TDI fades into regulatory oblivion; Enter Miata

[Payman]

I know my neighbor is pretty pissed.  He thought his deal was going through in October, bought a new truck that had a massive incentive option he couldn't pass up thinking he was going to get the money for his car within a week...

Well, it's been over 2 months and his Jetta is still in his driveway and he is making truck payments b that he wasn't planning on doing

Sawzall time. Seriously though, it's hard to feel sorry for him. These things always drag out far longer than promised.

[Eye of the Tiger]

Shit I need a new cargo cover for my car, I wish I had a friend with a Golf TDI abt to be turned in.

Shoulda gotta sedan. 
Now all you can do is get a Mexican blanket.

[Tave]

Sawzall time. Seriously though, it's hard to feel sorry for him. These things always drag out far longer than promised.

October was jumping the gun quite a bit--all he needed to do was read the literature VW mailed--but they did set a hard schedule with upper-limits that they blew through about a month ago. Since then they've edited their website to remove all the "within 10 days" language and instructed their customer service reps to not give out any definite time estimates when queried.

Hard to feel too bad for him, but then again prior to ever sending out the packets with the detailed timeline, VW was giving projected return dates that were before final court approval, so they had as big a hand as anyone in the confusion.

[Payman]

http://jalopnik.com/volkswagen-refuses-to-buy-back-the-stripped-out-car-rig-1790345158

Turns out trying to be cute/funny by stripping the car before bringing it back, he caused himself a massive headache. Looks like VW will drag this out, and he might be faced with having to completely reassemble the car. Hope he labelled everything. 

[CaminoRacer]

Don't bite the hand that feeds?

[Cookie Monster]

http://jalopnik.com/volkswagen-refuses-to-buy-back-the-stripped-out-car-rig-1790345158

Turns out trying to be cute/funny by stripping the car before bringing it back, he caused himself a massive headache. Looks like VW will drag this out, and he might be faced with having to completely reassemble the car. Hope he labelled everything. 

That was a shitty thing to do. VW is already paying out the ass for it, why try to stick it to them by being a dick about it?

[12,000 RPM]

Dude is a lil attention hoe. Well, he got what he wanted, and now he's gonna pay for it. What kind of person has the time for this kind of shit anyway?

[2o6]

why did I read the comments

[Tave]

Owners have legitimate cause for greivance. VW is purporting to "buyback" the illegal vehicles and provide additional "restitution" to compensate for the fraud, but in no cases does the total payout even exceed the purchase price of the vehicle. If you don't elect into the class, you get to litigate against one of the biggest companies on the planet by yourself and still have an illegal vehicle that, depending on the state you live in, may not be eligible to re-register.

And then they have the balls to reduce your payout for mileage overages when they're the ones who have delayed scheduling buyback appointments!

To add insult to injury, they're going to recoup half their costs by just selling them in neighboring countries. So I have my car either taken from me, or severely devaluated, and at the end of the day I'm still breathing the same pollution!

If they were stupid enough to agree to "run under its own power" with no qualifications, then they don't deserve any more consideration than they've given the American public, which is essentially nothing at all.

[veeman]

I don't believe they, as part of the settlement, can sell the car to other countries unless it is fully compliant with U.S. regulations.  Which essentially means they have to be made completely inoperable and buried because they have no plan in place for them to meet U.S. regulations.  They can however salvage/recycle parts.

[MX793]

I don't believe they, as part of the settlement, can sell the car to other countries unless it is fully compliant with U.S. regulations.  Which essentially means they have to be made completely inoperable and buried because they have no plan in place for them to meet U.S. regulations.  They can however salvage/recycle parts.

If they can meet regulations in some other country as is, they don't need to be updated to pass US regs to be sold in that other country.

[Raza]

Owners have legitimate cause for greivance. VW is purporting to "buyback" the illegal vehicles and provide additional "restitution" to compensate for the fraud, but in no cases does the total payout even exceed the purchase price of the vehicle. If you don't elect into the class, you get to litigate against one of the biggest companies on the planet by yourself and still have an illegal vehicle that, depending on the state you live in, may not be eligible to re-register.

And then they have the balls to reduce your payout for mileage overages when they're the ones who have delayed scheduling buyback appointments!

To add insult to injury, they're going to recoup half their costs by just selling them in neighboring countries. So I have my car either taken from me, or severely devaluated, and at the end of the day I'm still breathing the same pollution!

If they were stupid enough to agree to "run under its own power" with no qualifications, then they don't deserve any more consideration than they've given the American public, which is essentially nothing at all.

Aka par for the course for an automaker. 

[giant_mtb]

Buddy of mine is doing the buyout...his offer was a couple grand more than he paid for the car.

[Tave]

Buddy of mine is doing the buyout...his offer was a couple grand more than he paid for the car.

He must've got 20-30% off the sticker then, because I can see everyone's offer range and all of them undercut VW's MSRP by a healthy margin. I bought mine for +10% off list and am still only just barely getting that back (it's actually short $500-$1000). They were absolutely flying off the lots at the time too.

[Tave]

I haven't called the Fiat dealership back since scheduling my buyback, think it's a sign I'm set on the Miata.

Any good argument that the Multiair will be more robust than the Skyactive? Any DI carbon buildup horror stories? I've heard Mazda's new mills are actually noticeably better on that front than a lot of others.

[MrH]

Lol, no, I would definitely be more worried about the Multiair than the Skyactive.  That turd of an engine is the main reason I'd go Miata over the Fiat.

I'm still blown away at 22 psi required to be slower than the NA miata.  If the Miata is too slow for you, Edelbrock is making a supercharger for it with warranty

[giant_mtb]

He must've got 20-30% off the sticker then, because I can see everyone's offer range and all of them undercut VW's MSRP by a healthy margin. I bought mine for +10% off list and am still only just barely getting that back (it's actually short $500-$1000). They were absolutely flying off the lots at the time too.

He got it used.  Paid around 11.5 and his offer was about 13.5.

[MX793]

Lol, no, I would definitely be more worried about the Multiair than the Skyactive.  That turd of an engine is the main reason I'd go Miata over the Fiat.

I'm still blown away at 22 psi required to be slower than the NA miata.  If the Miata is too slow for you, Edelbrock is making a supercharger for it with warranty

The Edelbrock warranty won't cover your shredded transmission.  Until Mazda beefs up the trans on the ND, I wouldn't be looking to add any significant power to it.  Unless a transmission swap is also part of the build.

[MrH]

The Edelbrock warranty won't cover your shredded transmission.  Until Mazda beefs up the trans on the ND, I wouldn't be looking to add any significant power to it.  Unless a transmission swap is also part of the build.

Yeah, there's been a whole string of failed transmissions on the NDs. Mazda released a TSB. New part numbers for multiple things in the transmission, and there's been no failures since.

[12,000 RPM]

How much more power does one need anyway? A couple of N/A bolt ons and this is flirting with a 13 second quarter mile. That's plenty fast for the street.

[Tave]

Are they all cycled in or are you still rolling the dice on models on the lot right now?

Fiata has the previous gen's trans which is more robust...

[Tave]

I'm not worried about the power in either at all, I'm not looking to do any engine alterations.

[Cookie Monster]

190 whp from bolt ons and a tune. That Skyactiv is fucking magical.

[MrH]

Are they all cycled in or are you still rolling the dice on models on the lot right now?

Fiata has the previous gen's trans which is more robust...

There's a ton of them on the lots still.  They're holding model year 2017 miatas at the port because there's such a huge surplus of 2016s.  There's a build date change over point, so you could look at the VIN and determine if it has the new transmission or not.

There were also problems with the top early on too. Straps were failing, and weird wear parts.  Some people have had an entire new top installed via warranty.  Not sure if anyone has had both issues, but that would be brutal for Mazda.  Talking like $12k+ in warranty work on a <$30k car is crazy.

Keep in mind, the actual incident rates for these is really really small.  If it were me, I probably work out the best possible deal for a leftover 2016 miata that I could.  If transmission or top fails, that's what the warranty is for.

[MrH]

190 whp from bolt ons and a tune. That Skyactiv is fucking magical.

That's not consistent.  One dynoed there once I think.  They're having a hard time duplicating these numbers.

[Tave]

There's a ton of them on the lots still.  They're holding model year 2017 miatas at the port because there's such a huge surplus of 2016s.  There's a build date change over point, so you could look at the VIN and determine if it has the new transmission or not.

There were also problems with the top early on too. Straps were failing, and weird wear parts.  Some people have had an entire new top installed via warranty.  Not sure if anyone has had both issues, but that would be brutal for Mazda.  Talking like $12k+ in warranty work on a <$30k car is crazy.

Keep in mind, the actual incident rates for these is really really small.  If it were me, I probably work out the best possible deal for a leftover 2016 miata that I could.  If transmission or top fails, that's what the warranty is for.

Gracias for the information.

I did some digging, it appears all the Miatas on the local lot are pre-changeover. Ah well like you said it's warrantied and only occurs on a small number of cars.

Still might check the surrounding city lots though.

[MrH]

Gracias for the information.

I did some digging, it appears all the Miatas on the local lot are pre-changeover. Ah well like you said it's warrantied and only occurs on a small number of cars.

Still might check the surrounding city lots though.

Yeah, the transmission issue looks to be an alignment problem on gears two and three, and that causes some sort of uneven load on the gear teeth, and they're actually sheering off.  Looks to be a tolerance stackup problem. They probably had a batch or two of a part come in that was at the edge of the allowable spec.

There's 7 club Miatas with a manual at my local dealer.  They've all been there since May or so.  I check to see what they have them listed for every so often.  Come February or so, they're going to be so desperate, I may test drive and see what they're like.

[Soup DeVille]

I don't believe they, as part of the settlement, can sell the car to other countries unless it is fully compliant with U.S. regulations.  Which essentially means they have to be made completely inoperable and buried because they have no plan in place for them to meet U.S. regulations.  They can however salvage/recycle parts.

VW doesn't salvage and recycle the parts themselves though (do they? It would be weird). They'll sell them to somebody who does though.

[veeman]

If they can meet regulations in some other country as is, they don't need to be updated to pass US regs to be sold in that other country.

Negative.  The judgement clearly states that no VW diesel TDI which does not meet current U.S. regulations can be sold in another country regardless of that countries regulations.  The EPA made a specific point about that because they didn't want the same cars being returned to be sold in Mexico a month later.  The cars have to be made completely inoperable (the judgement/agreement mandated a hole being made in the engine block and the chassis sawed in half, or something to that effect.  I forget the exact wording but it was darn specific.)

[veeman]

VW doesn't salvage and recycle the parts themselves though (do they? It would be weird). They'll sell them to somebody who does though.