As the sun sets on the current generation Passat, Volkswagen decided to let Car and Driver fool around with an early iteration of the next gen model. I’m sure the automaker was thrilled with the outcome: the auto mag just straight up didn’t like it. Why? VW didn’t do enough to distinguish it from its predecessor. In the fight for scraps left over from shoppers who don’t want a Camry, Accord, or Altima, it seems the Germans already lost round one. And the situation that Wolfsburg faces with its passenger car lineup isn’t at all different from the problems Hyundai, GM, and others will have to deal with down the line.
Despite the camouflage, its abundantly clear that VW did not substantially alter the exterior of the current Passat, which debuted in 2011 for the 2012 model year, with a light refresh for 2016. There are no new powertrains either. The 3.6 liter is gone, and the sole remaining engine is a 2.0 liter turbo, which has an output of 174 horsepower and 207 Ib-ft of torque. Decent numbers, but the Passat will still be equipped with the six speed automatic transmission from the current model, which puts it at a disadvantage when compared against the modern CVT units of the Accord and Altima and the eight speed unit in the Camry.
With 2018 coming to a close, the Passat will probably move about 40,000 units by the time January comes around. That pales in comparison to the numbers the sedan was pulling when it debuted, which is obviously why the company decided to simply update the car instead of replacing it. And that is the conundrum every automaker fielding a sedan in every segment has to reckon with: do they spend billions of dollars to create something that can go toe-to-toe with the best, or can they get away with a light update? FCA, Ford, and (probably) GM have decided its not worth it at all, and it’s looking like they made the right decision. Even a minimum effort nip/tuck like the 2020 Passat costs money, and at maybe 40,000 units per year or less, VW would have to be practicing witchcraft in order to make the car profitable.
This post is not meant to bash the Passat. In fact, I’ll do precisely the opposite by declaring the mid size to be an excellent product. With the one year mark fast approaching, Dad’s love affair with his 2016 1.8T S has not waned, and I can’t blame him. It’s smooth, roomy, fuel efficient, and the powertrain is ready and willing to play ball. But competent, good, and even great cars don’t matter in today’s shrinking sedan market.
Car and Driver feels the same way about the updated model. And that is the problem.
What is the point of buying a brand new Passat when a shopper could easily acquire something similar to the vehicles shown above? VW faces competition from the outside and in. A refresh only exacerbates the issue.
With less than one month before the year is over, we can already see how the segment fared in 2018. The answer is not good. Every major and minor player will post year-over-year declines; most have double-digit decreases. It’s a segment that can probably shed at least forty percent of the current model lineup. And that kind of justifies what VW is doing with the 2020 Passat. There is no point in developing a ground up redesign if customers are simply looking elsewhere. And if Hyundai, Kia, Subaru, and Chevrolet are currently doing so they’re making a big mistake. Sedans still matter, but not in the way they used to. The Passat is just one example out of many.
Sources:
Prototype Drive: 2020 Volkswagen Passat – Car and Driver
Midsize Car Sales In America – November 2018 – goodcarbadcar
What if sedans became “SUS” a la Subaru Outback Sedan or the Volvo CrossSomething? Would that entice consumers?
Isn’t a crossover just a hatchback with cheaper cladding?
I’ve said before that satisfying buyers who “don’t want to be seen in a hatchback” with a lift kit and gray cladding is a LOT cheaper than tooling up a second set of body dies.
Myself, I’ll take the full-fat, non-raised hatchback; a raised sedan is everything I don’t want and previous attempts show that mass buyers at least agree with the second part of that.
Why bother marketing it? Cladding a station wagon and calling it “Outback” or “Cossack” or “Nunavut” made business sense when xUV demand exceeded capacity. But the manufacturers now build plenty of xUVs. The sedans and conventional wagons are excess capacity that manufacturers can’t sell anyway.
Subaru offered two different generations of Outback sedans (model years 2003-2007) but there were very few buyers; I haven’t seen one in many years.
I worked with a woman who owned an Outback sedan.
She played the french horn.
I’d rather the sedan go away entirely instead of becoming another “SU” something or other. I wish Passats were more popular so all cars would follow their lead. Right now auto fashion is the equivalent in clothing of parachute pants, pink afros and gigantic belt buckles.
It’s interesting to see that Curbside *Classic* is venturing into discussing new vehicles. This article looks like the type of thought-provoking TTAC used to do.
Well, if it bothers you, cancel your subscription and ask for a refund.
Oh, wait….
It didn’t say it bothered me, merely that it was interesting. It does seem to be an…expansion…of the blog mission, however.
Well, they will all *eventually* be Curbside Classics. We’re just getting ahead of the game a little bit. 🙂
GM making the right decision? Laughable. We’ll see when gas goes up 2 cents again and everybody goes back to Priuses
I paid $2.18 / gallon for regular today. When did gasoline drop? I generally pay no attention to the price because you either put gas in your car or you don’t. My guess is that all of the storage tanks, pipelines, and offshore anchored tankers are full to the brim and they can’t get rid of the stuff. Maybe that is the reason that the new Silverado gets less miles per gallon. To help use it up.
The problem is more a case of reaping what you sow, just like with the domestics. So many people were so turned off over the last however many decades that even if the product now is good a large part of the base has already found something else that works well and always worked well.
While all sedan sales are down and even King Camry is selling less than it used to, VW would absolutely swoon if its Passat sales were what Camry still does and there would be zero talk of “why bother”. If Fusion sold what Camry sells that would likely still be viable going forward, etc. The domestics and VW spent the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s pissing away a lot of goodwill. Makers that were not so recently the butt of jokes (Kia, Hyundai and the Japanese before them) simply buckled down and took pride in their work and it has paid off handsomely.
Those buyers are perfectly happy with domestic brand trucks, and don’t have strong objections to domestic SUVs, altho they don’t have a strong domestic preference like some other nations.
The remaining US sedan buyers are hardcore Asian brand preferrers, and they’re dying off. The doctor I knew who bought an Accord sedan in 1984 is 68 years old now. My ex wife gave up her Mazda Protege when she inherited her mom’s newer Camry.
Well, there isn’t exactly a lot of choice in regard to trucks in the US with only the domestics producing a wide breadth of styles and capabilities currently.
As far as SUV’s go I think the Japanese and Europeans are making significant headway and are in no way behind the domestics. Here in Colorado the top two selling vehicles are the Subaru Outback and the Toyota Highlander, for example. (Both built in the US by the way.)
Are you suggesting that th average age of an import brand sedan buyer (Camry, Accord, Passat, 330i, E-class etc is in their mid-60’s? I don’t have figures handy but that seems a stretch. I believe those are precisely the buyers moving to higher step-in vehicles and there are still plenty of young’uns buying sedans (if not as many as before).
Toyota and Nissan produce an adequate range of half ton trucks to satisfy buyers who think all domestic vehicles suck. Yet they’re non factors in the half ton market. (Toyota isn’t price competitive because it wouldn’t help. They would have to *undercut* domestic transaction prices because the public loves domestic trucks.)
New vehicle buyers generally are old. Younger buyers prefer SUVs, by a large margin. The luxury brand with the youngest buyers is Land Rover, which is 100 percent SUV.
The elevated seat position is attractive, but minivans have fallen harder than sedans. People who have money and desire for new vehicles (the people who determine 100 percent of the vehicles in the fleet) like the image of SUVs and trucks. If you offered a sedan with the ergonomics of an SUV, it would flop like the Edsel, because it would look dorky, not exciting like a faux adventure vehicle.
“You can sell a young man’s car to a young man, and you can sell a young man’s car to an old man, but you can’t sell an old man’s car to anyone.”. Unless you discount it to the point there’s no profit, which defeats the purpose of being in business.
Sedans are the fringe choice now, not the mainstream.
I suspect it’s China’s market that’s driving VW’s product design. VW Chinese sales (3.1 million units) are nine times that of the US and six times that of Germany.
We’re not used to that, we think US market interests drive things. Not anymore . The Chinese love Buicks and buy 80% of production. So all those odd Buick designs that Americans aren’t buying are intended for China. I think VW knows what they’re doing, and unfortunately it’s not what the American consumer wants.
Correct, and this is why SAAB’s coming rebirth as an electric car (NEVS) is happening in a purpose-built new factory in China, and only as an afterthought will Europe, and maybe the US, eventually get a version produced in Sweden, as engineering/design is still focused in Trollhattan. Ride-sharing, non-ownership concepts may be integrated as well, but production will initially be focused on China. Smart, if you ask me.
I don’t know, Ford’s sedan market share may be declining, but 160K is nothing to sneeze at. If they would drop the Taurus some of those sales would surely go to the Fusion too.
The problem I have with Ford, GM and FCA dropping most of their cars is that they no longer have much to offer first time buyers. So those buyers are going to go elsewhere. And so long as those buyers are satisfied with their cars and dealers they aren’t likely to look elsewhere when they upgrade. Seems like a poor long-term plan to me. Not to mention what will happen if gas prices go up significantly. And it’s not a matter of if that happens, it’s a matter of when. I don’t see how any of the domestics can survive the next 20 years with this kind of myopic product planning.
Well, Ford outright said that they are okay with not being an “entry-level” brand, and instead becoming something to aspire to (pun intended). And if their cheapest *desirable* (read: not EcoSport) vehicle ends up being somewhere in the mid-20K range, they will be just that.
Ford builds a fine product in general but as far as being a brand that people “aspire” to own? I’m not seeing that at all. In Europe they have specifically cited their mass-market-ness as their problem. But raising prices and cutting product choice is NOT the way to all of a sudden make the remaining products more desirable.
What exactly are these hypothetical first time buyers actually purchasing at dealerships across America?
Entry level buyers are looking at used, not new. They aren’t starting out buying new for a first car. A new car buyer has to have a bit of money to find anything on a dealer’s lot that would be worth buying, as the days of loss-leader stripper models is dead and gone. Mitsubishi Mirages and Nissan Versas, along with the soon to be gone Spark, Sonic, Fiesta, and Focus, were the likely “starter” car, and you don’t move up far in the Mitsubishi line before moving to another brand.
OEMs don’t care about loyalty when people are holding on to their cars as long as they do. Cheap leases are the best bet for first time buyers. They can get a fairly well equipped model with okay terms at a price that fits their budget. Leases move more product faster, and they are more profitable for the OEMs than selling a low margin car. And even then, the residual on a CUV is higher than on a sedan, so lease pricing on them is more favorable.
There are more of these buyers than you think because used cars are more expensive than ever. Personally I just bought a new F-150 last month because it was only a few thousand more than used ones with 50K on them. When I started looking I had no intention of buying new. But talk about sticker shock, the more I looked the less sense a used truck made. This is in sharp contrast to when I bought my last truck over 9 years ago, when barely used trucks were relatively cheap. Used vehicles are just not the value they used to be, especially when considering how expensive repairs are.
Interesting, but I think that your experience is based on your choice of a truck versus a sedan (or car in general). Used trucks are still holding a lot of their resale value compared to a regular old car. In the old days, a pickup bought used was usually one driven into the ground by the first owner, so they tended to be much cheaper. Not any more! Now, you are buying a truck driven by a soccer mom that never carried a load in the bed one time.
Plus, I am talking about entry level, first time car buyers.
You’re right in that trucks hold their value better. I bought my last one when gas prices were high and it actually increased in value for over 2 years as prices went down and stayed down. Which will probably never happen again in my life.
I was going to reference a story I saw on Jalopnik earlier this year, but looks as though I mis-remembered it. Used car prices have indeed gone up as I thought, but new car prices have risen faster. So you may be right.
https://jalopnik.com/used-car-demand-is-shooting-up-1829266924
I don’t see the Corolla going anywhere…
The issue is Ford and Chevrolet very well be right in their actions dropping some models but their beliefs in upmarket appeal are delusional, nobody but Ford and Chevy “because ‘murica” loyalists are or ever will look at those brands as upmarket. Many walk into a dealership and see an equivelant Ford to the Toyota they are crossshopping and get instant sticker shock from the inventory. Ford essentially became Mercury when that brand was dropped, and managed to absorb the same identity crisis Mercury had in the process.
VW is maddening. Until (Unless?) it can develop a market perception of quality and durability that is in the range of the typical Japanese offerings (something that will take a few years after achieving the reality) VW will never be a successful mainstream offering.
The only thing VW offers that none of the others can is its “Germanness”. Yet it sells a car with a steering wheel slightly offset to the center, which will drive away those who really value the driving experience. Where is the Passat GTI? Where is the advertising extolling the German driving experience for thousands less than Audi or BMW? And the car that can make that advertising accurate?
VW seems to keep trying to be a Camry. But it will never be a Camry.
The only thing VW offers that none of the others can is its “Germanness”
Do they? Maybe with the Golf, but the rest of their line-up is completely Americanized-Chineseized. This Passat isn’t even available in Germany; it’s strictly designed for US and China. And that goes for the Atlas and a growing percentage of its line up. And I don’t see these cars offering anything particularly “German” at all anymore. They’re just trying to be another Toyota.
Where is the Passat GTI? You may well ask. Meanwhile Toyota offers genuine sporty V6 versions of the Camry.
VW’s strategy of trying to position itself as a semi-premium German brand in the US was mostly an abysmal failure. Now they’re trying the Hyundai-Kia approach. The problem is even H-K have run out of steam here.
Scale is the most critical component of the US market. Advertising and marketing are very expensive. You’re either in the Big Boys Club, or you’re on the outside looking in. Meanwhile, VW bleeds big bucks in the US.
Actually VW did offer a Passat GT…mostly an appearance package with red piping and nicer wheels but it did come with the 3.6 VR6….a sweet engine.
I get you’re point…Put GTI seats in it, firm up the suspension and it could be a cheaper AUDI
I agree with Paul on the Golf vs the rest of the line up. When my 2016 Golf was in the shop for a week for back to back shifter failures(the second one was bad out of the box so we had to wait for a third one to come in. . . ) they gave me a new 2017 Passat to drive. A good car but it was missing that VW nimbleness/playful magic that the Golf still has.
VW flips back and forth with Toyota on being the world’s largest carmaker. Not being a mainstream US offering doesn’t seem to have hurt them. Meanwhile GM has retreated from Europe completely, the world has changed.
As to the Passat, it is disappointing they are sticking with the same architecture. I assume that’s because it alos underpins the Atlas? Otherwise I’m puzzled it is not going to the MQB platform as the upcoming Arteon is.
The Atlas is on the MQB platform.
Nope, the Atlas is MQB-based. So clearly the factory is configured to produce multiple platforms.
Seems like everyone is going to a 2.0-ish liter turbo as prime motivation these days – it looks like SAAB was right after all, just 40 yrs too soon! (1978 SAAB 99 Turbo: they got it right, right from the start).
VWs are clean well designed cars, imo the best looking sedans out there. Too bad their reputation for questionable reliability continues to haunt them, and it’s unlikely that they will ever match the best Japanese sedans in that regard. Personally I have no interest in sedans less than 40 yrs old anyway, but it’s always good to have more choices rather than less; I wish them well.
The Golf is the true German VW even for the American market. I recently purchased a Golf Alltrack and I’m very impressed with the quality of materials, the layout and the styling. A tad conservative but much nicer than the mauls and orafices on various Toyotas and Hondas. What is most telling is the difference in quality between the Golf and a Jetta or Tiguan. The switchgear, materials and driving dynamics are far superior in the Golf than in their designed for the American market siblings.
I replaced my X3 with the Alltrack and I do not perceive it to be a step down in quality or dynamics….just price.
FWIW, VW is just doing what Toyota did with the Camry from 2002 all the way to last year: all those generations were on the same platform, and the changes were mostly to exterior skin, interior, and other running improvements. But it was the same basic car.
Changing to new platforms frequently is just not done by anyone anymore. Platforms are so highly evolved and flexible, there has to be a very compelling reason for a totally new car.
This was utterly predictable.
True, to a certain extent. When Toyota redesigned the Camry for the 2007 model year, they at least bothered to update the transmission in their four cylinder variant and they introduced a big ass 3.5 liter V6 with an even more competitive six speed automatic. VW really didn’t do anything substantial with the update.
Why would they? It’s not going anywhere, obviously. I’m actually somewhat surprised they didn’t just kill it.
There’s absolutely no way in this declining sedan market that VW could afford to spend anything other than for a mild refresh. They’re losing money as it is. This is just a place holder until their ID EV sedan comes along. It’s going to be the last US Passat.
Oh I agree completely. They faced a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation when faced with the prospect of creating a new Passat. And the problem is that they decided to update it at all.
The much bigger VW story is them cozying up to Ford, big time. The two are in wide-ranging talks about a number of ways to cooperate. Initially, it’s focused on commercial vehicles in Europe, but now it’s much more. VW is desperate to have proper trucks in the US, and Ford has them. A VW badged Ranger would be very appealing. And VW could supply passenger cars. And EVs.
They both need each other quite badly. The only problem is that Ford’s US plant utilization rate is quite high. VW should be cozying up to GM.
Doesn’t VW already have a competitive mid size truck though with the Amorak? Seems it would be easier to just bring that here.
I would guess that partnership is more along the lines of preparing for a merger or sale. Ford is in a fairly precarious position right now.
Making the Amorak competitive (and compliant) for the US market would take a surprisingly large investment that VW can’t readily afford.Look how long (and how much it cost) for Ford to get the Ranger suitable for the US market.
VW could do that, but it’s risky. They might not sell it in enough volume to justify it.
Ford and VW are going out of their way to say that there will be no cross-ownership or even a formal alliance. They just both need to find ways to cover segments of the market while trimming costs.
VW buying Ford is not very realistic or likely.
BTW, the VW pickup is Amarok, not Amorak. It’s marketed to Simon & Garfunkel fans, perhaps.
Still think Amarok sounds more like an old Chevy truck than a new VW.
Would a VW badged Ranger, without any intrinsic VW-ness, be any more appealing than a VW badged Chrysler minivan? Or a Honda badged Isuzu? I suspect not, if by appealing you mean actual buyers. Now if it got a 4Motion AWD system, and a more Germanic interior à la Golf, that would appeal. At least to me.
Or a Mercedes-badged Nissan? How’s that going down, by the way? I’ve seen exactly one so far.
If plant utilization is an issue, then it simply is a matter of buying any excess capacity from GM and turning it into a FVW plant. It’s been done, and with some success. I can think of everything from Willow Run to the current repurpose of the Nummi plant by Tesla, and the new Rivian group reusing the Mitusbishi Diamond Star Motors plant in Normal, IL. Remember they are merging the companies. The real estate can be bought and sold separately from the business.
Remember they are merging the companies.
What? Who’s merging companies?
They are talking about synergies, yes, again you get someone on a technicality. You really seem to enjoy busting people’s balls, Paul. Remember they are merging the companies product. There, FIFY.
If Ford and VW do tie up to produce a truck, in my mind that is a merging of the two companies. The Renault/Nissan/Mitsubishi alliance can call itself whatever it wants, but it is a merger in everything but name. Just like living together is just like a marriage, but not legally defined as such.
The point was and is that the factories can change ownership at any time. A closed factory can be purchased for used by another company, and it has happened in the past and will probably happen again.
I don’t know about that. Did Ford and Nissan merge when they designed and produced the Quest/Villager together?
Personally, I think a VW badged Ford Ranger would be a pretty strange move. But then again so was the VW badged Mopar van from a few years back so I guess it’s not without precedence.
Hi Todd, again, to me, it is a merger. It may not be permanent, but if two people hook up, have a baby, and split up, then it was a merger, if only temporary and for one specific deal. You may take mergers to mean full and total permanent blending, but I do not. YMMV. And this is not a rebadge, as was the case with the Villager. As I read about it, this is the possible collaboration of the two engineering arms of each company. That does not seem to be a simple swap of badges, rather a merge of the two companies on one model, similar to Toyota/BMW on the Z4/Supra or Toyota/Subaru on the BRZ/FRS. Not a rebadge, but a collaboration, with costs and engineering shared by both.
Ford is slimming down its European operations, but isn’t abandoning them entirely. GM has exited Europe completely. That may be one reason why VW is working with Ford instead of GM.
The rumor on Blueovalnews is that Ford will use a version of the VW Passat to replace the aging, unprofitable Mondeo/Fusion (for Europe – the sedan will still go away in North America) – and it will be built by VW. Whether this is true remains to be seen.
Of course. The talks really started out about the European market. Ford is really hurting there, except for their commercial business. Meanwhile, VW would like to strengthen their commercial portfolio there. The Passat being the basis of a future Mondeo or other passenger car platform sharing in Europe makes gobs of sense.
The big cuts Ford is making in its white collar ranks is turning out to be mainly be in Europe. So they need to offload a lot of their engineering and development.
As to the US, they’re being a bit cagey. I think they’re still mulling what might make sense. And how far they want to get. But both sides are adamant about no cross-ownership or an true alliance. Just strategic partnerships.
Much of the criticism of Ford, GM, Chrysler for abandoning the sedan market hinges on the possibility of being caught flat-footed when the next gas-crisis induced price inflation occurs, which it certainly must. My understanding, though, is that many newer domestic production lines are designed with much more flexibility in order to enable products to be changed rapidly for just that reason, and as all the aforementioned manufacturers do still produce small and mid-sized sedans worldwide, not continuing to produce them here may not be the huge negative for them that has been surmised by many. Furthermore, many buyers might prefer to just downsize to smaller and more efficient SUVs/xUVs/trucks, a more likely scenario, imo.
The however is that when gas prices spike the switch to fuel efficient vehicles is usually short lived. Either gas prices come back down or people become accustomed to them and go back to what they want to drive.
The best selling car in 1973 Impala, 1974 Pinto, 1975 Cutlass. Fast forward to the most recent gas price shock and the F series was the best seller, before, during and after the recession.
It makes zero business sense to keep a model around because it might sell well for a year or two when gas prices climb.
Yep, didn’t take people long to ditch their cash for clunker era Cruzes and Focuses in favor of a new SUV or crossover, and now neither model has a future.
I’ll mourn sedans(that is to say the final vestige of the low automobile with an enclosed trunk, I will, not so much the mandatory 4-door body), but the incessant preaching of impending fuel crisis doom by fellow sedan proponents strikes me as utter desperation. The popular modern crossovers don’t get bad mileage, and the sedans we’ll miss aren’t the econobox CAFE queens this argument only applies to.
I realize oil is fungible, but another “gas crisis” may never happen. The United States turned into a net oil exporter last week, something it hasn’t been for 75 years. Also last week the Interior Department identified a massive basin of oil and natural gas in Texas and New Mexico, the largest find in US history.
I agree. The odds of that are looking about as low as ever. In addition to new domestic sources, there’s also the fact that renewable energy sources will inevitably become a larger part of the energy mix, as will EVs.
There’s some folks who think oil has a low-priced future.
As a happy owner of a 2015 Passat, I’m a little disappointed. I was looking forward to an MQB Passat out of Chattanooga. But, the current model is plenty good. This was purely a financial decision on VW’s part. At 60K units per year, it doesn’t make sense to replace all the tooling and update the supply chain for a completely new car. This way, VW can have a dog in the hunt, and maybe make a little money on the car. Let’s be realistic, they will never see 150K units again for it. A low-risk decision. Not that much upside either.
The really big risk is all the money they are pouring into electrics. I might be persuaded to buy a ‘lectric VW for around town and keep the Tiguan for travel. But, what if all the people who might buy an electric have already bought Teslas? Then the rest of the manufacturers will be in a world of hurt.
For Subaru it isn’t such a large investment as the Outback is currently one of the top sellers and isn’t that hard to stamp differently from the wagon version, unlike Hyundai, Kia and Chevy. I sell Subies and while the Legacy doesn’t sell well at all, there are enough die-hard Subaru fans that still like their AWD sedan that they haven’t cancelled it yet. At least for this next upcoming generation…
I wish they’d sell me the Outback with the turbo from the Ascent and the suspension from the Legacy sedan.
That’s my idea of fun.
Well stay tuned- this is probably the last year of the 3.6 so if they are going to do an upgrade engine that would be it! I want the 2.4T in the Crosstrek! Crosstrek STI anyone?
Rode in a neighbour’s late-model Passat recently and though I’m not a VW fan I have to say that it was quite comfy and drove very well. It’s a bit sad that the traditional sedan market seems to be withering but the same thing happened decades ago to the station wagon. Nothing stays the same forever I guess and buyers want something else now. The only thing you can count on is change.
Regarding the transmission, or alleged uncompetitiveness of a 6 speed v 8 speed, more is not always better. I have a Pacifica minivan with a 9 speed transmission, and it seems like it has too many gears and the engine and transmission sometimes aren’t as well matched as the four cylinder four speed automatic I had in the 06 Caravan.
Given VW’s reputation, I seriously doubt that Camcordima buyers are cross shopping the Passat. VW has its fanbase who go back and buy Jettas and Golfs and Passats. I would bet that the people who buy VWs are a pretty committed bunch and this car isn’t having to fight for scraps after the Camcordima buyers have gotten theirs.
New v. used? Usually a newer used car is going to be a rental and with the incentives manufacturers offer, a lot of the time a new car is going to be almost as inexpensive. Rental car miles are HARD miles so take that into consideration when purchasing. An off lease CPO luxury car though is usually a pretty good buy, those things depreciate heavily.
As for entry level cars, Chrysler still makes an entry level car, it’s called the Journey and is heavily incentivized at an out the door price of around $19K. i had one as a rental recently and wrote it up and intend to submit it to this site. It was a very impressive car for $19k, and the tall wagon format is sooo much more practical and easy to live with than the sedan. No wonder sedans are going away.
I’d like to read that Journey review. My neighbors have one as their only car, it seems reliable – I’ve been secretly hoping to get one in the Rental Car Lottery myself. With the V6 that everyone on here that has one speaks very highly of, myself included, the prices they seem to go for and frankly not unattractive styling, I can’t see why everyone in the industry seems to hate on it so much, it seems well sized and a good value to get up to seven people from place A to place B…
On second thoughts, given that midsize sedans are giving way to CUVs in the USA, why doesn’t VW just return the North American Passat to the European model? Do they export the Chatanooga model to China?
My thought exactly – I ctrl-F’d to see if anyone else thought the same thing. Given the slow sales, VW might as well sell just one Passat worldwide, and the Euro model at least shares the MQB platform with numerous other VAG vehicles. This applies even if they need to import them from Germany or elsewhere; the US plant would be better off building crossovers.
Walking home from the farmer’s market just now, I got passed by 3 Uber’s in about 15 seconds. All sedans: Dart (FCA style, not /6 style), very new Corolla, and 3rd gen FWD Malibu. Maybe the budget Uber market will keep low-end sedans around, just like taxis and police cars kept the Crown Vic alive. FWIW, in my town where sedans and VW’s are quite popular, I see far more late model Jettas and Tiguans than Passats and Atlases. So maybe the Passat serves a purpose to attract buyers into the showroom, even if they settle for a Jetta.
I am tired of hearing “everyone is driving Utes” as if “you aren’t one of the cool kids if you still drive a car”. To me, it’s car makers wanting more $ from buyers, to pay for their “expenses”.
“younger buyers prefer them”. They can barely afford them! More like 40/50 somethings like them since they show that you have “made it”. Also, they are the “thing”, as with opera windowed PLCs 40 years ago.
20-somethings “favorite car” is anything the Uber/Lyft driver has, and most of them are used sedans.
Kind of a vicious cycle, sedans need rebates to sell to middle income buyers, but then lose $. Used cars are more expensive due to demand, but then supply will dry up.
Will the future be that only upper class buyers can afford to lease new luxury brand UV’s, and the rest of us will have to make do with their cast offs. Used lux vehicles are expensive to maintain.
Main point is I’m tired of hearing “sedans are dead, buy a truck/UV!” [to line other’s pockets with cash]