Are VW in trouble?

[dxg]

I thought twice about posting this, but here goes:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.j ... xcity.html

Form your own opinions...

Deek.

[AshLeMacq]

Morgan Stanley said Europe's largest car producer had "lost touch" with the US consumer

With it's US consumer? Try worldwide consumers.

Maybe this will give VW the kick up the arse they need to stop them treating their customers like something they scraped off of the bottom of their shoe.

If you'd have asked me a year ago I would have said I'd only ever buy VAG, not anymore.

[omicron]

At the end of the day, VW stopped doing what people expect VW to do: Build a cheap-ish, solid, reliable, German-built, car that gets the working man to work. That's why I'd buy a VW, as that's what I want from a car, and that's why VW's always used to be above any other car manufacturer in my opinion.

Now they're just like any other car on the road, built to look good and have a big profit margin.

[Jillwilson]

Now they're just like any other car on the road, built to look good and have a big profit margin

Your totally right it is what there doing but then again that what half the plebs in this world want now.
I personally think it should go back to how it was but we're in a minor percentage.

x

[Tahrey1043]

Remember they did all the adverts (and still do, after a fashion) pointing out that they're not any more more expensive than the average car?

Perhaps they should go back to having a small price premium like they did when selling the old, brick-outhouse polos, golfs, jettas, passats (guy at MOT centre i had the polo done was proud of his Y-reg jetta ... thats 1980 Y - mentioning it to me as a prime example of the marque's former solidity)....... the excuse being that it will once again be the car to rely on to keep running more reliably and sweetly for longer, with extra solid bodywork, compared to cheaper, throwaway models, plus handling and safety that are ahead of the game (as they did have - slightly - in the 80s).
Not the same premium as Mercedes and BMW of course, but something that puts them in the middle ground between those, and say Kia (or fiat...?), who are currently bashing their tin-can cars out for the lowest possible price and aiming their ads squarely at a market segment who will be attracted by the low initial cost then chuck the car out to scrap after a maximum of five years because the styling is, yah, so yesterday darling, and the servicing cost is becoming horrendous.

maybe then they'd have a little extra capital to invest in.... hmm, i don't know, a hybrid or electric product to keep them in business once fossil fuels get steadily less viable?

[dxg]

Corruption scandels aside, it looks like it more a case of the German economy being in real trouble (much like our own...) and VW's problem just being a consequence of that:
http://driving.timesonline.co.uk/articl ... 00,00.html

Deek.