For the past couple of years I’ve been on a mission to buy my dream fleet of cars, buses, and motorcycles. I’m now sitting on a hoard of 19 or 20 vehicles, of which at least 25 percent are Smart Fortwos. Many have asked how in the heck I keep so many cars running? Well, I think it’s time to give you a look into how things work. Over a little longer than the past year I sold a broken Volkswagen Passat W8 then replaced it with two Touaregs and a Phaeton. One of these cars tried to bankrupt me almost immediately. And, incredibly, another is one of the most trustworthy cars in my fleet.
In 2021, I decided to continue a trend that I started the year before by picking up more of my dream cars, motorcycles, and buses. Back in 2020, I–like many Americans–-got furloughed and faced a then uncertain future. I decided to make the best of it by doing the things that I never thought were possible, including filling out a dream fleet. I kicked it off with finds like a $1,500 Audi TT and a $3,000 Buell Lightning XB9SX.
Entering 2021, I launched a quest to buy two kei cars from Japan. There was but one problem: I had nothing to tow them home with. Following the wise David Tracy, I decided to buy the cheapest of something for the job. I found this 2005 Volkswagen Touareg VR6.
I got the crash-damaged SUV for $1,700 and expected to it to break on me instantly. People, even fellow VW-lovers, told me that’s exactly what would happen.
I’ve taken this SUV from coast-to-coast while towing trailers. And most recently, it went far north to the U.S.-Canadian border in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. I’ve put about 12,000 miles on it doing these activities.
Less than a month after I bought that Touareg, I bought one of my teenage poster cars: the Volkswagen Touareg V10 TDI.
This was another one of Piëch’s galaxy brain ideas. And yes, that means that I bought two Touaregs within the span of 30 days, possibly because I hate money and reliability. Really, it’s because many years ago a much younger me watched as Fifth Gear and Volkswagen hitched a Touareg V10 TDI up to a decommissioned Boeing 747. That SUV, weighed down with a giant slab of ballast weighing 15,498 pounds, tugged the plane down the runway in a fashion resembling an airport tug.
It was one of the coolest things that I had ever seen and I became obsessed with how stupid the whole thing is. The 5.0-liter, 310-HP, and 553 lb-ft torque twin-turbo diesel engine takes up almost every inch of engine bay room offered by the Touareg. The Touareg V10 TDI is notorious for its absurd repair costs because just about any mechanical repair requires removing the whole drivetrain. But it is a marvel of engineering, with its gear-driven timing and soundtrack that’s like a Lamborghini V10 actively fighting with a paint shaker.
And yet, I still wasn’t done. Just a month later, I spotted another one of my bucket list cars for sale: a Volkswagen Phaeton.
Yet another result of Piëch’s insane thinking, he basically demanded Bentley luxury with the performance to race down the Autobahn while your leather seats massaged you in your perfectly chilled cabin. The attention to detail in a Phaeton is so obsessive that even the trunk hinges are works of art. Who is even going to stare at the hinges to notice?
And, like all of the cars I’ve talked about thus far, keeping them running is costly.Â
I won’t torture you with the the whole regimen for the entire fleet. Instead, let’s focus on the three cars with the most potential to bankrupt me. Yes, the bus can bankrupt me, too, but that thing needs its own post about how silly it is to operate.
About That Phaeton
I’ll start with the 2004 Volkswagen Phaeton. I bought this back in July 2021 for the low price of $2,500 with 160,000 miles. The most desirable Phaetons in America have the 6.0-liter W12 making 420 HP. Mine didn’t have that, instead, it had the 4.2-liter V8 making 335-HP. It wasn’t exactly my dream Phaeton, but the price was too good to pass on.
The seller of this Phaeton was a fella in the military. However, he was on base, so his father had to do the transaction. The father didn’t know much about the car, but said that it ran and drove. I took it for a long test drive and everything seemed to check out, so I parted ways with my money.
A few moments after I got up to cruising speed on the highway I learned of my new toy’s terrible secret. Its cooling system couldn’t keep the engine from overheating. In fact, it took about 50 miles for the engine to overheat. What resulted from this was a simple three-hour trip turned into an ordeal that took the whole day. I was able to drive only 50 miles at a time before the coolant temperature light illuminated. My fiancée and I would then park for an hour, let it cool down, then do it all over again. And I couldn’t even go the speed limit on the highway, as anything over 60 mph would push the car into the red almost immediately.
This was only the start of the car’s issues. The day after I got it home I came outside to see the front end sitting on the ground. The car’s front suspension air bags deflated overnight, and I don’t need to tell you how worried that made me. I reached out to my Volkswagen friends and mechanics. The news varied between promising and horrifying. The overheating could have been as simple as a bad thermostat. And the suspension problem could have been an air leak from a line or a valve block.
They gave me a list of things to check to narrow down the causes, but the car wasn’t going to let me off that easily. While I began my troubleshooting, the fancy motorized HVAC doors began failing. One failed in the open position, one closed, and one halfway open. The buttons to control the door motors did nothing. Tweaking the HVAC settings to get them to automatically close or open did nothing, either.
While I was troubleshooting all three of these things, the dome light sort of just fell from the ceiling and smacked me in the face on its way to the floor. Then the hood release broke, requiring me to pop the hood open using a Vise Grip and a whole lot of force.
And somehow, it still doesn’t end there. The trunk stopped being able to open and the driver window started coming off of its tracks. It seemed like the more that I tried to fix, the more that failed. I was able to fix the window, the dome light, and even the trim that decided to randomly fall off, but I felt like I was winning battles just to eventually lose a war.
Eventually, one day the car’s air suspension pump never activated, leaving the front end stuck on the ground. I would find out that my Phaeton was a chimera of sorts. This car was originally found dead in a field. The previous owner took it, three other dead Phaetons and a dead Cayenne and combined them all into one car. This car had dead windows, but one of the other Phaetons didn’t. It had a broken sunroof, but the previous owner found out that the sunroof from the Cayenne fit after some modification. The security system was dead, but one of the other Phaetons had working parts. The list went on and on. Many of the problems this car faced were from the other dead cars.
That’s when I called it quits and listed it for sale. The first person to message me was my very own independent Volkswagen mechanic. I told him all of the issues and he didn’t care. A Phaeton was for him as it was for me, an all-time bucket list car.
I’ve been getting updates from him, and I learned that I made a good decision to give up on it. He solved the cooling problems by replacing the radiator, some cooling system valves, the water pump, and the thermostat. The suspension air bag issue was not the easy fix of a bad valve block. Instead, he noted that the right front suspension air bag physically blew while out on the road. The left bag wasn’t in much better shape. He had to replace both of them and the pump.
Last I heard, he was roughly $6,000 into repairing it in parts alone. And remember, he gets free labor from himself. The car was recently sidelined after he hit a pothole and cracked a wheel. He refuses to get an aftermarket wheel, so it had to wait for another OEM one.
In the end, I only lost $100 on the car and didn’t even drive it more than 500 miles. It was a small price to pay to dodge a big bullet. Somehow, my Touareg V10 TDI has been much better to me.
I did have pictures of my repair attempts, but sadly, they were lost in a data transfer incident.
The Airport Tug
I got this 2006 Touareg super SUV back in June of last year for $5,000 with 190,000 miles. When I took my test drive, it seemed more broken than the seller stated. None of the 12V power ports worked, the radio didn’t work, and the HVAC system didn’t seem to work, either. I decided to take a chance, anyway, and gave the seller my money. Sheryl and I then almost immediately discovered that all of this was because of an array of blown and missing fuses. We went straight to AutoZone and picked up a pack of fuses. I replaced maybe 10 or so fuses, and suddenly the electronics came back to life.
Since then, the biggest problems that it has given me are a non-working air-conditioner and the air-suspension height adjustment knob doesn’t work. The previous owner apparently spent thousands on fixing the suspension and on engine work, then had enough of spending money on it. So, the airbags are in good shape and the computer still automatically sets ride height. I just can’t make it lower or higher with the adjustment knob. To this day I wonder if the seller knew that the fuses were the cause of the electrical glitches.
I park my V10 TDI in my mini warehouse where it enjoys a dry, somewhat climate-controlled environment. Admittedly, it’s a garage queen, so it never leaves the warehouse unless it’s a warm, sunny day. I think I’ve put a total of 3,000 miles on it, but I’ve still changed its oil twice since buying it. The check engine light has remained off through this time.
I don’t consider this reliable. While it hasn’t broken on me, I think that’s largely due to treating it like a queen. If it were a daily I bet I would have had to drop the engine at least once already. Don’t buy one of these.Â
The “Reliable” One
And now for my workhorse. When I picked up this 2005 Touareg VR6 for $1,700 it had 177,000 miles on the odometer. This SUV isn’t nearly as super as the V10, but like a good friend it has always been there for me. Its 3.2-liter VR6 makes 240 HP and moves the 5,086-lb SUV at a rate best described as “gradual,” but it hasn’t let me down. It runs buttery smooth, gets 20 mpg on the highway while unloaded, and will still do 13 mpg while hauling a 4,000-lb load home from across the country.
But that’s not to say that things have been perfect. It is a $1,700 beater, after all.
Crash Damage
The seller told me that he put it up for sale after he put thousands into getting it to pass emissions testing. Then the check engine light came on again. That, plus damage from his wife getting rear ended in it, convinced him to get it out of his life.
To fix the damage, I found one of the same color getting parted out. The guy ghosted me only days before the road trip to pick up the Beat. Thankfully, I found another Touareg being parted out and it appeared to be the same color. I parted ways with $300 for a tailgate, bumper, and taillights.
But since I bought them at night I didn’t notice that the color shade was ever so slightly off. Yep, apparently, Volkswagen made a green-ish gray and a blue-ish gray. From a distance the colors look the same, but up close things look off.
I also didn’t check if the bumper had the inner plastic that actually mounts to the SUV, and sure enough, it didn’t. So I had to get creative. Things don’t fit perfectly, but it’s good enough for me. I haven’t gotten around to installing the undamaged tailgate, either, but I did install the new lights.
Transmission Valve Body
When I bought it, the seller said that sometimes the SUV had a slight hesitation at about 40 mph. He said that it was because the Mass Air Flow sensor was bad. I scanned the Touareg for codes and the only stored code did suggest MAF problems, but during my test drive I didn’t feel any hesitation at 40 mph. I shrugged it off, thinking that maybe he was talking about something else.
As it turns out, he was correct about the hesitation, sort of. What was really happening was that the engine RPM sometimes flaring during the shift between second and third gear and between fourth and fifth gear. It only happened when there was a lot of throttle input during those shifts, so I didn’t notice it until I went full throttle on a highway on ramp.
This is an issue that many have had with these older Touaregs. If the channels for the solenoids in the valve body get worn down, the result is that the valve body cannot hold correct fluid pressure during gear changes. In the Touareg, it can result in RPM flaring between shifts, with the SUV sometimes violently slamming into the desired gear.
As my mechanic and my VW friends tell me, the only true solution is to have a new or remanufactured valve body installed. These can cost $600 or more just for the part alone. Instead, I took the suggestion from another friend and changed my transmission’s fluid, adding in some Lubegard. Amazingly, the transmission rebuild in a bottle mostly worked. The fourth to fifth flare was eliminated and the second to third flare only happened at wide-open throttle.
Of course, changing my transmission fluid caused another problem.
Rusting For A Reason
First-generation Touaregs are known for another silly problem: water retention. David wrote about this years ago when he found Touareg owners emptying loads of water from their SUVs’ doors and rockers. Touaregs can collect water from a number of water drains that can get clogged. Water gets into doors, too. And in the case of my Touareg, there are holes behind the taillights that let water into the rockers.
By the time that I bought my Touareg, it was too late to rectify the issue. The left rocker already had a big rust hole and the right side was already beginning to rust. One of the doors began rusting from the inside-out before I freed the water that was inside of it. I plan to fix this one day, but it’s not ranking high at all on my list of priorities.
However, the transmission forced my hand. I’ve always known of a small rust spot on the transmission fluid pan, but I thought it was just on the surface.
That changed when I changed the transmission fluid. Immediately after changing the fluid, I noticed a small leak. I was told that it could happen if I overfilled the transmission, so I decided to monitor it.
It continued to leak a full 2,000 miles after the fluid change, raising a red flag. My next thought was that maybe I forgot to put the seal back on the transmission drain plug. So I bought new o-rings and took the drain plug out. That’s when I discovered that the rust was way deeper than just the surface, but all of the way through. Somehow, it was rusted through but not leaking until I used an impact to change the fluid. And the very last time that I applied the impact made the hole so much bigger.
Eventually, my Touareg just bled out where it sat, unable to move under its own power.
Thankfully, I found a trusty mobile mechanic nearby who made my life so much easier. He removed the old pan and installed a used, but rust-free one that I got from a junkyard. A few bolts snapped on their way out, but he was able to extract them before installing Heli-Coils to restore the threads.
So now the transmission is back to holding its drink. But unfortunately, I forgot to give my lovely mobile mechanic some more Lubegard, so the shift flares returned, but not as bad as they were before.
The Alarm System
Touaregs have an annoying and entertaining issue with their alarm systems. The Touareg, like other VAG products, has a self-contained alarm system featuring its own little batteries and its own horn. When it’s working, it works great. However, things can get real wonky when the alarm’s battery starts dying. In the case of my Touareg, the alarm would sound almost immediately after locking the doors. I hooked up my handy Autel scanner and found that the car does think that the doors are closed, so why is the alarm going off?
Apparently, when the alarm battery is weak, it can cause false alarms. The siren will even go off while you’re driving the car. It’s equal parts hilarious and annoying to drive down the road with the alarm blaring. However, that means that I can’t lock the Touareg, which is something that I don’t like. The official solution is to buy another alarm siren for a few hundred dollars. Or, you could solder in a new battery for less than $50. My solution? A screwdriver through the alarm system unit. Can’t hear a siren if the siren is dead!
The Other Problems
Every other issue is comparatively tiny. One issue that just started happening involves the left windshield wiper. For whatever reason, it no longer touches the windshield at the top of its swing. I have no idea why, as the wiper arms are undamaged and the wipers themselves are new. I’ve long been told that the springs that hold wipers down don’t really wear out, but I have no other explanation for why it’s happening.
The suspension has always been sort of wonky, too. It seems to me that a previous owner lowered this Touareg. That’s fine with me, as I don’t intend on off-roading the thing anytime soon. But the shocks are definitely at the tail end of their lives, at which point I’ll seek to restore stock ride height.
Another new and somewhat silly problem occurred when I was dragging home my Suzuki Every. The passenger mirror fell out of its housing and wouldn’t stay back in. I initially secured it using zip-ties before adhering it in place with some adhesive.
Amazingly, the V10 has none of these problems. It’s not rusting, it’ll shift gears smoothly even at full throttle, and the alarm still works. Still, I love my VR6 workhorse. Behind the wheel of this thing I’ve towed home two kei cars, towed a race car and its driver home, hauled all kinds of trailers, and even rescued a few people. Most of the nearly 12,000 miles behind the wheel of this thing were towing something. And everything still works in it from the air-conditioner to the heated seats.
And the repairs thus far have been cheap! The new transmission fluid pan was just $35 plus the cost of fluid and a filter, and $150 in labor to the mobile mechanic. And I can still make it look better by actually getting around to installing the tailgate that’s still sitting in my living room.
So, for those who ask how in the heck I keep my fleet together, my answer is simple. Once something gets too out of hand for me, I sell it and move on. Otherwise, I have two inexpensive local mechanics on call for when something breaks that I can’t fix. Without either of them I’d be totally screwed. Thus, I’m back on the search for another Phaeton, this time a W12. If you happen to know of one for sale for under ten large, absolutely send me an email!
You’re insane, I love it. Some of my friends recently threw some shade my way for “seeming rich due to how many cars I own”, but I buy mostly barely functional garbage, then spend an obscene amount of time and as little money as possible to bring them back to life. Meanwhile they go to dealerships and sign paperwork for $30-50k cars that are depreciating assets, so the reality is they’re the rich ones.
I currently have… 8 cars.. and a bus… and 6 snowmobiles… and 4 boats. It’s a lot. It’s too much. But I don’t have kids and it keeps me busy, so screw it. I like my garbage.
“My solution? A screwdriver through the alarm system unit. ”
HA! I have threatened to do this SO MANY times, but didn’t have the guts! I think I clipped the wire on the speaker to one of my child’s toys, but never did this on the more serious equipment.
This is a problem with 2nd gen Volvo XC70’s. You can pull a fuse, but on all but the base models the fuse is shared with the sunroof, so no alarm jankiness, but also no sunroof. I had a base model so no sunroof. I pulled the fuse. Best part is that the little red light on the dash telling the world “the alarm is on” still works like normal. The only issue is everytime you start the car you get a message to service the alarm, which requires one button click to go away.
Couple things to unpack here:
1. I love how the “Phaeton” badge appears to be sweating next to the temp gauge.
2. “the fuses were the cause of the electrical glitches.” No… fuses are (almost) never the cause, they are the result. Something blew the fuses. It may have been a one-time thing (battery hooked up backwards, lightning strike, etc), or that may come back to haunt you again later.
3. Those Volkswagens have enough electrical problems, you’d think they were British. Doesn’t bode well for their new line of EVs…
Fuses aren’t the problem. Fuses are the symptom.
And also preventing your car from burning to the ground.
Maybe it’s a good thing that I simply don’t understand the appeal of anything VW makes.
I remember these being new, and they were nice but not so nice that you couldn’t get something else just as good that had 1/3 the complexity.
Waitaminute… Isn’t that 747 with the weird B-52-style podded engines and the outboard drop tanks the one that lurked in the background at the *TOP* Gear test track? But *FIFTH* Gear were the ones who dragged it around with a VW?
I realize that the Top Gear crew were just one of the many tenants at that airfield/racetrack place, but were Fifth Gear operating out of the same location?
Also, just WHAT is the story with that airplane? I’ve always wondered about it while watching TG but never got the story.
Lots of auto content gets filmed at that airstrip, being big and already set up for automotive shenanigans.
That 747 with the weird podded engines is a film star, it’s engine config comes from being used as a prop in Casino Royale:
https://www.key.aero/article/inside-the-top-gear-boeing-747
I had a 2003 Jetta 1.8 turbo with the 5 speed manual transmission. It was fun to drive. I bought it with about 45,000 miles in 2009 but I was never sure that the odometer hadn’t been rolled back. The car smelled like crayons inside, like many of them do. It had the problem of plastic interior surfaces that would scratch and peel if you were not careful. After a year, things started to slowly break. The sunroof window was flakey and would stop working, so I learned to stop opening it. The sunroof well water drains eaily clogged but I learned to clear those regularly. The trunk latch was also flakey and I had to manually adjust some of the metal parts to make it reliable. I spent $500 to have a series of brittle plastic engine cooling lines replaced. I replaced a number of PVC hoses whose rubber had turned to mush. After a few years and maybe 15,000 miles, the last straw was when the engine started ticking and the best guess was it was the timing chain tensioner. During this time I learned the car was waaay over engineered all around. I began to believe that its engineers were fixated on clever, short-term designs and gave little thought to long term reliability. It was not worth continuing to fix. I sold the car right around the time the VW emissions scandal fired up in the US and that surely tarnished the sales price. I t hink I bought the thing for $7500 and sold it for $2000. I suspect it ended up in Mexico along with many other used US cars, back to the country where it was assembled.
I’ve had largely good luck with Mk4 VWs. Still have a Beetle Turbo S. Thing is a great car
Same. I had a MK IV golf for 10 years, it had 210k miles when I sold it.
As I have nowhere to store a fleet of vehicles, mine are relegated to boring un-killable Toyotas (’98 Corolla, sold and got an ’05 tC, lost that in a freak accident and started a misadventure with a garbage Outback, now back to an ’03 Avalon)
The video of the airplane being towed is interesting: no 747 ever had that engine/extra tank configuration. Well, none that flew: that is the same retrofitted and gutted 747 used in Casino Royale that was the target of the second-act terror attack. I’m curious as to how VW ended up connected with it.
You will remain satisfied as long as the cars make you happy, and you realize that issues will arise. Keep a rainy day fund for repairs as part of your car passion and you’ll rarely have major grief over it. Life is too short to own an appliance you don’t love.
Going from Passat W8 to Touareg V6 to Touareg V10 to Phaeton V8 is brilliant progression, but, as I’m sure you’re aware, you’re only midway through the journey. You’ll never be satisfied until you’ve done the ultimate, W12 Phaeton. After that it’s a W12 Bentley, some of which are getting cheap these days. Then, ultimately you’re on to a Veyron.
Moving in the opposite direction, which will appeal to your smart loving side I suspect, you also need a Lupo 3l, then an XL1, the eventual (sorta) production version of Piech’s 1 litre car.
You are driving around with a broken windshield? Hmmm…
All in all it is easy to blame an old car for breaking down. But when was not loved (and serviced correctly) before, that shit happens. My 24 year old Benz is my daily. Besides some issues with the A/C there were no big issues. Get’s regular service, that’s why.
Yes, sadly. It’s interesting how quickly a simple rock chip propagates into that nightmare. Replacing that is on my to-do list as well!
Hold up. The real headline is here.
Nobody cares how much money you made scamming people.
WE NEED INFORMATION ON THIS “BRAND NEW MITSUBISHI EVO”
Yeah, Evo pics or it didn’t happen.
The Touareg was your teenage poster-car? Damn, but that makes me old: I’m from the Countach-on-the-wall era. Not that I >had< a Lamborghini on my wall; a Safari 911 instead, replaced by the Dakar 959 after Hell-bent Kaos-Kitty took it out.
Serious respect for actually acquiring your poster car; that’s how to live right.
It’s almost offensive, how good and yet bad these cars are. In terms of features and capability they are masterpieces, but in terms of quality they are garbage. The fact that the garbage quality seems to have been largely baked in during the engineering process is what kills me. They’re not just sloppily screwed together, they were built to fail. Great cars in a way, but the engineers done fucked up on the basics of what makes a good car good.
I think quality is a complicated term here. I don’t want to get all Robert Pierson on you–since it really doesn’t matter–but I’d argue that these were high quality, but really lacked durability. As they fell apart, the quality went with it too.
Like, a real nice steak, it only stays so good for so long. Once it’s an “old” steak, all quality is lost.
Then again, I have a hard time saying a vehicle is quality if they are so non-durable… in-durable… idk, fall-aparty-breaky-downy.
In cars, I really do think that durability and reliability are the most critical aspect of quality. It could have a diamond-encrusted whale penis interior and seats with hot and cold running oral sex, but if bits of it are constantly falling off and the air suspension blows up and it constantly overheats and throws trouble codes on the dash even though you pour thousands of dollars a month into maintenance and repairs, it’s a badly-made piece of shit.
Somehow, Toyota can build luxury cars that run hundreds of thousands of miles with routine maintenance and a few basic repairs, I don’t get why other companies don’t just buy Lexuses, disassemble them, and reverse engineer everything. If they can figure out how to build a car properly, no excuse for anyone else not doing so, Akio Toyoda is an executive, not a magician
Indeed. Other luxury cars may exceed them in some areas, but if I were ever in that market I’d head straight to Lexus because I know they’re built to last. Having an unexpected breakdown is hardly a luxurious experience—what good is being wealthy if it doesn’t make your life a bit easier and more hassle-free?
I agree with you on some level, but if we take that to the extreme, then your argument falls apart. You can make an extremely reliable vehicle that most would consider to be poor quality. I mean, if I stick an old 3800 V6 with some plastic lawn chairs on it, there’s not much to break down there and it’ll run forever. But no one is going to call that a quality car. Basically, a ’04 Grand Prix is going to run forever–at least it’s not going to leave you stranded really–but I don’t hear many people making that the bastion of quality.
That transmission rebuild in a bottle stuff is a good solution to get you a few miles down the road in a vehicle at the end of it’s life, or a good way to make a failing transmission seem ok in order to grift a buyer.
I wouldn’t use it in a vehicle you plan on keeping though. It is likely to render your transmission unfixable. The entire unit may be at the end of it’s life anyways, so there’s that.
That’s why no decent mechanic would put it in a customer’s car. It’s all too likely that the person will return to them shortly after with a transmission that needs immediate replacement, and a complaint of “You ruined my transmission!”
Also, nice hooptie fleet. I’m getting addicted to these stories of someone buying a car that most enthusiasts are afraid to buy but wish they could. Keep up the great work!
Sometimes you just have to give up and sell. I purchased a ’67 VW bus with damge from ice falling on the top rear. I fixed it well enough, but every single time I tackled something else, floor mat, mirrors, windows, lights, I kept finding more bad stuff underneath. I gave up and sold it. The only time I actually drove it was to the bank in town to collect the money the buyer withdrew from the bank. About a week later the buyer contacted me to complain that the engine leaked oil badly. I never knew, I never drove it. I offered to refund enough $ to get a rebuilt motor (this was back when they were available), but they never got back to me. I still have the 4″ scar from walking into the mirror with my shoulder.
I completely bailed on VAG the day my spouse found our BMW. Never wanted in to begin with, it was all their idea. I commend your patience and diligence for the brand. You have AAA, right?
I’m so glad I have no interest in VW’s
Oh, also, those AC vents. They are just the 21st century version of pop up headlights.
19-20 cars in your fleet. Sheesh. I don’t even have that many bars or massage parlours in my rotation.
Oops. Scratch the massage parlour part of the comment. Seriously, scratch. Like here, and here.
Where is this glorious edit button we have been promised!
Mercedes.
We have been over this. DO NOT ASK FOR ME TO FIND YOU CARS, BECAUSE I WILL FIND THEM. INSTANTLY, IF THEY ARE EXTREMELY RARE. Seriously. I just printed out the temp tag for a 1 of 293 ever made 2001 Saab 9-3 Viggen 5 door. (Yes, they are that insanely rare.)
VW Phaeton with the W12? What color?
Already found a black over tan, 91k, Massachusetts, $20k (but fuck that, tell them $15k take it or leave it.)
How many Viggen 5-doors exist total? I used to be a hard-core Saab faithful (mod on the largest Saab forum) but never ventured into the Viggens much. I don’t seem to recall them being that rare though…
Total across all years and all colors? 887. That’s it.
Broken down by color, there’s 44 laser reds, 34 lightning blues, and 24 monte carlo yellows across 3 model years (’00 to ’02.)
But it’s not just the 5D’s that are rare – the 3D’s? Just 785 ever made.
The Viggen convertibles are positively common by comparison at 1,333 worldwide.
I drove past a convertible this morning on my way into work today and I frequently drive past 2 different 3-doors on my way home. Seems like a pretty good chunk of coverage for one day!
UPDATE: I only saw one of the Viggens on my way home yesterday BUT it was not a 3-door as I remember, but one of the 34 lightning blue 5-doors!!
How about finding a Toyota Trekker? Those are as rare as Hen’s teeth.
A Saab 9-3 Viggen 5 door? Oh, I knew I loved your taste in cars!
I don’t have an exterior color preference for a Phaeton, just an interior preference. I do not want the dull gray that my Touareg VR6 has. I recently saw a dirt cheap Phaeton V8 with that gray interior and that alone turned me off from wanting to buy it.
So, back in 2005 I spent a summer in Wolfsburg as part of a program my university had related to automotive design.
As part of the perks of the program we went on tours of the VW factory, the Autostadt, several museums as well as the glass factory in Dresden.
But for me the high point was them taking us out in the school’s V8 Phaeton to show us top speed on the autobahn. It was as uneventful as one of the fancy German trains, no noise, no drama, just the posts at the sides of the road going by faster and faster until they became almost a blur.
That Phaeton, owned by VW and lent to the very school where they had designed several of it’s systems, less than one year old at the time, with very low miles and always having been in the care of the very best mechanics and engineers; had a broken A/C which nobody knew how to fix…
The very people who had designed the whole HVAC system, in a car owned by the very same company that was still building them new at that time, with access to every conceivable part or information on the car couldn’t figure it out.
I was also very briefly a passenger in V10 TDI Touareg but the trip was short enough that it didn’t break down. There was also an off road course where you could try out Touaregs (V6) and those did break quite frequently.
This is what happens when a business eats it’s own dogfood!
Mercedes. The key to being able to live on a diet of poison and pain, is to take a little at a time, and gradually work yourself up to a level that makes you unkillable. If you just wolf down a whole buffet of the stuff all at once, they’re gonna need to pump your stomach. And you may not survive.
You need some simple fiber to move that stuff through. Intersperse thes escapades with one of your Smart cars, or grab a Nissan or something. I like your writing too much, to lose you to an intestinal blockage caused by a Phaeton that has no love in it’s heart. Please.
Having a fleet of shitty cars that don’t work is sort of a go-to around these parts, surely? I mean, my Yaris probably needs a new battery, and I discovered the other day that the Volvo I’m trying to sell has a tree growing through it.
I don’t even write for this place!
Seems about right for an old Volvo, love them longroofs!
I have a starter to install this weekend, and then the entire Metcalf Fleet will be operational for the first time in months.
I did just that with Iocane powder. Now I can outwit Sicilians.
That’s inconceivable!
Just don’t start a land war in Asia.
I laughed so hard at this comment. I love you guys, seriously, I do! ♥
The funny thing about my Smarts is that they don’t really seem to break in any fascinating ways. Like, the most recent job I’ve done to a Smart is replace its battery…thrilling stuff. And when I need reliability in my life (which, admittedly, I sometimes do) I just drive the future wifey’s Prius. After we put a new 12V battery in it that thing has almost aggressively boring reliability.
At this point David Tracy is an immortal based on this logic. Makes sense to me.
I find it so interesting that VW decided to build the Phaeton with the loftiest expectations, no expense spared, just all time high engineering concepts.
But in the end, they were huge piles of garbage.
I feel that they wanted to show off how complex they could make something, not how reliable they could make something. Yes, the Phaeton has many nice and clever bits but everything is so complex that one small failure can lead to a cascade of problems.
Sure! That’s a great flex, but what will people remember? A way too expensive VW that was a financial disaster and a huge embarrassment. Good thing VW didn’t ever make that same mistake again.
[taps earpiece]
What’s this about diesel and emissions?
So you just need a Veyron now to complete the Piech Collection, easy.
But how to find one that has missed it’s 5 oil change intervals in the 2000km of it’s life so far?
If I find one for 20 large or less, you got it!
(I shudder at the thought of what could be wrong with a $20k Veyron.)
That wouldn’t cover the tires…….
And Mercedes would need an XL1 as well, just have to wait until 2038 to import one to the US (or move to Europe)
I understand the allure of these cars. I’m considering replacing my already-problematic 2013 Audi A8 4.0T…with a W12 version of the same.
Somebody smack me, please.
Boy, I sure don’t get it, especially with the Phaeton. And I *really* don’t see how an independent VW mechanic would be so eager to snap one up, having every reason to know what the issues are. Maybe the brochure’s appeal isn’t coming across to me, but all that overengineering and overcomplication in a car that doesn’t look any more interesting that a $30,000 Passat… it was one thing when they were brand new and could maybe do all the things they were advertised to do, but NOW, having solidly earned their nightmare reputation as expensive longterm shop patients… man, I just really don’t get the appeal. Maybe if they looked like E-types or Duesenbergs or, hell, Bugattis, but instead having the creature comforts of a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon’s waiting room in the rolling shell of a Passat (or Maxima or Camry, for all the forgettableness its profile inspires), stranded by the side of the road with a classy plume of effervescent steam wreathing its hood like the smoke from Audrey Hepburn’s cigarette holder…
Man, I just don’t get the appeal at all.
I think I understand the appeal.
I am an introvert. In general I do not like attention — especially from strangers. But I love being comfortable. If you drive around town (most towns, anyway) in a Bentley, you’re going to get some stares, people will try to chat you up at the gas station, others will want to take photos, etc. It’s a flashy car, and that all sort of comes with it. But if you could take all the comforts of that Bentley and shoehorn them into a Passat, hardly anyone will give it a second glance. You get all the benefits without having to be the center of attention.
As for a mechanic picking one up, I think that a mechanic (either professional or hobbyist) is pretty much the *only* right owner for a car like this. If you don’t enjoy working on cars, a Phaeton will get on your nerves really quickly. But to someone who *does* like working on cars, a Phaeton is like a page-a-day Sudoku calendar, serving up a new puzzle daily. It’ll constantly be throwing something new and unique at you. If your hobby is figuring out oddball automotive issues and working on them, a Phaeton will never leave you wanting.