Hammer Time: How Can Volkswagen Save Themselves?

Steven Lang
by Steven Lang

Twenty-two vehicles on the front line and not a single one of them a Volkswagen.

This wouldn’t be surprising if this were a used car lot or a new car store that sold a different brand, but this is Jim Ellis VW — the most successful Volkswagen dealership in the entire metro-Atlanta area.

How successful? They have two locations and sold Volkswagens every day for well over 44 years. This dealership was founded on day one with Volkswagens exclusively in their blood. No competitor in the southeast can come close to that level of enduring success.

So what does it mean when one of your most loyal dealers in the entire nation won’t even put your vehicles on their front line?

The brand is in deep trouble. It’s in the type of trouble that will require something extreme to change how consumers view their product.

When your dealers aren’t willing to front line your product, it doesn’t mean that only one of your products is now a slow seller. It means the dealer is anticipating that all of your products are going to be slow sellers for a while — at least those that can legally be sold. The only way the dealership can right the big ship and pay the ocean of overhead is to aim squarely at the calmer used car waters where other brands stand a far better chance of success.

This doesn’t happen in the car business. It never happens. In the last 16 years, I have never seen a successful dealer scrub out their entire front line of any mention of the brand that’s printed on the front of their building. It’s one thing to have a screaming match behind closed doors away from the earshot of your customers and employees. It’s quite another thing to openly give your boss the finger and tell your employees that the pecking order has changed because, for now, there is no alternative.

Your biggest supporter has just walked out of that private room and he’s not about to offer you just a minor slap in the face or even a brutal reality check for all the recent harm. He’s going to protect his own, and he’s doing it for a damn good reason. He needs to make sure everyone whose survival depends on the team’s success can still pay the bills. This is like a well-respected veteran player on a football team going up to the microphone after a big game and telling everyone that the owner, and the owner alone, completely fucked over the team and the entire fan base that supports them.

Who is to blame? Not the general manager of the team in the form of the CEO of Volkswagen of America. Volkswagen dealers are actually voicing their support for Mike Horn who currently appears blameless for what took place. Not all the employees who operate the stadium in the form of low-to-mid-level Volkswagen employees throughout the world. The problem, at least for now, is located squarely in Wolfsburg, Germany.

That particular problem is going to take time and an awful lot of fines and penalties to thresh out. But what about right now? I mentioned elsewhere that Volkswagen is in a world of trouble. Even if their most loyal fans are sticking to the product for now, the new car marketplace won’t be nearly as forgiving to a brand that is widely known for serious quality issues.

A lot of what needs to be done is structural and long-term, but the dealer network doesn’t deal with customers who are willing to wait for long-term solutions. They need a compelling reason to buy a Volkswagen right now. Rebates and incentives alone won’t get Volkswagen dealers those customers. In extreme situations, the manufacturer needs to offer the general public expensive and compelling solutions.

Let me offer a few examples. After 9/11 it was virtually impossible for dealers to sell new cars and, contrary to the myths of the moment, it wasn’t George W Bush’s proclamation to “ Go shopping” that did the trick. It was 0% financing from General Motors that put customers back inside the dealerships. When Chrysler was knocking on death’s door back in 2007 and 2008, they invoked a lifetime warranty that helped them get a brief stay from the executioner.

Volkswagen needs to offer something amazing that other automakers won’t match — at least for right now. My question to all of you is, “What should that be?”

Should they go long on warranty protection? Offer lease deals as if they’re being subsidized by the federal government? Or offer buyback guarantees for current and future customers that make owning a Volkswagen a low-risk proposition?

Every one of these measures has more than a little bit of financial hurt tied into them. However, if the front line of Jim Ellis Volkswagen is any indication, these measures are long overdue.

What would you chose as the elixir to cure Volkswagen’s ills?

Steven Lang
Steven Lang

More by Steven Lang

Comments
Join the conversation
2 of 139 comments
  • Jthorner Jthorner on Oct 11, 2015

    For starters they should at least match Hyundai's warranty. Hyundai made many terrible vehicles in their early days, and they went all in on a long warranty to take the fear out of customers' minds. It worked. VWOA is probably toast though. VW's problems are deeply rooted in a defective corporate culture, and there is zero indication that corporate culture will be overhauled. VWOA has never shown respect or loyalty to the customers who pay them. Without that, how can they expect to have a stable base of repeat customers?

  • Bilwig Bilwig on Oct 29, 2015

    Want to fix the problem! Ask your customer what they want and give it to them. In my case, since I just purchased a new car in July, I want a full refund. We can then start over. I am a long term VW owner and if I am to remain a customer I need to hear what VW is going to do for me. I care less about government penalties or recalls etc. Just buy back the car!

  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
  • Jalop1991 what, no Turbo trim?
Next