DustinV

Actually, Seat and Skoda are the Volkswagen value brands in Europe. Over the last few years Volkswagen has continually moved upmarket and increased the prices of its offerings.

Skoda enjoys an image along the lines of "a lot of car for little money". They're also very reliable.

Seat equally stands for great value, but with a little more sport and emotion injected into their models. The Seat claim is "Auto Emocion".

As appealing as I find Volkswagen vehicles in Europe, I'd go with a Skoda product in the future (hopefully a Superb station wagon). My Golf is a second-hand car which I got for a great deal.

spwolf

Seat is supposed to be sporty offering, but VW doesnt really know what to do with it, they basically made a lot of minivans lately.

Skoda is no frills basic offering that would be even better if VW didnt make them use some dubious design choices (probably to make VW more premium).

Fizzboy7

Thanks for the info. Other than horsepower differences, is this the same mill in both cars?

Fizzboy7

Consider VW's Passat of 1998. That car sold very well and was rated as the top sedan by Consumer Reports and car magazines. Now, why didn't VW chose to have a similar recipe with this new Passat? The '98 model was sporty, looked modern, was innovative, had the premium interior, and was only a grand or two more than the Accords and Camrys. To answer my own question, it lies within the company officials, bean counters, and lack of designers today (sorry De Silva, this doesn't cut it). There's no reason they could not design a dynamic and appealing car today, like they did back then- and still keep the price lower. They did it in 1998 with great success. I think this will be one of those rare and unfortunate times when we look back in time and say things were better back then (with VW).

mmarshall

Before overly-panning the new Passat, though, consider, though, that the Camry and Accord (at least IMO) aren't the same vehicles they were in the mid-late 1990's, either. The Accord has kept the same high build quality and Swiss-Watch-assembly, but now seems to use more-lightweight, cheaper parts, trim, and hardware. Same with the Camry...perhaps more so. I thought the best Camrys, by far, were the 3Gen 1992-96 models, and it was gradually downhill from there. With the Accord, I thought the best ones were the early-90's versions, then a slow downhill march from there, though the rough-shifting Honda automatics did get smoother with time.


I agree that the financial-constraints in the design of today's cars are extreme, and bean-counters have enormous power. But part of that is that the requirements for what goes into today's cars, from both government regulations and customer-demand, has driven the costs of design and production way up, and, to compensate, companies are cutting back on some things that they used to include. If you read my reviews regularly, you know that I often point out things like manual hood-props instead of struts, temporary-spare tires instead of real ones, lack of body-side mouldings, cheap hard interior trim, ugly silver-painted plastic-aluminum trim instead of real aluminum, etc.....

I'm not sure I agree. We could have nicer, more refined cars inside and out, but the prices would go up. You can't just snap your fingers or wave a magic wand, and presto, all of your raw-material and supplier's prices will drop. But, there is such a thing as just plain cheapness. When you won't put on a lousy vinyl-strip down the body-side or a strut underhood instead of a prop-rod, that's just excessive bean-counting, IMO.

Fizzboy7

I'm not sure I agree. We could have nicer, more refined cars inside and out, but the prices would go up. You can't just snap your fingers or wave a magic wand, and presto, all of your raw-material and supplier's prices will drop.[/QUOTE]

Good comments. To me, the interior is not the new Passat's problem. It's the blandness and lack of style. I don't think it would cost more to add a swoop here or a curve there. It's like VW thinks they will sell more cars if they just make them look boring. Maybe this will work, but I see a missed opportunity to stand out from the crowd and sell even more cars. The 1998 model did this quite well. Will be interesting to see how the new model is received.

*Batman*

That's fair, but I think that reinforces my analogy. You see Dodge is Chrysler's value brand, just like Skoda is VWs value brand. And Seat is also a value brand, but its mission is also to gain market dominance in a specific market. Seat has something like 50% market share in Spain.

But these brands are largely badge engineering. They are all the same cars, just with different trim levels. So when you say VW is moving up market, what you really mean is that they are using slightly nicer trim and charging a higher price on VW branded versions of the Skoda.

spwolf

Good comments. To me, the interior is not the new Passat's problem. It's the blandness and lack of style. I don't think it would cost more to add a swoop here or a curve there. It's like VW thinks they will sell more cars if they just make them look boring. Maybe this will work, but I see a missed opportunity to stand out from the crowd and sell even more cars. The 1998 model did this quite well. Will be interesting to see how the new model is received.[/QUOTE]
but thats VW - they have always been very conservative brand.

In Europe, people buy VW as "safe/default choice"... just like Toyota in USA.

spwolf

but thats VW - they have always been very conservative brand.

In Europe, people buy VW as "safe/default choice"... just like Toyota in USA

edit: something is bad with quote system

LexFather

Maybe a meet at the VW plant here? We can see how they produce all those high quality plastics, leather and suspension bits.

TJW98LS

iTrader: (1)

VW has completely changed their focus. Now everything they produce is becoming low-rent. The Jetta may start out at 15,000 but you don't even get A/C with the base model Jetta.

I've not read up on this Passat, but I can only imagine the same after seeing how 'GM' the interior was.

mmarshall

Base Jettas, in the American market, are now $16,495, but your point is well-taken. A/C, like power windows/door-locks, is standard in just about all U.S.-market vehicles, except for maybe some rock-bottom entry-level models.

You're living somewhat in the past. GM interiors have improved enormously in the last few years.

spwolf

well, we have seen MT comparo with jetta, and it was still $5k more expensive than Corolla and had actually worse handling and braking.

98 Passat was what Passat should always be.

LexFather

The irony is VW is simply going back to their roots of cheap, basic, bland transportation, the German Toyota. So its not really surprising. Pirech's plan of making VW into a Benz competitor simply didn't work.

Agreed