’ve said before, Volkswagen is just sort of sad nowadays. At least its older cars were weird while they were broken down on the side of the road. Matt asks what product should VW try sending to America next, and there were some shots fired by V10omous:
An apology note to everyone unfortunate enough to have owned one built in the last 35 years.
Harsh! Next, we go to my article about how Bryan Nesbitt is taking over the reins at GM Global Design. I’d love to see a rebirth of an HHR-like car from GM, but StillPlaysWithCars has a great take:
If he makes cars less angry I’ll be happy.
Finally, we arrive at today’s Shitbox Showdown, which featured a 2009 Honda Fit going up against a 2017 Chevrolet Sonic. I love owner stories and we have one from XLEJim700:
I have a ’16 Fit, and my daughter’s second car was a ’15 Fit. She now drives a 2019 model.
It’s a well designed car that cuts like a skateboard on a two-lane, and hauls like a pickup @ Home Depot.
I have a set of Blizzaks on it right now, and it churns thru the white like a hungry grizzly on a hot lunch. Snowstorms really don’t matter.
I also have a set of Thule roof racks and Alumatec wheels. In Milano Red it looks pretty sharp. I came up with muscle cars, sports cars, and lots of fast Kawasakis. At this point I’m happy with a well-balanced car.
Besides, If I want excitement I always have my ’17 Camry. !!
Have a great evening, everyone!
With VW being the 2nd largest auto group them not making the iD7 just means it’ll be here as an Audi A6 e-tron or Seat maybe.
Do they sell Skodas in the US?
Nope. We were in Prague last year and I really liked a lot of the Skodas that I saw.
Unfortunately no
It seems to me that a lot of VW buyers aspire to be BMW owners (GTI driver, I’m talking about you)
And they turn the jerk attitude up to 11
(Mercedes Streeter, I’m not talking about you. You are awesome!)
Well, for a while, the 2nd Gen Jetta GTI was considered a perfectly reasonable modern version of the BMW 2002.
I loved my Mk6 GTI when I had it new. It was quick enough when tuned to hang with sports cars and had premium looks good enough to not feel self-conscious at a valet. I know they’re both 3 letters but GTI drivers don’t all aspire to BMW levels of fuckery.
Our 74 SuperBeetle ate a few pot-metal window cranks, and the starter solenoid failed 3 years in. 82 Rabbit LS had finicky sunroof drains, and the matchbook I stuffed in the door card to stop it buzzing was still there when parents gave me the car 20 years later. The 87 Golf had alarming electrical failures. 1/2 way into a 2hour drive trying to beat sunset, the alternator inexplicably stopped charging (later tested fine somehow). Car was only a year old. Made it home with no lights on. It kept having electrical issues—and that was the last new VW my family ever bought
If I write what’s really wrong with VW’s approach to the American market, VAG fanboys will jump on me like a pack of dogs on a three legged cat. And that is a huge part of why VW has the problem in the first place. VW thinks they’re premium. VW fanboys think they’re premium. They are not premium and never have been. But starting in the late 1980s, VW decided to just absolutely fleece their faithful American buyers. They’d dangle a decent handling car at a decent price, built to the absolute lowest level of quality, then inflate the price into the stratosphere with a few common options. The fanboys would fawn, sales would start good but start falling off as VW squeezed more money out of buyers and cut quality more. Average buyers who shopped VW products would move on to much lower priced, better made Asian and American cars while VW fanboys would make excuses and deride the “unbelievers” for not understanding the greatness of a car brand that broke down constantly while charging a premium for the terrible quality. And bizarrely enough, VW has never figured out that having a small, rabid cult following does not translate to large sales. Take that whole fartfromonions, farvfignewton, whatever, tagline. VAG fanboys ate it up. “See? We get it. VW is special.” Normal people thought it was a medical condition that might require medication. But ONLY fanboys gave a crap and everyone else thought it was weird as hell. Maybe VW knows their base. And their base seems to tolerate crap quality and rapacious pricing. But they’re on their way out of the American market because too many “normies” and former fanboys have figured out exactly what they are.
VW also likes riling up those fans with some odd moves.
Beyond the bait-joke of harlequins, elimination of the Golf Wagon, and loss of awd/all track golf (R excepted).
The latest kick of roughly 50% of historical buyers of GTIs, now, will re-think their next vehicle as the drop the 6MT.
Agree.
VW had a few unique offerings that were good value and didn’t have many competitors. If you want a hatchback, if you wanted a wagon, if you wanted those with a manual, they were the place to go. And they were the only reason a lot of people were going into the dealership – not because they wanted a VW and that’s the one they chose. Because VW was the only option (or at least without spending double on a BMW wagon).
I think VW will find that the venn diagrams don’t overlap near as much as they hope.
This describes us exactly. We still do love our 2019 Alltrack 6MT. We got it because we wanted a wagon and we wanted a manual. We even got it to replace the Jetta TDI Sportwagen 6MT that we turned in after it turned out that VAG had lied to us about the environmental benefits that drove us to that car. We returned to VW despite the lies, only because we wanted a manual wagon. There will be no reason to return to them for our next car.
I’ve got a 2017 GIT with the 6MT and I love it, but I hadn’t even considered getting another one later. I want to move into something with RWD that’s fun to drive and available in with a stick, hopefully that has more power.
….just like Tesla
Eh, some VWs at least managed to feel premium (I remember poking around a MkVII Golf and MkVI Jetta side-by-side several years back, and the difference was stark that the Golf was quite a bit nicer). Just, the North American market has settled on demanding a premium badge on their premium cars, and people buying lower cost cars tend to depend on them too much to deal with the VW headaches.
The base MkVII GTI had heated tartan seats and android auto, plus a turbo and was a blast to drive for right at 25k (mine was $25,025 in 2017).
I worked at VW and desperately tried to make the point that without SEAT and Skoda to be their entry level options, VW couldn’t possibly be a premium brand. None of the Germans could believe that or how low a market share VW has here
Sounds a lot like Subaru buyers today.
Thank you for posting this! That’s exactly how I feel about VW too. They never were a premium brand. They grew large by selling very cheap cars with air cooled engines.
VW can make fun cars. VW can make technically interesting cars. VW can make durable cars. VW can make cars that are easy and inexpensive to repair. Problem is, they can’t combine all of those traits into a single model.
They did once, way back when.
The base Rabbit when it first came out. Fun to drive, no crap to break, and I remember it as not needing fixing, but it sure looked like it would be easy to work on.
Twice, then.
My ’17 GTI was close enough. I’d buy another one in a heartbeat (never should have sold it, damn Carvana to hell), though what I really want is a longroof GTI.
Isn’t that a Jetta GLI?
Not unless they make a GLI *wagon*. I needed more cargo space than the GTI had.
I feel like a Golf Wagon GT would have been a no-brainer. Same mechanicals, the 1.8T was just fine, but with the GTI’s suspension, interior, and looks. It would have cost them nothing to offer, total parts bin special. I would have left skidmarks getting to the dealer. But no, we got the stupid jacked-up black plastic slathered Golf Outback instead. I need AWD in Florida like a need a couple of ex-wives.
“Not unless they make a GLI *wagon*. I needed more cargo space than the GTI had.”
And my subsequent VW Jetta GLI wagon search came up bupkiss too 🙁
There was never a Jetta GLI wagon. In Europe, VW did sell the Golf GTD wagon, which was basically a GTI wagon with the highest output TDI motor in it, as nobody would want one with a gas engine over there. In the earlier gens they sold some fairly hot Golf/Bora wagons with gas motors, but never with the GTI styling AFAIK, but I am pretty sure you could have gotten a VR6 or VR5 wagon back in the day. More lux than sporty though. In theory I would love to have a GTD, but the sad reality is that diesel isn’t worth the bother anymore.
Point taken. Thanks.
Your options are short delivery, high quality or low price. Pick any two but be prepared to sacrifice the third.
Most of the issues (apart from them being boring) can be fixed with reasonable service intervals. Of course those would look bad in their main market Germany where people rarely keep them past first 100tkm.
Also having less plastic accessory parts would help, but that’s basically all the manufacturers these days.
As European my main gripe is the focus on crossovers. OK people have bad taste and this obsessions with crossovers is silly. However wagons still sell very well (compared to sedans) on this side of the pond. Surely they could do a new e-golf and e-passat instead of crossovers. The original e-Golf even wasnt’t that expensive. And surely the ID3 can be morphed to golf wagon shape. And no, I don’t count ID7 as passat replacement, it’s much more expensive and basically just a crossover crossdressing as wagon.
Nothing on my Volkswagen that has gone bad would be part of a “reasonable service interval” for any other make of vehicle.
It only has 78,500 miles on it, and the check engine light is on yet again. Another O2 sensor or two? Another PCV valve? Another ignition coil? Camshaft position sensor? I don’t know yet, and I’m over it. Break out the credit card. Again.
And there are a few parts loose on the interior that wouldn’t be loose on a Toyota or Honda for another ten years or more. Door handles, for one. Who TF makes a door handle, that you pull on every time you get into the car, capable of coming loose during normal use before the car is a shitbox? VW, apparently.
If we weren’t keeping it for irrational reasons, it would’ve been gone years ago.
I’ll admit that VW is capable of making some great cars, because I know others who’ve had trouble free cars, including the same model and/or engine and transmission that I have. But they’re simply not capable of making great cars, consistently.
I’ve got a used 2020 GTI. The damn thing has an interior buzz at 1500-1800 rpm. I’ve tried to tear the interior apart to find the culprit. Removing the passenger seat to see if it was the fore-aft adjustment lever spring only resulted in an airbag light that could only be extinguished by using an OBDII program. I even removed the plastic bottom cover & put foam at all contact points to stifle the buzz, but I have now decided the buzz was installed on the assembly line.
I think there’s some quality difference between the sides of pond too, but long gone are they days when VW could be considered robust. I think it was back in the days when they had the 1.9 and 2.4 tdi:s ( the 5 cyl Transporter engine, not the V6 horrorshow). Also I’ve got sneaking suspicion that plastics fare better here in colder climate. Atleast I haven’t heard any local issues, unlike problems with diesels and DSG:s.
Personally I’ve never liked VW:s much, I kinda want diesel Multivan even though one has to spend quite lot to keep that one running too. But othervise not so much. That said I’ve currently got Skoda Enyaq AWD (ID4 sans capacitive crap) as company car, but that’s just because there were no wagon options.
VWs SUVs and EVs aren’t competitive, pull them off the market before they further ruin VW’s rep. VW’s best is still the GTI and Golf R, bring us the whole line of those including the wagons and maybe a Jetta GLI. Then add the Caddy vans and all of the above with a choice of gas, hybrid, and diesel power!,
(Pre Ford) Amarok is awesome – especially with V6 diesel! But, you know, Chicken Tax…
I’m still surprised VW doesn’t make the Amarok in Mexico, given how popular VW is there. VW does sell the Amarok in Mexico.
Original has been updated for continued construction in Argentina: https://www.volkswagen.com.ar/es/modelos/nueva-amarok.html
They would sell dozens, dozens, in 2025 America. Where people want to be bored while sitting up high, based on what actually sells. Nobody cares about driving but a few of us wierdos.
Yep, there’s no market strategy that’s based on selling a few enthusiast cars, and then calling for removing the SUVs when those are the bulk of their sales in the US is just asinine.
It’s just like those who used to whine about the Cayenne. Sure, it’s not a sportscar, but didn’t it keep the lights on for Porsche to be able to make more 911’s?
Indeed. It’s sad and I hate it, but it’s the current reality. Thankfully, plenty of nice, low miles creampuff examples out there of the cars I actually like. As a bonus, they are cheaper than the dreck they sell new these days.
Fuck, that’s such a depressing (and good) way to put it. It makes me want to rage.
Honestly, at advancing middle age I basically thank the auto industry for no longer making anything I want to spend money on. If I was where I am now in the mid-80s to about 2010, I would bankrupt myself buying new cars all the time.
YES. My current car is 12 years old, 130k miles, and getting some rust. I work from home and barely use it. I look sometimes, and I don’t want to spend money on anything. If I buy anything I’ll probably throw caution to the wind and get something actually fun; Miata, BRZ, Mustang.
I have five paid for cars all together. Of the three that I consider daily drivers, the highest mileage is 92K on my ’14 Mercedes. The two ’11 BMWs are at 52K and 72K. Two of the three have NEVER seen road salt, my ’11 BMW wagon (bought new) was only driven in snow the first two years I owned it, and very little even then. Zero rust on any of them. They are going to last for as long as I want to spend money to maintain them. AND, I work from home, have for 18 years. The only reason I even put 10K miles a year on across all of them is that most years I drive for my migration from FL to Maine and back. And I am about done with that drive, I infinitely prefer to fly, but I have needed to get things between homes the past bunch of years.
The other two are toys – ’95 Land Rover Disco, and my ’74 Spitfire I have owned for 31 years.
I could easily go the rest of my driving life without buying another car.
That’s probably better for the environment than leasing 5 EVs…
No doubt about that at all. And certainly better for my wallet.
I also wonder why they haven’t brought the PHEVs to your side of the pond. Not that they are the most reliable, but they seem to be pretty nice to drive and sell well here. Also the Transporter based Multivan&Caravelle would most likely fit quite many families lifestyle. Also available in PHEV form. Of course the chicken tax doesn’t help. And the 25 year rule.
That said for a land of the free, you guys surely have lots of limitations :D.
That always has and always will be propaganda.