He did the math

[Fat Charlie]

One of our techs got his wife a TDI a couple of years ago. It's coming up on needing tires and some serious recommended maintenance, so they traded it for a Chrysler 200 with a V-6.

The VW is 30/42, but they got in the 40s with it. The 200 is 19/29. After looking everything over, this diesel tech decided that properly maintaining that diesel wasn't worth the extra mileage. So now he only has 2 diesels at home (which he happily maintains properly).

He isn't a hypermiler, but he's a big fan of efficiency and knows how to count. His math said that even with the lower mileage he was still looking at lower total cost of ownership.

[gone-ot]

...in my best "Jerry McGuire" voice "...show me the numbers..."

[Fat Charlie]

It wasn't my math, I didn't do it. But this guy's been banging wrenches on diesels for over 20 years and driving them even longer. He likes taking really good care of his cars and they decided that for their family's driving needs, doing exactly what VW says it wants done to the car (now and moving forward) doesn't make sense for them- even getting VW parts at a discount and doing his own work.

I wasn't involved in looking things up for him, I just gave him a PO to the VW shop and he called them on his own. He was curious about what VW would do for a transmission service and what kind of work he'd be looking at on it in the future. A week later he traded the thing in.

He dropped it like it was hot.

[P-hack]

doesn't make sense for them is such a subjective term, not math, this is a testimonial, and pretty much worthless, sorry to say. Need to see the details of how he arrived at his conclusion, as there are conflicts within your own account.

To me, asking vw to repair my transmission, and using their labor in your "math" is NOT doing it yourself. Sounds like an agenda thing from here. Not that VW's are not pricey, but the DIY costs are still far less than fuel costs in my experience.

[NachtRitter]

Sounds weird, talking about a guy "doing the math", when it sounds like he's "trading in" and buying new. I could be wrong about that, but that's how it sounded the way you worded it.

When I "did the math" a while ago, I discovered buying new vehicles sucks, and trading in my old car at the dealership makes it suck even worse. Granted, not everyone has time to wrench on their own cars, but doing my own maintenance when possible is a gain, and if I can't do it on my own, working with TDIClub members to get the work done is a huge advantage over the dealership.

Another big advantage of buying used is knowing what to avoid. An example being the auto tranny on the MkIV generation of the VW Jettas. Not that I would've bought a slushbox anyway, but for those that want / need an auto tranny, it's preferable to learn from other's experiences than discover major issues on your own.

[UltArc]

I support efficiency- people think when I traded in a car, for a new car, it was dumb. When you trade in a $400 car for $500, and get an extra $500 incentive, it works out. When you get a company discount, A plan (1200 off), and then an extra 500 off for getting last years model (5 miles on the odo, never titled, but into the next year)- trading in a car to a dealer for a new car isn't always the worst.

Also, from my limited experience, there is no replacing parts or working on VW transmissions. It's buy a new one. Or replace it with a used other one, but the transmissions are built to be driven to death and replaced- from what I have been TOLD, I am not a mechanic, or VW expert, I have just known two people with VWs who had transmission issues. 2002 Passat and 2004 Jetta. Allegedly they continue to produce them this way.

BUT, it seems strange to calculate replacing a transmission, to me. And for a chrysler, I expect he wants to do a LOT of home repairs. I'm also surprised he didn't go with ANY other midsized, since he could spent LESS money on a better vehicle.

2013 Chrysler 200 vs. 2013 Ford Focus vs. 2013 Nissan Sentra vs. 2013 Subaru Impreza

I fail to understand why people spend MORE money on vehicles that have LESS power AND LESS performance, all things being equal. To each their own, I just don't get it.

[NachtRitter]

Originally Posted by UltArc

Also, from my limited experience, there is no replacing parts or working on VW transmissions. It's buy a new one. Or replace it with a used other one, but the transmissions are built to be driven to death and replaced- from what I have been TOLD, I am not a mechanic, or VW expert, I have just known two people with VWs who had transmission issues. 2002 Passat and 2004 Jetta. Allegedly they continue to produce them this way.

Any idea if those were manual or auto trannies? Rebuilds are possible for either the manual or auto trannies on the MkIV Jettas (the 2004 would fall under that), but the auto rebuild is pricey and since the autos (apparently) tend to fail more often than avg auto trannies, there's a chance that it'll fail again. The manual trannies, on the other hand, are pretty solid and can be rebuilt fairly easily. In my case, I swapped out the top (5th) gear on my 5spd for a taller one; I could have done it without removing the tranny from the car but since I was doing the clutch anyway, it was really easy.

That's kinda the point I was getting at... a lot of the folks buying the MkIV VWs (Jetta, Golf) new got to learn the hard way that the autos were crap. A used car buyer can look at the data and know if they want an auto tranny, they should avoid the MkIV VWs, thereby potentially saving themselves a bunch of money and grief. There are a LOT of nice used cars out there.

Obviously, I'm glad there are some folks out there that are buying brand new cars every few years, otherwise there wouldn't be enough good used cars for the rest of us to buy. Even with all the incentives and bonuses and discounts, I simply haven't gotten the math to work out in favor of buying a new car (at least not one I would want to own).

[Frank Lee]

Too many holes in this little story.

[jeff88]

I feel like we are missing something here.

I wonder how many miles it would take for the cost of 19/29 MPG of the Chrysler to match the cost of repairs for the v-dub.

Are the numbers for both cars EPA? I wonder what would happen to those numbers with a few minor "improvements". You mentioned it would have needed new tires, with new LRRs, I wonder if the MPG would be better than 30/42. That and maybe a taller gearing if he needed to replace the trans.

But it sounds like it's all in the past as he already traded it in.

OMG! I miss these commercials!

Originally Posted by Fat Charlie

[Ryland]

It's not hard for a single repair like a broken timing belt, to cost more then the value of a VW and VW are one of the most expensive vehicles to own, but still repair costs hardly ever end up costing more then the payment on a new car, so that part of the math does not add up.
I would opt out of owning a VW because I like cars that are not in need of expensive repairs every few months, the friends of mine who still own VW's are pouring money in to them all the time, if you buy a new car you don't have that issue unless you look at your monthly payment.