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Hatchbacks Volkswagen Rabbit Is the Rabbit right for me?
13 messages, Last post on Apr 15, 2007 at 7:12 PM
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Hello~ I just test drove a 4 door automatic Rabbit today. I'm finishing my second year in college (at a four year uni) and I barely received any financial aid for next year. My family is a little tight on cash, but I need a new car. Is the Rabbit for me? I really loved it in the test drive, but I keep hearing about VW and their expensive maintenance. I asked the salesman about it and he told me the engines are made in Mexico at the Puebla plant which is a brand new plant built to build the new models, and run by people brought over from Germany. I guess the only other cars I'm looking at are the Honda Civic and the Toyota Camry. I don't really care for gas mileage though, since I'm coming from a 1997 Montero Sport. And I'd really rather drive a VW than a Honda or Toyota. What do you guys think? Will the Rabbit become a headache in the future? Or will it give me a mostly hassle free future? Thanks in advance!!!!
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Replying to: sjk05 (Mar 07, 2007 9:29 pm) sjk: I love my rabbit. We need to get that out there before i tell you anything else. Unfortunately since so many people come to sites like this for help, you can very easily be turned into the wrong direction, because of a couple people's bad experiences with their own cars. Tight on cash huh? Well if thats the case, maybe the 2 door would be better for you? I know the four doors usually come pretty optioned out; which is great, but your looking at an 18k+ car sometimes. (unless you get a manual four door.) My wife and i have a 2 door automatic, with the six speed tiptronic auto and an alloy wheel package with wider tires. The alloy package was 600 bucks, and i think the auto tranny was another grand. This brought our total cost to 17095.00. I'll tell you the upsides to the rabbit (i know you already test drove, but this will be real world stuff that i deal with, as far as the car goes, everyday.): Acceleration: Very nice. It does not have a lot of top end (nearing redline) power, such as a honda would, but the low end torque is great! (Hence why vw calls this the perfect city car.) Interior materials: top notch. There is no difference in the grade of plastics, or workmanship between this car, or a passat, a decked out jetta, or even an audi a3. Its the reason vw is losing money on these; they are too nice to sell them as low as they do. Even edges out the old 06 civic i used to have (which was still very very nice as well, so that is saying alot.) Steering feel: while not the most sporty handler or best road feedback-giver of all time, vw's electro-mechanical steering is great and one of the better electro mechanical assisted steering equipped cars that i have ever driven. Possibly the closest to the good old rack and pinion that you'll ever get. The benefit of this steering is that it feels liquid smooth and like it belongs in a much more expensive car. Handling: this car is very nimble and despite its height and weight, never feels out of place or bulky when driving quickly. Solid as a friggin' rock: This is a true autobahn blaster. 110 mph feels like 70. And because the interior is so quiet it feels even better. Equip it with optional vw 17's and you'll get 225 width tires that will make it feel even more planted to the ground. This solidity will also pay off in great crash test ratings, even if the way to achieve them is through tons of high stregnth steel, and not hard-core chassis engineering and tuning. Exclusivity: is it an exclusive model? Of course not. But you are guaranteed to run into a few civics, camrys, accords, corollas and the like, much sooner than you would into a rabbit. Heck, you'll run into a gti more often than a rabbit! (at least i have). I still get heads turning because people see them so seldomly. Thats a pretty cool feeling. I used to get it when i had my civic; but then a lot of people had them; and i lost the look!  and now...the not so great things about the rabbit: Fuel economy. Most people would have figured this would be at the top of my list. When you look at cars that are similar in weight, and have engines the same size (remember there is not a whole lot of five cylinders on the market; the closest comparison you would have is the four bangers in the likes of the camry and accord, and those are smaller, if not more efficient, engines that have one cylinder less.), its not horrible, it just looks awkward at first for a car that seems to be so affordable and very high on 'bang for your buck' factor, to then be less than stellar once it comes to miles per gallon. But it makes a good showing for itself; my wife and i have a 30 mile drive (both ways) to work in the morning and we average about 27-28 mpg. The new ratings on the rabbit are 19/28 a small change from their orginal 22/30 and my numbers are still on par. But you said gas wasn't an issue so no biggie eh? But then again you did mention that money was tight, perhaps this will be more of an issue later on...ok next ' german engineering' has a price: The oil the rabbit uses is synthetic; it also has to be changed less and is a bit more expensive than regular oil. You will have your first service at 5k and mine came out to being about sixty bucks at the dealer so not terrible. My 10k was different. 143 bucks. Granted my next service interval wont be until 20k, so its a 10k interval, so some may think its not to big of a deal, considering you could take a japanese car for 40-60 bucks every five miles it washes itself out. I just find it harder to save up that much than to just put down 50 or 60 bucks a pop on any given paycheck. But then factor in that alot of places (even dealers) for cars like mazda, honda and toyota, will do your service for as low as 25 bucks. If you factor that in, the rabbit can be kinda expensive, and is one of my main reasons for kinda getting the feeling that i may not run mine into the ground with 150k. Having said that, i have had no problems with the rabbit and i'm nearing 13k. The only issue i have had was my windshield wipers needing to be adjusted a few millimeters at 5k. But they have been fine ever since. Granted your warranty is longer with vw than with honda and toyota, but vw has a lot of ground to cover to make up for sub par reliability with older models. Personally, i think that the rabbit will be great all the way up to 100k and beyond, but servicing her at that point may be to costly to even think about!  I hope that this helps and if you do decided to go with the rabbit, you will definitely enjoy your car! 
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Replying to: eldaino (Mar 08, 2007 6:44 am) To keep your warranty in effect, all you have to do is provide documentation that the required service is up-to-date. The new Rabbit is very easy for the rookie do-it-yourself'er to maintain. Everything is easy to access, there's plenty of room to work, the oil and filter changes are easy compared to many other cars. You can get a 5-liter jug of VW502.00-spec synthetic oil for around $30, and an oil filter for around $8 or less. After the 5k and 10k mile oil changes, all subsequent oil changes are every 10k miles. Air filter about every 40k miles, cabin/pollen filter once a year, brake fluid changes every two years. Anyone who is not 100% sure they can maintain their Rabbit themselves, can always ask for advice at vwvortex.com You don't have to have any car serviced at a dealership. Go there for warranty issues, otherwise don't bother. Just keep good records of all work you do yourself, or oil changes etc that you have done at an independent shop.
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Replying to: jbaustian (Mar 30, 2007 6:14 pm) Hmm, for about another $10-12 you can just have the dealer change your oil. VW has a $50 synthetic oil change coupon out. (My own dealer has charged about $50 in the past, without any coupons) |
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Replying to: jbaustian (Mar 30, 2007 6:14 pm) as far as warranty issues go;....wouldnt the dealer use the fact that i did it myself against me? If any problems were to arise that is? |
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Replying to: eldaino (Apr 02, 2007 5:34 am) However... if a problem should arise that could be traced to some error in an oil change, e.g. overfilling or not filling with enough oil, then there would be the question of who is to blame. That is one reason to use the same shop for all oil changes--dealer or not--then there is no doubt about whose fault it is. Me, I use my local dealers because they don't charge that much for oil changes (it's actually free for two of my cars, one of which was originally purchased at the dealership, and on the other I got a free maintenance package when I bought it) and it's nice to know that if there's some problem, it's the manufacturer's dealer who is at fault. |
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Replying to: eldaino (Apr 02, 2007 5:34 am)
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Replying to: jeffyscott (Apr 02, 2007 7:20 am)
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Replying to: eldaino (Apr 02, 2007 8:15 am) |
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I was just at a vw dealership yesterday, after it was closed to take a look at the available Rabbits. This dealership (in Western Wisconsin) has about 5 or 6 Rabbits and I was struck by the fact that most of them seemed to be 2006 models. If we are coming close to the 2008 model year, why would they still have a fair amount of '06s? Would those '06 models be more likely to be marked down or will they probably sell close to their MSRP? What do you think?
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