VW Routan On Life Support
Published: December 14th, 2012
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Volkswagen’s highly unpopular Routan may be at the end of its life, as months of stalled production has left its future in doubt.
Bloomberg is reporting that no Routans have emerged from Chrysler’s Windsor, Ontario assembly plant since July. Chrysler and VW have an agreement through 2014 to assemble the vehicle, which is based on the Dodge Caravan and Chrysler Town & Country. But poor sales of the Routan and feuding between VW and Chrysler’s parent company Fiat could bring a premature end to VW’s lone minivan.
More by Derek Kreindler
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I can't be the only one who thought "They still sell that?" when they read this. I thought this thing had been put down a couple of years ago.
Darn. Where is a person to go now if they want a minivan with "german tuned suspension"?
I like our 2011 Routan - even back then I was able to purchase it at over $7,600 off of list (I was willing to drive 75 miles to a different dealership), making it cheaper than a similar Town & Country, plus it came with 3 years free maintenance. One other thing - with kids I actually prefer the leatherette interior as it is simple to clean. The stow and go is not a big deal to me, since we have child seats in both of the 2nd row seats, so it is as much work to take them off first to fold the seats as it is to just take the entire seat out. If I was buying again today, I'd still go Routan if the price was right, but the newer Town & Country's are pretty aggressively discounted now too.
Lets face it, there isn't much of a notable difference between a T&C/Dodge and a Routan to most folks. My question is why didn't VW go for the obvious in there quest to make a splash....better mileage. Instead they opted for a third MOPAR van. ?? All vans sold in North America get, in my opinion, poor mileage (I have a Dodge Grand Caravan). VW could have addressed the mileage issue very easily. They have their turbo diesel. They put it in everything else. Why not the Routan. I'll bet that set up would have achieved 35mpg highway. Adios Routan