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May 19, 2005
Lazy Day
I know it's been a while since I've blogged, sorry. Yesterday was my birthday and I kind of took the day off from the world. It was pretty relaxing. Something I did do yesterday was pay my local Volkswagen [vw.com] dealership a visit.
I'm kind of in the market for a new Passat, but I can't make up my mind on what kind to get. My wife thinks that I should get a 4Motion (AWD) because she's a big fan of AWD. I think it's the safety issue that she's so hot on. When I talked to the dealer they said that the 4Motion wasn't worth the extra price unless you got some kind of emotional satisfaction from it. They indicated that traction control + Blizzaks gave you just as much protection on snow as the AWD would.
I do remember someone saying that one of the only places that AWD would really help is in Florida because of the oils that rise to road surfaces in hot weather. I guess it's especially bad in Florida as compared to other places because when I was living in Texas it really wasn't that bad. It might have something to do with the humidity, I don't know.
The price difference is rather significant and the 4Motion is supposed to have higher/more maintenance costs associated with it. According to Kelley's Blue Book [kbb.org] the standard MSRP is only $24,990 versus $26,902 (difference of $1,912), but the 4Motions are in such limited supply that they won't lower the price on them as much as the 4Motions. I think the standard 1.8T could be gotten for around $22,000 while if I fight I might be able to get the 4Motion for $26,000. Taking that into consideration the difference is more like $4,000, Like I said, significant (at least to me).
Enter the next problem, availability. My dealer only had 3 4Motions in stock. It was probably one of those high-pressure sales tactics, but they had indicated that they probably won't be in stock after Memorial Day. If that's actually true then my decision is probably made for me as I don't want to buy before then. However, this begs the question, if those won't last, what about the non-4Motions? How long do I actually have before you can't get the current body-style new anymore?
Decisions, decisions...
Posted by Guy at May 19, 2005 01:17 PM