phred

They are debating whether the Passat W8 will be a success:

I *love* my Passat, but after all the service hassle, for $40,000 I'd rather buy an Audi. Sorry VW!
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That, in a nutshell, will probably determine whether this car will succeed here. Trust me, if somebody spend $40K on a Passat and received the "VW run-around" when something goes wrong that seems to be the norm (and not the exception), word will spread quickly that this is not the smart buy.

The funny thing is that it is so simple to fix the above problem. Identify the issues, figure out the solutions, train VWofA down to the dealer level. Or better yet, have someone squirrel away a Saturn dealer business plan and follow it to the letter! It's not that hard Volkswagen. Designing and building great cars is MUCH harder.

DWC_2.7T

Agree. VW service for my wife's Jetta has been lousy, and we're not nit-pickers. She invariably gets a run-around from the service reps. She's had to make numerous return trips to get significant items fixed; bad timing belt idler, sticking power window, improper auto trans shifting, to name a few. Bad enough for a $20K car...this level of service will be disasterous if they try to move into Lexus/BMW territory.