CX5 Vs Golf SportWagen 4Motion

it is my impression that vw is a much "better" brand than mazda, sharing the bed with porsche, audi, and others, rather than "ford's sloppy seconds". It's going to retain value better, seem more up-class, have better features, etc.

I know everyone gonna jump up and defend mazda, but it is what it is.

rolflmfao!!!!!! But seriously thanks man I needed that!
 
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Volkswagen a better "brand" than Mazda? That's a new one.

Right now, Volkswagen's brand image sucks. They went through a streak of build quality problems and poor reliability in the 2000s, and most people I know who had VWs in that decade said "never again". They seemed to be rebuilding their popularity with the TDI, and then dieselgate happened.

If you go back in time to circa 2000, their offerings were more up-class. My wife owned a Jetta GLX that was near Audi-like. But now they are more below class than above it. They have bland, dated looking design and their interiors feel cheap relative to their selling price.

Regarding resale price, certain models like the GTI may hold up better than Mazdas because they still have a following.
 
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It is my impression that VW is a much "better" brand than Mazda, sharing the bed with Porsche, Audi, and others, rather than "Ford's sloppy seconds". It's going to retain value better, seem more up-class, have better features, etc.

I know everyone gonna jump up and defend Mazda, but it is what it is.

I am new to Mazda so I am certainly not defending Mazda. I may be defending Japanese cars in general because, I have had Toyota Corolla (17 years with no major repairs), RAV4 before (6 years with not even a hiccup), BMW E 91, a well known German brand with only 50000 km and with very troublesome repairs and poor reliability, a VW Golf with even more problem. I am done with German cars. VW has the worst reliability history and bad service from their dealers. Any one who says German cars in general are reliable needs to think again and read stories in the internet. I am just hoping that my new CX-5 will be as reliable as the Toyotas that I have owned previously. I even drove the VW Tiguan before I bought the Mazda and thought that it was un refined in comparison. Too much noise, stiff road handling. The only saving grace on the Tiguan was the more powerful diesel engine with turbo.
 
rolflmfao!!!!!! But seriously thanks man I needed that!


Man, that is a good one. MY brother had a GTI for a number of years and loved that car. I almost bought one for my son and asked him about it. His only comments was you don't buy a German car for reliability. If you want reliability by a Honda. At close to 60, after his Porsche's, BMW's and GTI's, he is now in an Acura. However, he says it eels it is too boring and is getting himself an Audi.
 
Man, that is a good one. MY brother had a GTI for a number of years and loved that car. I almost bought one for my son and asked him about it. His only comments was you don't buy a German car for reliability. If you want reliability by a Honda. At close to 60, after his Porsche's, BMW's and GTI's, he is now in an Acura. However, he says it eels it is too boring and is getting himself an Audi.

VW, BMW, Merc - once out of warranty they become expensive to maintain. It's always been that way and part of their business model I think. Brand loyalty can be kind of cultish. Same reason when people's Apple device fails prematurely they replace it... with another Apple.
 
A nice 1970 VW bus will cost you over 20K these days. Don't even ask about a 23 window bus or a halfway decent Thing. VDub's not going anywhere soon. The Touareg is a helluva car and so is the Golf R. Also, VWs have not always been expensive to maintain. My bro and I built a baja bug back in the day with our highschool lunch money. lol.

I'd buy the wagon, but I hate SUVs that can't go offroad so I'm kinda biased (even though I've been driving nothing but Mazdas for the last 15 years+).
 
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The Touareg seems way overpriced. It goes for $50-60k, which is up there with the three-row luxury segment e.g. Acura MDX, Lexus GX. But in terms of performance, features, comfort, and materials quality, it's belongs with the mainstream segment.

I have a similar issue with the Attrack. A regular, manual Golf S is a $20k car, and that MSRP seems about right considering the comfort, quality, features, and refinement are at the economy car level. Adding AWD and stretching the tail to make it a Sportwagen S raises the price to $25k (or $26k w/ auto), at which point some of the compact CUVs like CX-5 Sport start to make it seem a little overpriced. Then, if you want climate control, power seats, navigation, or driver assistance features, you have to go all the way up to the Alltrack SEL trim. An SEL with the $2k package that provides nav and safety tech is $36k. At that price point, you might expect a premium-ish interior and some refinement, but instead you get leatherette, hard plastics, dated driver information displays, and a noisy cabin.

My wife drove a 2000 Jetta GLX VR6 for 225k miles and that was a lovely little touring car when it wasn't in the shop. In fact, I preferred it over the A4 in some ways. But it was always in the shop. Current VWs are somewhat more reliable, but no better than average, and they just aren't that nice for the price.
 
The Touareg seems way overpriced. It goes for $50-60k, which is up there with the three-row luxury segment e.g. Acura MDX, Lexus GX. But in terms of performance, features, comfort, and materials quality, it's belongs with the mainstream segment.

When the Touareg came to market in the US in '04 (Gen1 04-07), the V6 started in the low low $30ks and was comparable to the Nissan Pathfinders and Jeep Grand Cherokees at the time. The V8 was in the $40s and the V10 TDI, when around) was near $50k. With each next generation, we are on Gen3 now, the Touareg moved more up market and began to distance itself from the rest of the VW pack to be in a class above all other vehicles. After the Phaeton, the Touareg became the 'next' Phaeton for VW and in some ways became the halo vehicle for VW in the US.

I realize that the Gen3 Touareg starts in the 40s and has vast improvements in both tech and vehicle construction compared to its Gen1, but it really doesn't have to start in the 40s. And just because it shares pieces/parts with the Cayenne and Q7 didn't mean it needed to be in their price territory; but I guess VW didn't get that memo.

Maintenance on a Touareg, any generation, is what does it in. Because it shared parts with the Phaeton, Cayenne, Q7, it also shared a lot of their short comings and there are a lot of things that fail that are expensive to fix on those cars...and that is the Touareg's biggest Achilles heal - price for parts and maintenance (done right). I have a friend with an '06 Gen1 T'reg and it is FULL of surprises that even have me speechless and I own an '04 Mk4 GTI (considered not one of the best attempts).

I have a similar issue with the Alltrack. A regular, manual Golf S is a $20k car, and that MSRP seems about right considering the comfort, quality, features, and refinement are at the economy car level. Adding AWD and stretching the tail to make it a Sportwagen S raises the price to $25k (or $26k w/ auto), at which point some of the compact CUVs like CX-5 Sport start to make it seem a little overpriced. Then, if you want climate control, power seats, navigation, or driver assistance features, you have to go all the way up to the Alltrack SEL trim. An SEL with the $2k package that provides nav and safety tech is $36k. At that price point, you might expect a premium-ish interior and some refinement, but instead you get leatherette, hard plastics, dated driver information displays, and a noisy cabin.

I agree with you on this. The Alltrack, although marketed as a premium choice above a regular Sportwagen, when you start diving into the spec sheet, it really isn't all that special, accept the way it is packaged. Because the Outback is its main competition, I believe VW chose their packaging and pricing strategy to be in line with the Subaru and not really stay in the family of other VW products. In the regular Sportwagen, there is a $5k price jump btwn the 'S' and the 'SE' and 80% of that difference is on the inside materials; but it doesn't seem like a $5k premium. In any case, the Sportwagen S w/4motion is fairly unique and I believe was priced to be the sales leader in the Sportwagen lineup, especially in northern climates.

My wife drove a 2000 Jetta GLX VR6 for 225k miles and that was a lovely little touring car when it wasn't in the shop. In fact, I preferred it over the A4 in some ways. But it was always in the shop. Current VWs are somewhat more reliable, but no better than average, and they just aren't that nice for the price.

That one had the 12v motor. That was also the early years of the Mk4 chassis, but the engine was from the Mk3 GTI Why was it in the shop? Electrics? Transmission issues? Engine/Coolant issues? My '04 has been fairly well behaved, but it has the 1.8t and not the VR6.
 
The coil pack housing would start to crack after 30-50k miles, and then performance would decline and anytime you started the car in wet or foggy weather it would misfire. The DIY fix to cover the cracks with JB Weld is only a temporary fix because the coil pack housing will just keep cracking elsewhere. It just can't take the heat. If you tried to live with this for any length of time, carbon deposits would build up to the point where you needed to get in and clean them out. We replaced the coil pack 4 times, and finally ditched the car when it needed it a 5th time. VW switched to coil on plug for the 24V VR6.

The ABS system would start to fail every year or so. Sometimes, it could be fixed by setting the sensor clearance a little closer but we also went through a couple sets of front ABS sensors.

The airbag system failed sometime in the 1st year and almost never worked after that. The first time, they found pinched wiring in the steering column. They replaced the wiring harness and it was good for a few months and then started failing self-tests again. After that, they replaced pretty much everything and it worked for a while before failing again. They threw one more round of parts at it after that, and then the warranty was up.

The door seals were improperly installed from the factory. The dealer ended up replacing them all over the course of a couple visits.

Power windows started failing after 100k or so. Naturally, they failed in the down position. In the winter.

The wipers also failed around the same mileage. The gearbox broke while we were driving in a thunderstorm, which was scary as hell.

The thermostat failed and stranded my wife due to overheating.

Sometime later the radiator fans failed and stranded my wife due to overheating.

There were a couple of emissions related failures, but I can't recall what they were.

And I think the charging system ran a little over-voltage because it seemed to go through bulbs and batteries somewhat quickly.

On the plus side, the body, underside, and exhaust stood up to 7 years and 225k miles of New England driving without any rust issues, and I don't recall replacing many wear items in the chassis. Maybe one wheel bearing or something like that.

When it worked it was a nice car. The VR6 had good low end and midrange and it was geared short, so it felt quick. The torque peak was at 3200 RPM, and in top gear it spun 3200 RPM at 80 mph, so highway passing power was instant. The engine was very quiet and smooth, you couldn't feel it or hear it at cruise. And despite the somewhat short gearing, we would get 26-27 MPG on the highway and averaged about 24 MPG overall. It was fun to toss around through corners, although like most VWs there was more pitch and roll than I prefer. The cabin was near Audi grade. It was very hushed, materials were high quality, and it had all the features that were fancied circa 2000: climate control, heated seats, heated wipers, auto dimming mirrors, rain sensing wipers, driver's seat memory, ambient lighting, electroluminescent gauges. The only reason we put up with it for so long is that we couldn't buy anything else as nice for similar money.
 
There is an article on Jalopnik - should i consider a diesel VW. This para is hilarious about VW:

There are people out there who owned a first-generation Volkswagen Touareg — the Touareg that would turn off its headlights when another Touareg was approaching because it mistook the other Touareg’s headlights for the sun — and went right out and bought a second Touareg later. And there are thousands of these people.

People who were convinced Volkswagen offered “solid German engineering,” who discovered it actually offered “solid incomes for dealership service managers,” and who went out and bought another Volkswagen product anyway. So we have already demonstrated an inexplicable propensity to believe whatever Volkswagen tells us, and I suspect it won’t stop now.
 
Volkswagen a better "brand" than Mazda? That's a new one.

Right now, Volkswagen's brand image sucks. They went through a streak of build quality problems and poor reliability in the 2000s, and most people I know who had VWs in that decade said "never again". They seemed to be rebuilding their popularity with the TDI, and then dieselgate happened.

If you go back in time to circa 2000, their offerings were more up-class. My wife owned a Jetta GLX that was near Audi-like. But now they are more below class than above it. They have bland, dated looking design and their interiors feel cheap relative to their selling price.

Regarding resale price, certain models like the GTI may hold up better than Mazdas because they still have a following.

I mean VW as a whole. That includes Porsche, et al. VW has a real budget. Mazda hasn't figured out how to do live-traffic NAV yet. I love their SkyActiv drivelines, and they have done a bang-up job on suspensions (always have), but that's where my praise stops. The rest is pure first-gen Kia.
http://mazda.custhelp.com/app/answe...ger-access-connected-services-(live-traffic)?
 
I'm with you on the nav. Offering a nav system without live traffic is inexplicable these days. Beyond that, there's pretty much nothing I like about the infotainment system.

Although VW may have a large budget, their offerings seem stale and overpriced to me.
 
I remember reading this thread earlier this year when I was still trying to talk my wife into buying a Mazda...where the closest dealer was 12 miles and a crappy 30-40 minute (during the week) drive to get to. For me, the decision came down to simple economics...the VW dealer is 2 miles (less than 10 minutes) away, the car*s warranty will last until my 8th grade daughter is a sophomore in college, and I got a 2018 Sportwagen with 4MOTION and the DSG transmission that is in the GTI for $18,200 ($20,100 OTD). I was tempted to buy a stick, but it will be said daughter*s car to drive in HS, and she gets distracted by a fly. Car drives like WAY more than an $18K car.

It sounds like the Golf mk8 is dropping the wagon in the US, so anyone who wants a manual transmission and AWD for cheap should jump on these cars while they are still on lots.
 
I remember reading this thread earlier this year when I was still trying to talk my wife into buying a Mazda...where the closest dealer was 12 miles and a crappy 30-40 minute (during the week) drive to get to. For me, the decision came down to simple economics...the VW dealer is 2 miles (less than 10 minutes) away, the car*s warranty will last until my 8th grade daughter is a sophomore in college, and I got a 2018 Sportwagen with 4MOTION and the DSG transmission that is in the GTI for $18,200 ($20,100 OTD). I was tempted to buy a stick, but it will be said daughter*s car to drive in HS, and she gets distracted by a fly. Car drives like WAY more than an $18K car.

It sounds like the Golf mk8 is dropping the wagon in the US, so anyone who wants a manual transmission and AWD for cheap should jump on these cars while they are still on lots.

Wow that sounds like a steal tbh.. would make a good tuner platform.. hmm

edit just looked these things are fugly
 
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I remember reading this thread earlier this year when I was still trying to talk my wife into buying a Mazda...where the closest dealer was 12 miles and a crappy 30-40 minute (during the week) drive to get to. For me, the decision came down to simple economics...the VW dealer is 2 miles (less than 10 minutes) away, the car*s warranty will last until my 8th grade daughter is a sophomore in college, and I got a 2018 Sportwagen with 4MOTION and the DSG transmission that is in the GTI for $18,200 ($20,100 OTD). I was tempted to buy a stick, but it will be said daughter*s car to drive in HS, and she gets distracted by a fly. Car drives like WAY more than an $18K car.

It sounds like the Golf mk8 is dropping the wagon in the US, so anyone who wants a manual transmission and AWD for cheap should jump on these cars while they are still on lots.
Curious why you didn't get an Alltrack if AWD was a priority? BTW, my understanding is that VW is not dropping the Golf wagon, but the 2019 will have the smaller 1.4 ltr turbo they currently use in the Jetta. I'll be in the market next year for a replacement for my 2013 CX-5 and the FWD Sportwagen is on my short list. However it would have to be a 2018 with the larger engine and I'm afraid they'll be out of them by the time I'm ready to pull the trigger. That leaves me with either the next-gen Mazda 3, the Civic Sport hatch or the Hyundai Elantra GT Sport. Unless something else appears on the horizon. Still slim pickings for us 5 door hatch/small wagon fans!
 
CX-5 Vs Golf SportWagen 4Motion

For me, the decision came down to simple economics...the VW dealer is 2 miles (less than 10 minutes) away, the car's warranty will last until my 8th grade daughter is a sophomore in college, and I got a 2018 Sportwagen with 4MOTION and the DSG transmission that is in the GTI for $18,200 ($20,100 OTD). I was tempted to buy a stick, but it will be said daughter's car to drive in HS, and she gets distracted by a fly. Car drives like WAY more than an $18K car.
What do you mean your VW Golf SportWagen is in the GTI? The MSRP for base model Golf SportWagen S with 4MOTION is $25,930. Your final price is at least $7,730 / ~30% off the MSRP?! Very nice!

And 6-year / 72,000-mile bumper-to-bumper warranty is very nice too!
 
Wow that sounds like a steal tbh.. would make a good tuner platform.. hmm

edit just looked these things are fugly

I don*t disagree about the exterior styling - although the interior in pretty nice for the price.

For me, it was simply the case that the price/value was too ridiculous to ignore. Purchasing a car at $7,000 under INVOICE gets your attention. The 1.8T/DSG/4MOTION drivetrain in a car that - out the door - was $20K offset the bland styling. For those who want a more arresting exterior, I would understand someone preferring the CX-3, for example - which looks awesome and drives great. But, from a value perspective, the GSW is hard to beat.

And as a tuner platform, the EA888 engines (both the 1.8 and 2.0) are well-liked by the tuner crowd...although it drives fine as-is for my wife!
 
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Curious why you didn't get an Alltrack if AWD was a priority? BTW, my understanding is that VW is not dropping the Golf wagon, but the 2019 will have the smaller 1.4 ltr turbo they currently use in the Jetta. I'll be in the market next year for a replacement for my 2013 CX-5 and the FWD Sportwagen is on my short list. However it would have to be a 2018 with the larger engine and I'm afraid they'll be out of them by the time I'm ready to pull the trigger. That leaves me with either the next-gen Mazda 3, the Civic Sport hatch or the Hyundai Elantra GT Sport. Unless something else appears on the horizon. Still slim pickings for us 5 door hatch/small wagon fans!

I did look at the Alltrack S - but the best deal I could find (based on less dealer inventory for Alltracks than GSWs) was $23,800 OTD - and I couldnt justify the extra $ for what was basically the same car from a structural perspective. The SE was significantly more - and I also did not want the sunroof (which seems to be an issue with the GSW/Alltrack).

The Golf mk7 is the last Golf being built at the Puebla plant - German workers are forcing VAG to bring Golf production back to Wolfsburg for the mk8...which will not only drive up the cost of the car, but will probably force VAG to be more selective about how many Golf variants will be sold in the US. Given the sluggish sales of the GSW, they may focus only on the Alltrack moving forward - if they continue to make a wagon for the US market.
 
He means the DSG used in the 4Motion is the same as used in the GTI.
OK, thanks. I thought VW uses DSG for all of its vehicles in the US. Didn't know there's different version of DSG in a GTI.
 
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