201 to 228 hp is just like an idiot tax. But of course it’s only a start. If customers accept it, they will put more and more behind a subscription.
Well, I was planning on buying the new electric van they have, but this article has changed my mind. Same reason I won’t buy a Tesla or any other company that hides features of a fully purchased car behind a paywall. Fuck that mess and I will never support it.
I don’t know why they made a minivan with only two cup holders.
My husband and I had looked at VW as one of their cars matched our criteria. When we went to look at it I was like “what do you mean this car only has 1 cup holder!!!” Like that wasn’t even on our list of needs to consider because… You know… I assumed every car had at least 2.
It’s like having pants with only one pocket!
Yeah, honestly I will never own a German car again. They are way over engineered while also lacking the creature comforts i expect as an American. My 20 year old beetle has 2 cup holders, but they are underneath the radio and can’t hold anything wider than a soda can, and only have about 8 inches of clearance.
Europoor here, we never used the cup holder for holding cups in my life time.
The only acceptable usage was throwing coins that you don’t know where to put, usually for paying the motorway tolls in France (but this has also disappeared in favor of cards).
But on the same cultural differences, I bet I’ve seen the cigarette lighter and ashtray being more used than you had (during the 80 and 90s when cars still had them).
On a long American commute, you gotta have a large coffee so sip on. In fact, anytime i am in a car longee than 30 minutes i feel like i NEED a coffee or a drink. It’s a pavlovian response at this point.
LDV e seris ?
ID. Buzz
I just had to pay upwards of $700 to boost my VW’s horsepower.
By buying a Cobb Accessport
Do they have something for Mercedes?
I’m not sure. Everything I’ve found for Mercs replaced the ECU entirely
Are you dealing with diesel or petrol? Naturally aspirated petrol is pretty useless to tune, anything turbocharged has tuning potential, especially diesel where you can get ridiculous torque.
Electric. You can unlock higher speeds with a subscription for EQS.
Ah, I’m sure there’s some way to do it, but not sure if it’s been discovered yet.
My wife’s 2017 Volkswagen, with only 160,000 very gentle km on it (100,000 miles) suddenly had a warning light come on. It seems that the sensor on the turbo charger had gone bad, but the only way to fix it is to replace the entire turbocharger, close to $5,000.
From what we have read, Volkswagens of this age start to have large numbers of very expensive repairs. Lesson learned, she got rid of the Volkswagen and bought a hyundai.
That’s bullshit. That vintage of VW has like two sensors on the turbo. They’re easy to get to and cost like $100 tops.
And $5,000 to replace a turbo is nuts. A new turbo can be around $1,500 but it’s less than six or eight hours of labor for a good mechanic.
I’m an idiot code monkey and I replaced mine in my garage in a weekend.
+1 to this. $5k is BS, Especially if we’re talking USD, but this also sounds like classic VW making a simple repair a massive job, replacing unnecessary parts, charging exorbitant prices and throwing away perfectly good components that end up in landfill, and best part is in the end it probably wasn’t even what they diagnosed to actually be the cause of the problem, dealerships love to fix symptoms, not causes. A good independent Euro specialist would have loved that job.
I had the VW dealer quote me $6,000 for a new turbo when the actually problem is probably a clogged catalytic converter.
Also they told me I put in the wrong turbo but it’s literally the same part number and manufacturer as the one I pulled out.
The price was $4-5,000 in Canadian dollars, so probably a bit over USD $3,000. And this came from my local mechanic, who sourced it from Volkswagen but also called around to scrapyards to see about just buying a sensor.
It’s not like he had anything to gain. He actually recommended that we sell the car, and he knew that he would be losing business because my wife’s new car is electric and he doesn’t service those.
That makes a bit more sense, but buying direct from VW is where you spend all that money.
I got the same turbo from the same company that built my stock one for $900 Freedom Bucks. They’ve gone up in price a bit due to inflation and tariffs but are still a ton cheaper than “official” parts.
If you help me get Canadian asylum I’d be happy to swap it out for you.
I got news for you, I purchased a used Hyundai 2019 that has turbo, and the one thing wrong with it was the turbo. My father’s a mechanic, so he said he would put it in, but I believe the cost for the part was around $500. Idk what a dealer would charge. He then told me that turbos, on average, only last about 100k anyway, so it’s definitely a part that will most likely need replacing more than most sadly. Then, a month later, the entire car died, and the engine was bad… this was earlier this year, and my father again said he would do it, but a new engine takes time, which he doesn’t have, so now I’ve been car less for 4 months, yay!
This new car had 93k on it. My last car (Nissan Sentra) lasted 19 years and 250k on it and only traded it in because we were nervous it could go at any time. Thanks for the great car, Hyundai!
“You wouldn’t download a car”
You wouldn’t own a car you purchased
Ads when you’re driving, features you’ve paid for locked behind a paywall and overpriced repairs… the future is here.
Hope suburu doesn’t end up doing this, just bought one.
I own a 26 year old skoda 1.9 TDI 110 HP Without touching any hardware it can be remmaped to 140 hp, which is a setting used in an Audi A4 from that era. Replacing a couple of things, like injectors turbo and intercooler, it can go to 180-190, which was also offered for the same engine. I’m happy with the 110hp, the car drives fine, and the engine is relaxed, wich has helped its longevity
I’ve got a ten year old GTI and the amount of power you can get out of these engines with really simple, cheap mods is crazy.
Give it a few weeks and some eastern European wizard will find a way to unlock it with ease and make it available to the masses
Personally i just drill holes in my ECU to install weatherproof connections to the BDM port so I can fiddle around with it myself in WinOLS. quite the learning curve though.
Seems like this scheme might save you money in countries where insurance is extremely expensive? Since car’s official power figure is the original one.
I’m legitimately impressed that you managed to come up with a scenario where the cause of this silliness wasn’t 100% corporate greed. I’ll see if I can give it a go too:
We have P (provisional driver) plate restrictions here that limit power to weight… Possibly it could be a car you can drive on your P license without the subscription, then turn it on when you get your full license to enjoy 10% more power?
… I dunno I’m struggling.
Oh it’s pure corporate greed, I just enjoy playing devil’s advocate
