No Reserve Clean 2002 Volkswagen Passat Gls Wagon, 2 Owner, No Acciedents, 5 Spd on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Sunday Drive: Variety is the spice of life

If there's any one new vehicle the entire world is anxiously waiting for, it's the Jeep Wrangler. Yes, of course the iconic off-roader has a loyal following here in America, but you could plop a Wrangler pretty much anywhere on the globe and everybody will know what it is. Put simply, the redesigned 2018 Jeep Wrangler JL has big, muddy shoes to fill, and the readers of Autoblog are just as interested in the Wrangler's rebirth as anyone else. Moving along, we were fortunate enough last week to spend a bit of time in nearly every version of the venerable Volkswagen Golf all in one day. There isn't a Golf we don't like, but there's one, easily identifiable by its three-digit name, that stands above all the rest: GTI. We think it's the best Golf you can buy, even if there's an R-badged variant that slots above the GTI in VW hierarchy. Rounding out our recap are three vehicles that could hardly be more different. The 2019 GMC Sierra, which was seen wearing pretty light camouflage, is a truck. The Lamborghini Terzo Millennio – which isn't going to go on sale, ever, at any price – is a conceptual supercar. And the Honda CB1000R is a retro-themed naked standard motorcycle. Variety really is the spice of life. 2018 Jeep Wrangler spy shot mega gallery Driving nearly every VW Golf: Base, GTI, R, Alltrack — here's what we learned 2019 GMC Sierra spied sporting just a thin wrapping The Lamborghini Terzo Millennio is a brutally fantastic EV supercar concept Honda unveils 2 new motorcycles, including retro-flavored CB1000R Image Credit: Brian Williams GMC Honda Jeep Lamborghini Volkswagen Technology Truck Convertible Crossover Hatchback SUV Performance sunday drive vw golf gti lamborghini terzo millennio

How the VW diesels perform in cheat mode

Are you tired of the Volkswagen diesel emissions scandal? Yeah? We are, too. But here's a story that, at the very least, gives us something resembling answers about one of the most important questions surrounding the firestorm – how will the affected cars perform when they're in their emissions-cheating test mode? Consumer Reports was able to find out, tapping into what it believes is the cheat mode. By turning the car to accessory mode, flipping on the hazards, and tapping the gas pedal five times, CR was able to defeat the auto-engaged traction and stability controls, which it believes activates cheat mode. The safeties will reengage if it detects the rear wheels spinning, so the next step was what CR called "a hack." The team unplugged the rear wheel sensors, so the car's computers couldn't tell whether the wheels were spinning. By the way, don't try this at home. With that done, CR hit the road, testing both a 2011 Jetta Sportwagen TDI and a 2015 Jetta TDI sedan in their normal and cheat modes. Why both cars? Well, the 2011 uses the EA188 diesel, which represents the bulk of the affected cars, while the newer Jetta uses the latest EA288, which just arrived for model year 2015. The results are, in a word, interesting. The EA188 engine lost 0.6 seconds on the way to 60 miles per hour while in emissions-compliant cheat mode, and fuel economy fell from 50 miles per gallon to 46. For the newer EA288, the 0-60 difference was negligible – just a tenth of a second – while the fuel economy dipped from 53 to 50 mpg. There are a few takeaways here. First of all, and as suspected, running in cheat mode did hurt both performance and fuel economy. But perhaps more importantly, even in emissions-compliant mode, both vehicles easily beat their EPA fuel economy estimates. According to FuelEconomy.gov, the highest rated 2011 TDI Sportwagen, the manual-trans model, was rated at 30 mpg city and 42 mpg highway, with a combined rating of 34 (the auto drops the city and combined ratings by one mpg, while the highway falls by three). The best a 2015 Jetta TDI sedan can do according to Uncle Sam, meanwhile, is 31 city, 46 highway, and 36 combined with the manual (again, the auto is worse, but only by a single highway mpg). Related Video:

Former Porsche boss Wiedeking won't face criminal charges over VW bid

Hedge fund managers have been suing Porsche for years now, alleging that the car company lied about its intentions during its failed attempt to take over Volkswagen, a gambit that caused them billion in losses. Over the same period, authorities in Stuttgart built a criminal case against former CEO Wendelin Wiedeking (above, left) and Chief Financial Officer Holger Härter (right), filing charges in December 2012. When those fund plaintiffs lost their most recent court case, one of the dimming lights in the dark and receding tunnel was that the criminal investigation might unearth more evidence about Porsche's actions that could help the plaintiffs in pending litigation.
Bloomberg reports that another light has gone out, though, with a Stuttgart court dismissing the market manipulation case before going to trial because, as a court spokesperson said, "there wasn't enough evidence backing up the charges." When prosecutors get the files back from the court, they have a week to decide to refile, but unless they've been sandbagging evidence that could bolster the case, the only lights at the end of the tunnel will be those welcoming Wiedeking and Härter back to the world of legally unencumbered men.