Ever been had?

[silverhairs]

After ordering my Polo SEL 115 hp DSG, plus another £1500 worth of extras, I now find my daytime driving lights are not the ones you see on VW adverts that are built into the headlights and turn to amber when indicating. But small ugly square things lower in the bumper.
You only get them lights in a GTi or if you have the LED headlights, and for that your looking at another £900.00. The thing is very rarely do the Mrs or I go out in the dark to have LED lights, when normal lights are OK. In the car I have at the moment, I have fitted 120% extra light bulbs and they are more than capable of seeing in the dark, and no where near £900.00.
I've given it much thought, but I'll have to live with the small ugly things, if they were near £500, would be OK, but near £1000 just too much.
If one of the LED's did blow, how much are you looking at to replace an LED?

[Cadwest]

My wife bought a new in Ibiza in September 2017 and the optional LED headlights cost £500 and the ACC was just £170 compared to £660 in the VW and from what I understand it’s the same system.

[SRGTD]

After ordering my Polo SEL 115 hp DSG, plus another £1500 worth of extras, I now find my daytime driving lights are not the ones you see on VW adverts that are built into the headlights and turn to amber when indicating. But small ugly square things lower in the bumper.

It can be disappointing if the standard spec is lower than you thought it was. I suppose the important thing is to do as much research as you can before ordering to avoid disappointment, and know with as much certainty as possible what you’ll be getting.

You only get them lights in a GTi or if you have the LED headlights, and for that your looking at another £900.00.

LED headlamps are only standard on the GTI Plus model. On the lower spec GTI the standard headlamps are halogen.

[Leif]

My wife bought a new in Ibiza in September 2017 and the optional LED headlights cost £500 and the ACC was just £170 compared to £660 in the VW and from what I understand it’s the same system.

It's a general trend. A sun roof on a Skoda Citigo is much cheaper than one on a VW Up, the cars are built in the same factory, and have almost certainly the same sun roof. But I think the Skoda Fabia is ugly.

[monkeyhanger]

There are a few bucks to that trend - the Audi A1 has always had the cheapest netallic paint of the supermini VAG platforn (£390 vs about £560 on the Polo).

Paint. Now there's an obvious rip-off. I'm anazed that the government or EU has never looked into it. There has to be a free colour, but when there's a variety of solid paints and only one of them is free, why do the other few cost close to £300? Is there a reason why white costs £300 more than red when it suits? Has Titanium Dioxide gone up 1000% since the last time it was free? On the Golf, white and Tornado Red are interchangeable in price .

When white is in favour , it's a £285 colour and Red is free, and vice-versa. Metallic paint costs an extra £5 per car to produce (used to work for Ford), so what's with the 10000% mark-up?

Metallics used to cost noticeably more to produce when solids were truly solid, but solids get a clear coat now, just like metallics.

[Leif]

I’ve heard it said that margins are tight on cars, and extras are lucrative. So it’s not surprising they try and make as much as possible on paint. The aim is to maximise profit without pricing the product out of the market.

I still think the consumer gets an amazing deal. I’m an ordinary person, and yet I can drive a rather nice car, and travel hundreds of miles in a few hours in comfort. Compare that to my ancestors 100 years ago who were living many to a room in slums in Sheffield, and I cannot complain.

[silverhairs]

I just thought I'd try and see if I could get any discount on LED lights, I was told that I could get the same discount as I got when first ordered my Polo, Now remembering my estimated delivery date is 29/11/2018, so it's not even in the final stages of the system yet let alone on the production line, adding LED lights, It would have to set back the delivery date even further. Seeing that there's nothing wrong with the car I'm driving now, I'll give it another couple of months, then order the LED lights, by the time I get my Polo, it will have a 19 plate, and not a 68 plate if I get it late November.

[SRGTD]

I just thought I'd try and see if I could get any discount on LED lights, I was told that I could get the same discount as I got when first ordered my Polo, Now remembering my estimated delivery date is 29/11/2018, so it's not even in the final stages of the system yet let alone on the production line, adding LED lights, It would have to set back the delivery date even further. Seeing that there's nothing wrong with the car I'm driving now, I'll give it another couple of months, then order the LED lights, by the time I get my Polo, it will have a 19 plate, and not a 68 plate if I get it late November.

If you’ve decided you want the LED headlights, if I was you I’d get them added to your order now, rather than leaving it a couple of months.

Although it may be a while before you get a confirmed build date and your car’s scheduled for build, once a confirmed build date has been issued by VW, the current spec of your car will be ‘locked down’ and it won’t be possible to make any changes to the spec after that.

Better to get your order amended now, in my opinion, rather than loose the opportunity to add something to your car that you’ve decided you want.

[monkeyhanger]

Leif: VW loves customers like you. Car prices have gone up 50% in the last 9 years, despite record low inflation. The sticker price of new cars are very high next to wage growth over the same period, although monthly costs haven't gone up so dramatically, due to either high retention values, slightly lower APR % or big discounts/0% finance to mitigate high depreciation effects on monthlies.

Bare bones £8k pensioner wagons have a lower mark-up than a £30k fully loaded Golf GTI, It's true, but there's plenty of margin to make it worthwhile manufacturing them.

It's also true that there's more tech in a 2018 car than a 2009 car, but tech is cheaper now, and the newer cars don't seem to be built to last like the old ones are.

There are a few markets within the EU that historically haven't paid much for metallics (Greece and Spain if I recall rightly, used to pay €140 for metallic paint on MK6 Golfs and Sciroccos). The Yanks don't pay any extra for metallic paint.

There's a huge discrepancy between models of the same marque for the same tech. The very recent price rises have seen the cost of the rear camera shoot up on the Golf, it's about £100 more on the Golf than the Polo now.

They charge what the market will bear, nothing more and nothing less. VW may be more agressively trying to save more than other marques due to the cost of Dieselgate.

[monkeyhanger]

I just thought I'd try and see if I could get any discount on LED lights, I was told that I could get the same discount as I got when first ordered my Polo, Now remembering my estimated delivery date is 29/11/2018, so it's not even in the final stages of the system yet let alone on the production line, adding LED lights, It would have to set back the delivery date even further. Seeing that there's nothing wrong with the car I'm driving now, I'll give it another couple of months, then order the LED lights, by the time I get my Polo, it will have a 19 plate, and not a 68 plate if I get it late November.

If you’ve decided you want the LED headlights, if I was you I’d get them added to your order now, rather than leaving it a couple of months.

Although it may be a while before you get a confirmed build date and your car’s scheduled for build, once a confirmed build date has been issued by VW, the current spec of your car will be ‘locked down’ and it won’t be possible to make any changes to the spec after that.

Better to get your order amended now, in my opinion, rather than loose the opportunity to add something to your car that you’ve decided you want.

Also, ths sooner you change the order, the less effect it will have on your standing in the build queue as VW will have more notice to schedule the ordering in of the right parts for your build (they don't hold much stock of parts in advance).

[RUM4MO]

One thing about factory fitted extras, it is VW UK that sets the price on these options and if or not you can request thing in the UK market. I know this from the couple of times I imported RHD market cars from mainland Europe, the factory fitted options were really "sensibly" priced for both a Passat and a Polo. Some thing to point out here is, the UK importer of VWs is VW UK and they are wholly owned by VW in Germany, Tiny Rolland's company owned VW UK up until the '70s I think. The importer for VW in Holland, at that time was Pon Automotive which are a private company, so it seems that they set factory fitted option prices based on VW's asking price plus an acceptable mark up.

My guess is that VW UK along with others selling cars into UK, had to chop quite a bit of new car prices to stem the advantage people could gain by personal importing cars for their personal use - then aim to claw back as much as possible by asking crazy prices for factory fitted options. When comparing the prices that I used to pay Ford for optional extras and the prices I paid for optional extras on personally imported VWs - then comparing them with the prices that VW and Audi asked in recent years, I found it very easy to do without leather - or cheap leatherette in my wife's August 2015 factory ordered Pol SEL, same for sunroof on that car!

Many times in the past when I bought new Ford Escort/Orion Ghia 1.6, I visited my local VW dealer and priced up Golf and Bora, prices looked okay until I added in alloy wheels, folding rear seat and sunroof - doing that caused prices to go through the roof relatively speaking, so VW UK has always asked a lot for extras, but now even more.

[silverhairs]

Yesterday I phoned up the stealer and asked if I added the LED lights to my Polo, remembering I have an estimated date of 29/11/2018, how much it would push back the build and delivery date.
He couldn't give a new date as they don't have a clue. I asked how much would LED's be?
I purchased my Polo on the 23/05/2018 and then to have LED's fitted was £900.00. The price yesterday 17/06/2018 was £975.00
How do they explain about the £75.00 increase in just less than 4 weeks. So you can guess what I told them where they could stick their LED lights, that's just daylight robbery
I'm all for Brexit, and now I realise now I should have gone somewhere else for a new motor, not from the EU, don't know about "ever been had", it's getting like "ever been screwed".
By the time I get delivery of this Polo, I'm going to hate it before I even get my bum in the drivers seat

[SRGTD]

Yesterday I phoned up the stealer and asked if I added the LED lights to my Polo, remembering I have an estimated date of 29/11/2018, how much it would push back the build and delivery date.
He couldn't give a new date as they don't have a clue. I asked how much would LED's be?
I purchased my Polo on the 23/05/2018 and then to have LED's fitted was £900.00. The price yesterday 17/06/2018 was £975.00
How do they explain about the £75.00 increase in just less than 4 weeks. So you can guess what I told them where they could stick their LED lights, that's just daylight robbery
I'm all for Brexit, and now I realise now I should have gone somewhere else for a new motor, not from the EU, don't know about "ever been had", it's getting like "ever been screwed".
By the time I get delivery of this Polo, I'm going to hate it before I even get my bum in the drivers seat

£975 is the price for the LED headlamp option in the latest price list dated 06/06/2018. If you asked VW to justify a circa 7.7% increase in the cost of this option, would they be able to? Probably not.

I suppose with the costs of dieselgate VW are facing (which was of their own making), it doesn’t come as a great surprise to see some options getting hit with large price increases. That doesn’t make it right though!

[Cadwest]

I see the head of Audi got arrested by the German police this morning, I believe it’s in relation to the diesel gate controversy.

[silverhairs]

I thought I'd spent £1500.00 on extras for my Polo, just worked it out it was a bit over £1860.00, but on the other hand It was on extra's that I wanted.

Some of the things I had added were standard on the Suzuki Vitara, which was the other car I was looking at the same time, the thing is I'd soon be getting the Suzuki, the waiting list was next to nothing. I know it's a Jap motor, but the reviews it gets about reliability is good, and LED lights, reversing camera and adaptive cruise control are standard.
I know some members will say that the Suzuki will not hold its price like a VW Polo, but you get a lot of bang for your bucks in the first place, and it's not from the EU, though it's made in South Africa