paulry

That's interesting. Maybe they figure they sell more of the 7 seaters to the US market plus labour is cheaper that side. Or maybe there are US import duty related advantages over cars made in Germany. But personally, having been a motor mechanic many many moons ago for a big VW and Audi dealer, I don't think I would go near any VW again - I found them to be a heap of shite.... Sorry Zulu. Loved tearing around in the Golf GTis during the 1980s on test drives though!

Amazulu

Why are you sorry? If we all liked the same thing, we'd all be driving Toyotas or the like. I had a Mk1 GTi when I was an apprentice sparky back in SA. I loved that car - until I wrote it off by crashing it through a brick wall. Not my finest hour! I'm over VW now, mainly because of Dieselgate. Not so much that their cars emitted more CO2 than they said - I've got no time for that socialist, hateful MMGW mumbo jumbo that the the anti-Western left spouts, and the overreaction to it - rather the way that VW handled the fallout. The way they lied and deflected and basically shat on their own brand. They made genuine restitution to buyers in the US, but in every other country, they essentially told owners of their cars to go swivel. Not for me any more

Currently, cars are not that important to me, as they were when I was younger. I like proper 4x4s and utility vehicles but have no time for SUVs -- can't see the point of them. I'll probably get something Japanese or Korean. I'd prefer to lease something but unlike the UK and US, leasing in Australia is pathetic and too expensive. So I'll more than likely buy something cheap

Beoz

No idea - the 7 seater sells well here and the UK. No where near Mexico.

What did you see on the VDub that you didn't like?

paulry

I'm guessing the market in the US is far bigger than Australia and the UK plus it mexico might have trade advantages becuase its seen as a developing country. Regarding VW problems: Okay this goes back to the 80s but then I also experienced it with car hires I had in Cape Town as well as in London as recent as in the last 10 years. Golf and Passat gearbox-related problems - mostly to do with changing smoothly between gears, though I've just remembered now a automatic Golf my wife had 20 years or so ago in which the gearbox seized up just outside Waterlooville. But I liked the old beetles because of the ease of replacing a sub-assembly and at that time in Africa the ready availability of the same. But I hated the pushrod valve stems on them because blown seals were frequent causes of oil leaks. Glad to have moved on from those motor mechanic days, but the good legacy is I'm not afraid to roll my sleeves up, to see if I can fix things but that also has its downsides involving failed diy jobs and boxes of dismantled car engines parts!

Beoz

I wonder if these are still problems today. I quite like the look and feel of various VDubs. You still get all the Euro feel at the price point of the Japs.

Pulaski

I don't think anyone answered your question in relation to the Santa Fé, not that it matters as it's reportedly sold now.

But FWIW, and at the risk of being accused of stating the obvious, a check engine light could be anything - our old Accord used to frequently have the check engine light come on for issues related to the cat and the O2/ Lambda sensor. But in the case of that particular Santa Fe, the biggest issue I see is that it has done 270,000Kms, and there is a good chance that almost everything is close to worn out. So while, for example if the cat needs a new lambda sensor it might cost $250, there could be an oil pump failure in a couple of weeks costing $400 and a wheel bearing failure two weeks later, costing another $500. .... Then six weeks from now there is something big fails in the transmission and the vehicle is totalled, and your $1,100 for repairs has gone down the toliet along with the purchase price.

So, while I am a fan of taking an everyday vehicle and running it until it won't run any more, to wit, our Accord with 360,000 miles (580,000km ) on the clock, eventually you face the reality that there are a lot of repairs coming and that it would be cheaper to put the cost of repairs towards a new(er) vehicle than to be driving a money pit. Therefore unless you are a mechanic who needs a hobby, I would not recommmend buying any vehicle with that sort of mileage already on it, even though our Accord went more than twice as far.

When I finally rolled our Accord off the dolly that I towed it home on, it still had its original shocks and springs, exhaust system, radiator, transmission (including the clutch!), steering system except for the gaiters, and it's brake pads had lasted 280,000 miles, but when the engine failed, which was already a replacement, we decided that throwing another US$2k (A$3k) into it for a used motor wasn't a good bet.