Is Volkswagen a good reliable brand?

When buying a vehicle not only do you look at the specifications to see if it will meet your needs but you will also need to look at the brand and the company behind it. Knowing the brand behind the car helps consumers understand what they’re getting into especially when it comes to vehicle build quality as well as what to expect in terms of parts availability and maintenance costs. With that said we help you answer the question, is Volkswagen a good reliable brand?

As a bit of a backgrounder, Volkswagen is a German vehicle manufacturer that was founded in 1937. Since then it has evolved into a global automotive brand with several other famous brands such as Audi, Bentley, Lamborghini, and Porsche now under its wing. Aside from this, the automaker has other partnerships with other marques for select countries such as China so they can maintain a manufacturing facility. Even with its multiple brands and partnerships abroad, the German brand is still committed to making cleaner forms of transportation. This is why Volkswagen is set on improving its line of electric vehicles and plans to introduce more environmentally-friendly models to its other brands.

Volkswagen is a global company, and as such it has several manufacturing facilities and partnerships with other brands in different countries to make vehicles. The German corporation estimates that it produces about 11 million vehicles every year which indicates a very healthy interest in the cars that they make. Volkswagen has also ranked 25th out of the 40 manufacturers being reviewed by the ReliabilityIndex in 2019. This goes to show that the brand is pretty reliable when it comes to the quality of vehicles it makes. However, with Volkswagen vehicles being made all over the world, does this mean that the quality suffers if the vehicle isn’t made in Europe? 

Even if a vehicle is built outside Europe, Volkswagen is committed to keeping the same quality assurance for all of its manufacturing facilities worldwide. As an example, this means that a Volkswagen T-Cross that is made in Europe will be put under the same scrutiny and quality control as the same model that is built in Brazil. The same can be said for the German automaker’s vehicles sold locally. Even if the vehicles that are available in the Philippine market are made outside of Europe, the quality of the product remains the same. Vehicles need to meet the automaker’s strict quality standards before they are even allowed to be sold in any market.

When it comes to dealerships in the Philippines, Volkswagen currently only has 10. However, the German automaker has stated that it will slowly increase this number over time with more dealerships set to rise this year even amidst a pandemic. While this limits the locations you can service your vehicle and buy parts for it, the number of facilities is still growing and it will take time for the brand to establish a good foothold in the country.

In terms of warranties for its vehicles, Volkswagen provides the industry standard of 3 years or 100,000 km (whichever comes first). In terms of preventive maintenance servicing, it will depend on the vehicle but it should be at par with the rest of its Japanese or Korean competitors. Parts availability, while limited to the 10 dealerships in the country is good, as the German automaker has stocked up on parts in order to better serve its customer base.

For now, it is hard to tell as the German brand is slowly re-establishing itself in the country. It looks like the automaker is doing well especially with AC motors as its local distributor partner. With an Ayala company backing up the German brand in the Philippines you can rest assured that they will do everything to make the ownership experience go as smoothly as possible. Volkswagen Philippines has even stockpiled parts during the pandemic to ensure that its customer’s vehicles are serviced properly and are returned to the road with the least amount of downtime possible.