Days after the Volkswagen diesel emissions fraud became public, a marketing expert named Marianne Griedler asked whether Volkswagen has smashed its brand promise beyond repair. I am very interested in this issue because I am one of those car buyers who was looking for both performance and clean energy when I went car shopping in October 2014. I love everything about my VW Diesel Golf – the look, the pep, the nifty features like dashboard lights that don’t come on if the car thinks I should have my headlights on, the comfortable seats, the amazing fuel efficiency, and so on. In addition to all those features, I believed and bought the brand promise that I was buying an exceptional machine that would hold its value for years because of the diesel engine. That promise has indeed been broken but I have not actually soured on my car.
However, my feelings about VW and their response to this crisis are a different matter. It took 4 weeks for the letter to come from VW Canada’s President offering me her personal and profound apology and assuring me that the car was still safe to drive. Well, that’s a relief! Over 2 months later, the President wrote again to offer me a $1000 Owner Credit Package and free roadside assistance for up to 3 years. That’s nice but it’s not nearly enough to compensate me for the fact that the market value of my almost new car has most certainly dropped by some unknown amount, it could not pass an emissions test, and I probably couldn’t sell it today anyhow.
There is no fix in sight and no timeline offered for one. There is no assurance that the fix will not affect the performance of the car and hence the resale value once the fix is made. And while the last letter from the President tells me that accepting the $1000 sop does not disqualify me from receiving future compensation, there is no information yet about what that might look like. I assume that until they have figured out the fix and what it will cost to repair 11 million vehicles and how badly performance will be affected, they will not price the damage.
Though trust is not something that can be bought, surely VW should try a little harder to find a more reasonable number with which to address this unsuspecting consumer’s wounds?
