🤔 💭 Our cars aren't selling... Hmm.. Should we make them last longer? No. Should we make the interior out of anything except hard plastic? No. Should we make our cars easier to repair and not have even the most basic shit require specialized tools? No. I got it! Subscriptions for basic shit that gauges the few customers still buying our shit!
this post was submitted on 16 Aug 2025
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I understand your point, but have you driven a VW in the past decade? They are reliable, relatively easy to repair and have comfortable interiors that aren't with "hard plastic." Perhaps you've confused VW with Ford?
I fix cars for a living every day.
reliable
Maybe, compared to a BMW or other "luxury" car marketed to rubes. But a Honda or a Toyota would totally eat VW's lunch in regards to reliability, at half the purchase price.
relatively easy to repair
The VW Beetle is famously easy to repair, basically every modern VW model sucks ass. It needs some proprietary tool to access half the vehicle on more than half the models. I do not like working on them. We also get wonderful examples of German Manufacturing Precision™️ where you have a half a millimeter clearance to remove a part. This was worse in older VW's in my experience (the Germans really took to AUTOCAD like fish to water when that became common, methinks) but it still happens.
comfortable interiors
Actually totally agree here, the interior of most modern VW's is pretty nice. Shame that doesn't extend under the hood.
VW also got caught straight up lying about their emissions testing a few years ago so that also destroyed basically all trust that I had in their brand. They'll sell you a car that runs, but there's really no knowing if the numbers that it reports are actually accurate.
EXCEPT the fuel pump for a Passat 2013 to 2017 is 400 to 600 dollars for the pump only. You can find some on eBay cheaper but when you can't drive your car then you have to get what you can get.
Yeah. I think my car has a pretty decent build overall but the (I shit you not) 14 recalls ive had to bring it in for ranging from door handle replacements, firmware updates, back hatch issues makes me raise an eyebrow to it. I let a few stack up before I bring it in because I never notice any issue before or after, but better to get the free service than not.
Evidence strongly counters my own feelings on the matter.
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Capped speed isn't enough. I want it to slam the brakes on the highway and go "Tired of the ads? Get the Volkswagen Battlepass and enjoy an uninterupted drive!"
Ooh, how about it accelerates really slowly at stop lights unless I pay for "turbo mode" to not get honked at?
Need a panoramic view instead of just a slit? Get the Extend-A-View™ subscription to instantly make the full surface of all your windows transparent!
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Every tine you bring the car to a stop it covers half the windows in ads like youtube does when you pause it to try and read something
Our family was looking for a newer car. We found a listing for a VW, went to the dealership with intent to buy and was told that the car (which was standing RIGHT there) was available for sale in 3 months. Now we enjoy our new Toyota.
You dodged a bullet.
VW has gone down the drain.
Had a 2023 VW ID4. They literally go out of their way to make your experience worse in many cases.
They have an app, they can read locked state, but can't lock the car.
Their app/website makes you completely re-sign in and re-accept cookies every month or so that breaks any API usage mildly like HomeAssistant.
The key unlocks the door if you walk to it, 50% chance to re-lock the door when you walk away without interacting with it.
Can detect tire pressure, but they don't tell you what it is, only if there is "pressure loss"
Backup camera was horrific quality, especially the field of view of a telephoto camera, especially compared to my 2015 Nissan altima
The entertainmrnt console was terible, extremely laggy, and Android auto was the worst experience. It would take between 2 and 15 minutes to connect to android auto with multiple different phones, and it would choose 1 app per phone to not display. My girlfriends' was her maps app which is insane. Sometimes I would be at my destination before it would connect.
Also putting a trailer hitch on it would have been like 1500-2000€...
For the tire pressure thing, that's because VW doesn't actually use sensors in the wheels. They calculate wheel circumference as you're driving and warn you if it changes, meaning you have a flat. On the one hand, you don't have to worry about sensors if you have winter tires, but on the other... having it show PSI would be nice.
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Yeah, he dodge-d a bullet. Good for him he could af-ford something better.
The car has to ripen.
From the same company that brought you test based emissions upgrades?
Most car for the last decade or two already come with a lot of options built-in that are simply disabled by software in the factory. It's cheaper to just build in a standard set of electronics and disable what's not bought by the customer because many brands still like to milk the customer with options. Subscriptions just take the buying of options to renting.
VW here also also has the "lifetime subscription" for this. That makes it basically the same as you buying the option and they switch in it on in the factory. It's just plain in your face that it's behind a paywall while the old checking options didn't feel as much as a paywall.
Anyway, I went with Hyundai. They didn't do options and subscriptions. You only get to choose the model and looks, that's it.
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Sounds like a good reason to skip buying any car warranty going forward since I'll be attempting to void that shit almost immediately.
Bad business decisions all around.
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Das subscription
Die*
Is that in english or german?
Yes
And they wonder why nobody’s buying their cars…
Strange comment, since VW group sell by far the most EV cars in EU.
Yet you get a dozen upvotes.
You guys are weird. 🤣🤣🤣
Lemmy moment
In EU they sell well. not in the US, however.
Yeah but the US isn’t all that matters. For reference VW group is the largest automaker in the world, so the comment “no one is buying their cars” is very short sighted.
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option to pay $22.50 per month or $879 one time to gain 20 horsepower.
At least you can buy it outright, so not the worst scheme of this sort, but still a scheme.
Auto Express UK reported on the pricing but could not verify whether the subscription follows the vehicle or the user profile.
This is bad journalism, per EU regulation, if the option is bought it follows the car, if it's a subscription, I doubt they can legally demand either the original and definitely not another owner to keep it. A subscription can be cancelled, otherwise it's an indefinite contract, which a new owner never agreed to.
....
Oh sorry I forgot for a second that UK is no longer in EU, so UK customers can be fucked in new creative ways, which probably also explains why this experiment is in UK. Ah well they chose to fuck themselves over I guess.
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Fuck you volkswagen!
If you pay a little extra a little corkscrew that raises up from the middle of the driver seat every half hour will only do so every two hours too.
Sold my Audi when they started this, VWs are already overpriced basic shits.
Give me asian cars.
Is $879 for an extra 20 horsepower even worth it?
Not really IMO, but I would personally never buy it, since it's an artificial limitation only meant to extort buyers for more money, for something that cost them nothing, and I would never reward artificial limitations and such shenanigans.
I'd probably look for some third party hack to unlock it for free instead, or probably buy another brand of car.
more horse power means more stress - the car will break more. Not only wouldn't I buy it I'd pay less for a used car if anyone ever paid for it.
That's a good point, especially at at high mileage it may become an issue.
But I don't think it's normally much of an issue, it would be mostly gear and engine that has that extra stress, and AFAIK they are very durable.
I saw a complete tear-down video review of a VW gear and engine, and they are very well made. So I wouldn't worry about it, especially if you can find one at a reasonable price with reasonable mileage.
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Consumer planning anything but Volkswagen subscription upgrade
[laughs in 2013 era type-1 mod]
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