I hope VW does sell 1million vehicles. However, VW needs to close the gap on its reliability or perceived reliability issues, dealer service, and resale. VW has always made driver centric cars that handled well, encouraged driver involvement, and maintained firm driver loyalty. I like the look, handling, and idea of owning a VW, however balk due to horror stories of shoddy workmanship and dealer woes. I usually ply my resources from this site, edmunds, etc. (I generally do not give much credit to Consumer Reports due to their inability to separate small problems from larger ones. CR tends to grade everything on the same scale). For instance I like the new Rabbit 4dr with 170hp 5cyl/5speed. Excellent standard equipment, but I will wait 1 -2 years to see how the model has held up before purchasing.

Its not really as hard for them as it sounds, they just need to gain a few more loyal customers. Think about it, their average car live is vastly shorter than other brands, so customers coming back to buy another car from them should happen a lot quicker than other brands. They just need to stay the course with their terrible reliability (although this does make it harder to get new customers and retain old ones).

gm0n3y, if I bought a car from a given make that lasted 'vastly shorter' than other brands, I wouldn't buy again from that brand. And that is exactly what is happening to VW. All this talk about being a 'premium' brand and 'quality'... sure the trim materials look nice, the dealerships look nice, but let's not talk about electrical system problems, broken trim, automatic transmission issues or about the arrogant, incompetant and overpriced auto service that VW dealers dish out.

As for separating small problems from big ones... a problem like one or more of the ignition coils going bad may seem like a small problem to some... after all, replacing them isn't that big of a deal. But imagine you're out in the middle of nowhere or even if you're out on a date and the problem happens. Are you going to start fiddling with ignition coils late in the evening?

I don't know about you, but if it happened to me at a bad moment in my "premium-priced high quality car", I'd be really ticked off and be much less inclined to buy into the "premium-priced high quality car" marketing the next time I was buying.

It's one thing for that to happen to a $2000 beater... or even a very basic $12,000 new car. Not as big of an issue because, well, it's a basic beater.

It's another thing entirely if it happens to a small car that sells for thousands more than the competition because it supposedly is a "premium brand" with "premium quality".

peter,you are full of crap. if the ownership experience was is bad as you paint, VW would be already gone. the truth is, I have owned 10 vw's over the last 25 years and have enjoyed them all, particularly because of quality, performance, handling, resale, and many other nuances you are oblivious to. If you want an appliance buy a toyonda -If you want an automobile buy a VW, there must be a reason they are no 1 in resale with 48.1% retained value after 5 years vs toyota's 10th place finish