Ask The Best And Brightest: Where Did The VW Buyers Go?

Back in 2001 VW was the comeback kid . Sales had grown over seven-fold in only eight years from less than 50k in 1993 to over 350k and change. It seemed like the company was offering everything an aspiring Yuppie wanted to buy. At least here in the States. Cute Jettas and Beetles for the successful young female (and a few males). Turbochargers, stickshifts, and GTI’s for those who coveted a sport model. Diesels for the frugal and the long-term owner. Even wagons and convertibles for those who were flipping between becoming a ‘family man’ or a mid-life crisis. VW was hip and profitable… but then the market woke up.

By 2005 I started to see VW’s being traded-back en masse and wholesaled at the auctions. An article I wrote, Kiametrics, highlighted VW’s inability to make anything for the keepers among us. The turbocharged engines were sludge machines. The plastics inside the cars came apart and the cost of replacing them bordered on the usurious. Automatics were grenading themselves to such a militant degree, that it became a task and a half to just find one at the nearby junkyards. At the recycling centers and pull-a-part’s few vehicles could match the stripitude of a late model VW.

We know how this ended. The VW dealerships were left with angry and increasingly broke customers who began looking elsewhere. The question for today is… “Where did those customers go?”

Did they Toyonda themselves into a world where reliability took precedence over everything else?

Did they find the next hip car in the form of a Subaru?

Or did most of them become used car buyers? Forever financially stung by the black hole of VW depreciation.

As with all politicians and most college courses, you can ‘swag’ your way into a right answer. Extra credit is given to any answer involving Elvis or extra terrestrials. Penmanship counts. Good luck.