by "Spanfeller is a twat" (theaspiringengineer)
Published 11/13/2017 at 13:40
by "Spanfeller is a twat" (theaspiringengineer)
Published 11/13/2017 at 13:40
Tags: MXDM
; Mexican Domestic Market
STARS: 4
If any of you live outside the United States of “We hate odd shapes” you might have seen this weird ass car, its very common here in Mexico, you can get one for around 325,000 pesos, or 17,000 American dollars, take note that we have much higher car taxes than the US.
The Audi A1 is a badge job, not even a good one at it! Its based on the VWAG A05 (PQ25) platform, compared to the other cars, we can see a clear trend:
Audi A1= Expensive Polo
Polo=Expensive & slower Ibiza
Ibiza= Expensive & sportier Fabia.
Fabia=One of the cheapest VW products you could buy.
Note that these cars are different looking, but share the same guts, and I hate that because its a thing of image mostly, specially between the A1 and the Polo because no one buys the expensive A1, the 1.8T with 180hp. but the cheaper 1.4 with 125. The thing is, you could get the Polo GTi with the 1.8 for about the same money than the A1.
Its a mechanically better car, and I think prettier. To the point that you really need to ask yourself if you bought the Audi because somehow VWAG packed a metric ton of luxury into it, or is it because you fell for the badge?
It is frankly ridiculous how many people buy the A1 and the Ibiza here in Mexico. The polo, which is meant to be the mid market-reasonable one has no appeal whatsoever apparently, because I don’t get to see many. VW also has no shame pulling out the GTi in and out of the Mexican market, maybe it´s some sort of marketing stategy, I dunno, Mexican cosumers are very wierd.
In the end it´s not like VW created badge jobs (looking at you Chrysler) but they certainly perfected them! In a few months you will be able to buy a Touareg that in theory could fit Bentley engines, and it´s not like you couldn´t do that before with the Pheaton for instance.
But this is part of a bigger problem: marketing has taken over car design, and it is winning. I can trace this back to a very Mexican term, the term “mamar” which under this instance means to pretend and showoff wealth trying improve one´s standing in society in the process. Oh, yes, you could´ve boughten a safer, larger, better, quicker, car. But no, you needed the Audi A1 because any badge with less than four rings doesn´t get accepted into your friend´s daddy´s golf course. It is what marketing does, it wants to make some brands come off as the mame, it makes careless consumers jump into a 320,000 peso bandwagon that is could be had for less than 200,000 with a different badge. The true tryanny of marketing is what it made these people feel, they made them feel that the righ badge is the expensive one. The marketing people made the consumers feel like they (and let me quote Geto Boys here) had caine, but it was Gold Medal flour.
"Hoccy" (Hoccy)
11/13/2017 at 13:47, STARS: 2
I like the S1..
..but I would never spend money on anything else than a Fabia.
"Spanfeller is a twat" (theaspiringengineer)
11/13/2017 at 13:48, STARS: 0
Oh, that is a great car! Its also not sold here.
"Textured Soy Protein" (texturedsoyprotein)
11/13/2017 at 13:49, STARS: 0
Wouldn’t it make sense to see more Ibizas than Polos if the Polo is an expensive, slow Ibiza?
(+1 for Geto Boys)
"Hoccy" (Hoccy)
11/13/2017 at 13:52, STARS: 1
In that particular spec, it has only been sold in 3 examples by the team that races them in World Rallycross.. They do make a street S1 though, with Haldex AWD and a turbocharged engine.
"Spanfeller is a twat" (theaspiringengineer)
11/13/2017 at 13:53, STARS: 0
Well, it probably is more logical, however, the seat is actually sportier in its tunning, so buying it here over the polo is worse in the long run because of how shitty our streets are. But you have a valid point. I was trying to underline how extremist we Mexican cosumers are.
"Spanfeller is a twat" (theaspiringengineer)
11/13/2017 at 13:56, STARS: 0
They don’t sell either in Mexico. In fact I think they dropped the 1.8 after the facelift.
"E92M3" (E46M3)
11/13/2017 at 14:02, STARS: 1
I’m surprised there is still so much loyalty to VW. I guess because they made the Beetle and Fox for so long in Mexico. I would of thought the Corolla, and Prius to be the cars of choice.
"Spanfeller is a twat" (theaspiringengineer)
11/13/2017 at 14:06, STARS: 2
Yeah we take pride in that for some reason.
However, now the leading manufacturer is probably Nissan, they sell a buttload of cars. But Toyota is barely visible and hybrids are just starting to pop up as incentives are being legislated.
"DC3 LS, will be perpetually replacing cars until the end of time" (dc3ls-)
11/13/2017 at 14:07, STARS: 0
Star just for the geto boys reference!
"Mini Guy- Now has a 4Runner" (gavinharter30)
11/13/2017 at 14:09, STARS: 1
I’ve only ever seen one Audi a1 in the good ol USA. It was during the f1 weekend and I saw it sitting right next to a Leon. First time I saw both of those actually
"Spanfeller is a twat" (theaspiringengineer)
11/13/2017 at 14:15, STARS: 1
Probs Mexican F1 fans
"RT" (rt-p)
11/13/2017 at 15:48, STARS: 0
Granted, I wouldn’t call VW Group’s cars ‘lazy badge jobs’. They’re not poorly engineered like GM and BL were. VW have never made a Cimarron, because they don’t have a Cavalier.
I’ll give you this though, the Q2 is a nasty design (what happened to the C pillar)!?
"SantaRita" (SantaRita)
11/13/2017 at 17:33, STARS: 0
I own an A3 and a GTI of the same Generations MK6/8P. From my standpoint the Audi really is the nicer inside and its interior doesn’t make hollow noises or rattles at twice the mileage of the GTI. It’s better built.
They are mechanically similar but the a3 has a higher softer ride which is my least favorite part about it until i’m on a crappy road and i’m not being juggled around like by the harder ride of the GTI.
Of note to the OCD the Audi allow syou to roll the windows all of the way down vw gti which always leaves the rear glass 3-4" exposed.
little things ...like how the interior dials can all be ‘centered’ so they are arranged to perfect OCD aesthetic regardless of actual orienteation of the HVAC/radio system output. In the GTI dials for everything are all misaligned unless your the most middling/average of all the settings.
This types of details are lost on a lot of people, but they are NOT the same car at the end of the day.
"Spanfeller is a twat" (theaspiringengineer)
11/13/2017 at 17:57, STARS: 1
I guess that the engineering behind the cars is very good! but still I feel like both brands lose a little when sharing that many things.
Yeah, the Q2 is the ugliest car I’ve seen.
"Spanfeller is a twat" (theaspiringengineer)
11/13/2017 at 18:02, STARS: 0
Well, yeah, the Audi will be nicer inside, but is it worth the cost? Plus, you’re also comparing the GTi against what I suppose is a non-RS-S Audi.( Edit: I did that in the article myself, So I understand where your argument comes from)
You also need to look at the levels; the A3/golf size and price difference lets you work a bit more with refinement and design and individualization; obviously a Bentley has different leather than a VW despite being from the same company.
However I think its a thing specific to the A1, while yes it has a bit of a different interior to the Polo and others, I think that most people buy them for image because A1 really have very little luxury compared to the Polo. The only A1 I’d buy would be the S1, and its not sold here.
"Probenja" (probenja)
11/13/2017 at 18:54, STARS: 0
AFAIK cars in Mexico are much cheaper than the US, it might actually be the country with the cheapest cars in the world! And yes, the brand is really important, specially in 3rd world countries where people love cars like the A1, 1-Series and A-Class because they get a luxury car for cheap, even if it’s not really a nice car in the case of the A-Class. Also sporty cars like the GTI just don’t sell very well as non-enthusiast would much rather have a comfortable car than going fast.
"Spanfeller is a twat" (theaspiringengineer)
11/13/2017 at 19:27, STARS: 1
I’m not a tax attorney and I don’t know much about taxes in the US, apparently you would pay about 10% tax on a new car in California. Also it may seem cheaper because we don’t have a NHTSA or IIHS (and really no EPA) to regulate what can be sold, you can get a car without ABS here, even without rear seatbelts! So cars sold here don’t need to be tested, additionally some of the third party costs are not very high because in general working in Mexico is very cheap. However, it doesn’t exclude the high taxes someone shelling more than 300,000 pesos would pay for a car, after a certain price, cars become luxury items and are taxed to hell and back! I am not against taxation though, I am against using the tax money on bullshit expenses and corruption, something my government does very often.
We pay VAT that can be up to 18%(IVA) and a special car tax called ISAN at around 10% for some cars.
Additionally state inspections are every six months, registration is expensive, and the road tax (tenencia) is crazy expensive unless your car is worth less than 12,000 dollars. The only “cheap” thing about owning a car in Mexico is gasoline, and it is still almost a dollar a liter. I understand that in other countries car taxes are higher but come on! owning a car in the US is magnitudes cheaper than owning one here in Mexico. Plus, you need to count in that most highways in Mexico are toll roads and stupid expensive. Its not as if we have nice roads like Spain for our taxes, instead the president just buys stupid jets!
You can get cheap cars here, but it doesn’t mean owning one is cheap.
"pip bip - choose Corrour" (hhgttg69)
11/14/2017 at 06:07, STARS: 0
i would take the Skoda over an Audi any day.
"RT" (rt-p)
11/14/2017 at 08:21, STARS: 0
I see where you’re coming from, though VW’s brands pretty much dominate the competition here in Europe - so they’re not losing anything, just gaining. Golfs outsell the nearest rival 2 to 1 - and quite a lot of popular rivals (A3, Octavia, Leon) are also Golfs too.
If you think Audi in particular are losing out, I’ve got good news for you:
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The video is in German, but it’s time-stamped so you can hear the car instead.
Basically, Audi made this limited-production car. It runs an electric Turbo, which is positioned after the exhaust turbo, and siphons off air from the turbo to fill the turbo gap/latency. In other words, this is Audi Quattro levels of good... better even, in some aspects.
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Here’s another crazy limited-production Audi which just looks bonkers. Time-stamped so you can see the exterior, skip to 6:30 for the sound.
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Chapter 3: Is Audi going insane?
Remember that blue car from the first video? That was just a ‘test mule’ for this. Now with more power, functional sidepipes, and with a one-off gearbox. The styling is meant to be inspired by the Trans Am, IMSA cars, the Quattro S1 E2 and Le Mans cars.
And yet the same company made the Q2... yeah, Audi is weird like that.
"SantaRita" (SantaRita)
11/14/2017 at 09:34, STARS: 0
Since I paid for the GTI new, and bought my Audi second hand, I paid 1/3 the cost to have it. I know that’s not apples to apples.
It still has the same engine and manual transmission. But it has a full length panoramic sunroof and even subtle little things are just niceties... like...the headlights turn themselves on and off...rain-sensing wipers ...and you can roll the windows up and down with the door key.
I guess my point is this: I’m glad someone makes bad purchase decisions because they make great second hand cars that are less suspecting than a car with a bit of boy racer image attached.
"Spanfeller is a twat" (theaspiringengineer)
11/14/2017 at 09:59, STARS: 0
Worthsee is amazing for the vw group. Vw also gets nice cars out! (Remember the w12 golf?)