2002 Volkswagen Jetta Tdi Diesel,automatic ,45-50mpg,105 Miles,no Reserve on 2040-cars

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VW sales increase 0.6% in September despite diesel scandal

Volkswagen was spared in the month of September from posting a sales disaster, but in reality, the impending doom and gloom is likely just postponed until October. According to VW, it delivered 26,141 vehicles to its dealerships last month, which represents a 0.6-percent gain over the same period a year ago. While up, that meager increase represents the smallest uptick of all major brands in the United States, which is currently in the middle of the best vehicular sales year in the last decade. Audi, the German automaker's mainstream luxury unit, saw a bigger gain at 16.2 percent with 17,340 total units sold, thanks in large part to the popularity of its crossover models. These numbers can't totally be taken at face value, however. In 2014, Labor Day weekend was counted as part of August's sales figures; in 2015, that traditional car-buying holiday fell early in September and is therefore partly responsible for the huge increases from all brands doing business in the United States. Remember, the diesel emissions scandal didn't hit the news until September 18, which means VW was free to sell its 2.0-liter TDI engine for the majority of the month. In other words, October is going to be the real indicator of sales reckoning as it will be the first full month that the brand can't sell its popular diesel models and the first since its emissions scandal broke. Still, TDI sales were down last month. VW reports a total of 3,060 sales of vehicles equipped with TDI engines, which represents 11.7 percent of total volume. That's nearly cut in half from the TDI's year-to-date volume percentage of 20.4 percent. "We would like to thank dealers and customers for the support of the Volkswagen brand," said Mark McNabb, chief operating officer for Volkswagen of America in a statement. "Volkswagen will continue to work diligently to regain trust and confidence in our brand." It's not yet clear exactly when VW will issue a fix to make its 2.0-liter TDI engine emissions legal, or when the EPA will recertify those models for sale. Once those two things happen, dealers will again be free to sell vehicles equipped with the powertrain, but even then it remains to be seen how consumers react when the sales ban is lifted. Scroll down below for all the sales data from Volkswagen in September.

EU formally questions French government assistance of Peugeot's finance arm

Recently, the finance arm of PSA/Peugeot-Citroën was in such debt trouble that it was pricing itself out of the car loan market. The rates it was paying to service its debt, which was rated one step above junk, were so high that it was forced to charge car-buying customers higher rates than they could find elsewhere. This was adding to Peugeot's already impressive woes by sending revenue out the door to competitors.
Two months ago a deal was worked out with the French government whereby the state would provide 7 billion euro ($9 billion USD) in bonds to guarantee the finance arm's loans. The French government could nominate someone to join the Peugeot board, Peugeot would guarantee more French jobs, and on top of that deal, other banks would provide non-guaranteed loans. The government would take no equity stake in the car company.
Although not yet finalized, the arrangement is meant to create some breathing room for Peugeot Finance to lower its interest rates for customers, and a government-nominated board member, Louis Gallois, was recently named to Peugeot's supervisory board. The arrangement was also openly questioned by at least three competitors: Ford, Renault - which is 15-percent owned by the French government after it received state aid - and the German state of Lower Saxony, itself a 15-percent shareholder in Volkswagen.

2015 Volkswagen GTI: Clicking, beeping, and trying to stay cool [w/video]

My first car didn't have air conditioning. Well, that's not entirely true. The car had A/C, it just didn't work. Nevertheless, I survived summer after summer of sweating behind the wheel – par for the course in a 15-year-old Mitsubishi with 235,000 miles on the odometer. But it's another thing entirely when that same experience happens in a 2015 Volkswagen GTI after just 7,000 miles of use. That's how Autoblog kicked off summer with the long-term GTI: sweating in plaid seats. The car went to Suburban Volkswagen in Troy, MI, where the technicians told me the air-con just needed a recharge (despite asking them to inspect it further). They recharged it, the air blew cold, and 48 hours later, the A/C stopped working again. (Surprise!) The problem was a leak in the compressor/condenser line, so a new one was installed, the system was charged, and now it's fixed. For real this time. Unfortunately, that second-coming happened during a road trip with editor-in-chief Mike Austin at the helm. His logbook comments are, as you'd expect, appropriately salty. "Everybody loves the GTI, right? Not quite. I drove to Toronto for a weekend. On the way home, the A/C quit working. This wasn't too much of a problem until we hit the border control line to re-enter the United States. I always pick the slow line, somehow. Thusly baked in the heat, with outside temperatures above 80, the GTI didn't cool back down for the rest of the trip. Then I learned we already fixed the A/C once." "Of course, any car on that day with a surprise A/C failure would earn my ire," Austin notes. "It just seems a little more irritating on a new car. Otherwise, yeah, this is a great car." A great car, indeed. Everyone loves spending time with the GTI. It's got plenty of power, it's quiet, it's comfortable, and it eats up highway miles. We've got just over 10,000 miles on the odometer as of this writing, and as summer carries on, many editors have requested extended periods of seat time in the GTI for weekend getaways and longer road trips. But it's still not perfect. Following the A/C fiasco, there's another, more curious problem plaguing the GTI. Every time the car starts, a weird, varied-tempo, loud clicking is heard from the dash. We think it's coming from the direction of the glovebox, and it's not the same click patten every time. Sometimes it's one or two knocks, sometimes it's several. See what I mean in the video below. Weird, right? Another trip to Suburban Volkswagen offered no help.