Beetles Hatch In Mexico
Mexico was one of the last markets to build the old VW Bug. The really old one. Mexico remains the center of Beetle-mania. Volkswagen officially began production of the new Beetle in Puebla, Mexico.
The Puebla plant is the largest automobile factory in Mexico and one of the Volkswagen Group’s biggest vehicle manufacturing plants. It supplies North and South America as well as Europe with the new Jetta. Along with the Golf Variant, the Beetle is built exclusively in Puebla and is shipped to markets in the world.
Germany, the land where the original Beetle had hatched, needs to wait a little until the latest Käfer arrives. It will be in dealers’ showrooms in Germany from this fall.
Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.
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Agree completely. It is easy to blame the workers for the (lack of) quality of a product, and yet, worker ethics are essential in the assembly of any product. However, workers can only do with what they are provided with. A good case in point would be the ever diminishing quality of the Brazil made Chevrolet Corsa. The early ones were good little cars, no matter if assembled in Spain o Brazil. If you inspect the bodywork of the current ones (now called Celta), you can see that the stamping dies are long due for replacement. Of note, our mexican-assembled servers from Dell have proven to be assembled with more care and quality than the equivalent HP ones from China.
I currently own three VWs. One is a 2000 Jetta built in Mexico. Very few problems with it considering its age. I've owned it since 2004, and nothing major has gone wrong with it. I also own a 2003 Jetta that was bought new. This car has had more problems. From a screwy makeup light/drivers side sun visor connection, to a failed injection pump at 111000 miles, to a bad temperature sensor in 2006. And currently the drivers side door switch is bad and I finally ordered a replacement for it (about a year after it went bad). I've taken care of the car, but there have been several minor problems that really shouldn't have happened. Mostly electrical items of course. I can't blame VW for the injection pump failure because they didn't build the pump (Bosch did) and for all I know, it could have failed because of bad fuel over its life. I also have a 2002 Golf that I just bought that was built in Brazil. So far so good on that one. The PO had it dealer serviced so even if there were electrical problems like that, the dealer apparently took care of them. So anyway, those are my current experiences with VWs built in Brazil and Mexico. I've also owned two German built A2 Jettas (both diesels), but since they were such basic cars there wasn't really much to go wrong on them in the first place. Although my '89 Jetta did have a really stupid accessory belt design. The belt would constantly lose tension because there was no tensioner. I adjusted that belt more times that I can count. I like the looks of the (new) Beetle and might consider buying one in a couple of years. So hopefully they don't exhibit the problems that my 2003 Jetta has shown.