[laughs in 2013 era type-1 mod]
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.
Das subscription
Die*
From the same company that brought you test based emissions upgrades?
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!
I’m actually fine with that. People don’t need to go 0-60 in an intersection.
But what about 0-10? 0-5? Surely you’d be better off limited to 2 mph/kph for the first 10s after a stop.
🤔 💭 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!
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?
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.
Does “relatively easy” mean in comparison to modern cars, and not easily repairable older cars? I don’t follow cars but if it’s anything like other tech then it’s soon to be crippled by part tying.
Ford is even worse than VW, but VW is overpriced shit.
No doubt they are all overpriced, but I thoroughly researched my Škoda before buying it in 2020 and it was competitively priced, especially with its reliability score and relatively low maintenance cost. In my case of course anecdotal, but I’ve had no issues after 90,000 km with a lot of Autobahn.
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.
Consumer planning anything but Volkswagen subscription upgrade
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.
The car has to ripen.
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€…
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.
We imported all the consumer protection laws, so as long as this isn’t a recent change it will be the same in the UK.
AFAIK a lot of the EU citizen and consumer protections have been dismantled in UK after UK left EU.
Even democratic rights to protest have been limited, and privacy rights against government surveillance that is illegal in EU.
So I seriously doubt they haven’t cut user protections too, the conservative government was clearly a government that worked against the general population to benefit the rich and those in power. This was absolutely one of the main points for the extreme right politicians and media (mostly conservatives) to want out of EU.
Ill take “reasons why I still drive a b5.5 passat” for $500, Alex
It’s due for a head gasket change, not much else. Not worth upgrading to a newer car for my price range and use case. I don’t need a computer I don’t own.
Woo! 2002 passat owner checking in here!
03 Jetta 1.8T 5mt reporting in 😋
ICE vehicles have been the same for a long time, only they lock the horsepower upgrades behind upgrade packages/trims.
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.
Well hyundai has a predefined trim system, they cut cost of manufacturing by only having predefined trim levels that you can’t customize.
They might still do this cutting of horsepower but they do it because of batteries.
e.g. the 39kwh and the 64 kwh Kona has the same motor but on the 39kwh it’s limited as the battery pack can’t deliver enough juice.
Fuck “lifetime subscriptions”. They’re taking a page from Tesla and I’m sure they’ll require any new owner to pay them separately should you sell the vehicle.
Simply avoid VW and any future brand that pulls this shit.
Tesla does not and has never had “lifetime subscriptions”. They have a single connectivity subscription (they still have basic connectivity for free for all cars that allows you to monitor and control the vehicle,as well as navigation). Any other upgrades are behind 1-time payments (or your choice of either).
Wouldn’t it be even cheaper to design the next version modularly and interchangeable?
Ah, wait, that would make it too easy to repair for unlicensed users.
Wouldn’t it be even cheaper to design the next version modularly and interchangeable?
The extra labor to manage more components and check/verify each single vehicle fits it’s unique specs would eat up the saving really fast. It’s so much easier to do a single HW config and manage it through SW, and electronic components are generally cheap.
That would require more logistics to get different modules, checks to make sure the right ones are installed and labor to install them. Somewhere there is a cutoff point where modularity is cheaper.
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.
i don’t think its really all that big a deal. nobody said the US is all that matters. guy just said nobody is buying their cars.
which to him is true. but its been corrected.
this is just a conversation.
Meant to reply to him, not you. You basically said something similar to me.
not in the US, however.
🤣🤣🤣
I wonder why that may be. but incidentally Porsche was the most profitable brand in USA before Trumps stupid tariffs, and Porsche is also VW.USA can go fuck themselves, they are making themselves irrelevant. Hyundai is also losing profits in USA despite investments:
https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/hyundai-motor-warns-bigger-hit-us-tariffs-after-q2-profit-fall-2025-07-24/Hyundai will be fucked over too, it’s just a matter of time. VW decided to scale back in USA, instead of fighting the windmills.
I’m not dissing Hyundai, they make OK cars at OK prices, I might actually go for a Hyundai for my next car, but mostly because it’s cheaper, if I can find a VW or Skoda Enyaq 80 or 85 at a good price, that’s the one I want.
i don’t know anything about it. i just looked up VW and looked to see what countries sales were good and bad.
“USA can go fuck themselves, they are making themselves irrelevant.”
i did not want to get into a political shit fight, man. i did a DDG search about sales for a car manufacturer. thats all I did.
take it fucking easy, damn. =(
Are you really claiming to be unaware of the shitshow that is USA?
Why not look at a page like this for example?https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_automotive_manufacturers_by_production
Hyundai is doing fine, but they are still below VW.
Why choose only a single of the 3 world biggest markets, and incidentally the one where VW is doing worst?i have no idea what you’ve gone off about. i did a DDG search. i am not claiming anything.
I’m sorry for doing a search. lol
And for some reason, you search turned up a result that isn’t representative, maybe you should be more careful with your searches?
I wonder why that may be.
Parts are expensive since everything needs to be imported. This has been true long before Trump started messing with tariffs. Parts are way easier to get and cheaper in the EU.
Toyota is popular here for the opposite reason: parts are inexpensive and easy to find. They’re also imported, but they’ve done a much better job figuring out their supply chain.
Porsche is also VW
Maybe by ownership, but they target a very different demographic and thus are designed very differently.
Hyundai is also losing profits
Hyundai is a lot more popular here than VW. Why? They’re cheap and reasonably reliable. VW isn’t as reliable.
Regarding reliability it’s weird Hyundai already has such a good reputation for reliability, because it’s not many years ago that Hyundai was pretty poor quality. Like for instance the Hyundai Sonata was really awful with rust. And the way the car was built was outdated.
So just a few years ago, there was no comparison that VW and Toyota were vastly superior quality to Hyundai.
I know they are better today,but still I must admit I’m surprised if they are really better than VW?
For instance the Hyundai Kona 64 had a total recall on the batteries. That’s an enormous issue to have had.VW was never comparable to Toyota. The top has always been the Japanese brands, sometimes with caveats about certain transmissions (e.g. Mazda and Mitsubishi CVTs).
German cars are fine, but parts are generally hard to get or are expensive. Many shops won’t touch them, so you need to find a European imports shop.
Here’s some data from 2024, VW is fourth last, ahead of Land Rover, Audi, and Chrystler. Somehow they’re behind Luncoln…
Hyundai and Kia aren’t at the top, but they’re reasonably good and their price and warranty make up for the issues they have.
Here’s the image:
That schematic is basically worthless, first it’s “per car”, with no mention of average age or mileage.
Mercedes is no doubt among the absolute most reliable cars you can get, most Taxi drivers here use Mercedes for that reason.
But Mercedes also on average drive longer than most other cars, because people who drive a lot tend to prefer Mercedes more.
VW only ranking a couple places above Chrysler is laughable. There is no way that can be right.
Also Audi ranking below VW is ridiculous. Audi is to VW somewhat what Lexus is to Toyota.
Something is definitely off with that chart.But I do not deny that Hyundai may have improved enough to be as good or maybe even better than VW, What I questioned was how they could have that reputation already few years after they clearly sucked on quality. Being reasonably good now, is exactly as expected though. Because when they were bad over a decade ago, they were so bad there are probably very few left on the roads. It was not just something that needed to be fixed bad, it was very much also end of life for the vehicle bad.
I skimmed the article to find the methodology behind the numbers, but couldn’t find it.
The study, now in its 35th year,
That indicates my previous point, they don’t account for age, it’s easy to stay “average” if your cars are scrapped after a few years. It also explains the poor position of Mercedes.
Here for instance Volvo has a longer life span on average than Toyota. Toyota are good cars, but they are generally not built to last as long as Audi or Mercedes.
I bet you don’t see as many 30+ year old Toyota as you do Mercedes.
OK, but still USA is just 1 of the 3 biggest markets in the world, and the one where VW is doing worst.
All three brands are very reliable, so i bet the margin in that regard isn’t big between them.
On a global scale VW remains ahead of Hyundai.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_automotive_manufacturers_by_productionAnd I’m sure VW is a lot cheaper in Europe. My uncle bought an Audi when he lived in Germany because it made sense there, and now he drives a Japanese car because Audis don’t make sense in the US.
If you buy German, you need to be ready to spend a lot on maintenance and repairs here in the US.
We get it; you drive a VW
No I was using Mitsubishi for many years, but unfortunately their quality declined.
Now I drive an old Opel, but currently I wouldn’t buy anything from Stelantis.
Is $879 for an extra 20 horsepower even worth it?
For ice cars If you are outside warranty you can just have your ECU remapped and gain much more hp.
I am guessing these remaps will eventually be available for electric motors too
I’m not sure about other EVs, but on the BMW iX, a lot of the computer stuff is encrypted now, and has to be signed with BMW’s private key (i.e. they’ve actually implemented encryption correctly). Apps like Bimmercode don’t work on 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.
Fair if you care about it. No other upgrades will get you that much.
No. Switching from 140 to 160 hp isn’t something you’d really even notice on everyday commuting. More is more of course, but unless your driving style is very aggressive that doesn’t really make any difference on the driving experience. What it might do is improve your range slightly, but that depends heavily on multiple different things and if your driving style and conditions on most common routes aren’t suitable it might even reduce the range you’ll get out of the thing.
Do you notice the power difference when your AC is on?
This 20 hp should be similar tbh.
