Volkswagen Has Brilliant Plan To Sell Cars During Crisis (Hint: It's By Giving You Money)

Aaron Cole
by Aaron Cole

Volkswagen is offering up to double the average amount of incentives on some of its cars to help dealers during its diesel crisis, Bloomberg reported ( via Automotive News).

Dealers, who received no-strings-attached cash from Volkswagen at the beginning of this month, are offering up to 11 percent off their cars’ stickers to help weather the storm of its diesel cheating scandal. The industry average is roughly 6.2 percent according to TrueCar.

Volkswagen is also offering a $2,000 “loyalty discount” and interest-free financing to Volkswagen owners who trade-in their cars (including TDIs) for newer Volkswagens. Volkswagen is also heavily discounting for sale its Passat and offering its Jetta for $139 a month for a 36,000-mile/36-month lease.

(Or, I guess you could lease an Eos for $379 a month for 3 years with $3,000 down. — Aaron)

Those incentives are designed to increase traffic to its dealerships, whose sales have slumped this year — even before the diesel crisis — and expect scandal-related fallout to continue later this year.

Even before the scandal, Volkswagen spent an estimated $4,261 per vehicle in incentives for September, according to Autodata. That figure is up 50 percent from 2014 and higher than the industry average of $2,507 according to Edmunds.com data compiled by Bloomberg Intelligence.

Volkswagen dealers across the country are scheduled to meet Thursday in Florida at the automaker’s annual dealer meetings.

Roughly one in five cars Volkswagen sold in America were diesel models, according to the automaker. Volkswagen issued a stop-sale for most of those cars in September after the Environmental Protection Agency notified the carmaker that those cars illegally polluted.


Aaron Cole
Aaron Cole

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  • Sector 5 Sector 5 on Oct 22, 2015

    That's not true Edmunds has had issues with the GTI. I can't remember exactly what - but I know they have because I've been reading their updates.

  • VDubLoser1120 VDubLoser1120 on Oct 23, 2015

    The 40k maintenance on any VW with the DSG transmission at a dealer is going to cost you $700-900. Spark plugs, oil, tire rotation and transmission flush is what is required. If you've got a Mom and Pop VW shop you trust, will run you $500-700. The parts and fluid alone for the DSG flush is around $150. Only issues Edmunds has ever had with their Volkswagens have been tires and stereo not working issues. Which makes sense because VW stereos are shit.

  • Redwing497 Redwing497 on Oct 23, 2015

    I wonder if any of these incentives would apply to a Golf R. I'd strongly consider one if so, especially with pretty attractive lease terms.

    • See 1 previous
    • Krhodes1 Krhodes1 on Oct 24, 2015

      @Lythandra When the car is a high performance limited edition car that you only have ONE of, I can totally see being very, very stingy with the test drives. The guy who will ultimately buy it is likely a fussy b@stard who wants no miles on the car, and will pay at or above MSRP. It drives like a GTI, but faster and more balanced.

  • Fordson Fordson on Oct 23, 2015

    VW is already selling a lot of Golf TSIs and GTIs...I bet they sell a ton of them with this cash. A Mk7 GTI, with the MIB II infotainment system coming in 2016 models, is a pretty nice piece.

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