A Pitch to the Rich

(3 of 3)

VW says such snafus are behind it. The firm has boosted the number of VW-exclusive dealerships to 350 and plans to raise that figure to 450, which will account for 75% of VW's volume in the U.S. within two years. The company says it has opened five parts depots to alleviate shortages and that dealers have added an average of four new service bays in the past four years. "Two years ago, our customer wait time [for a repair] was on average eight days," says Frank Maguire, vice president of sales and marketing at Volkswagen of America. "Now we're down to 2.6 days."

To pump up VW's reliability ratings, Pischetsrieder recently dispatched to the U.S. Stefan Ketter, a recognized expert in quality control. After service technicians found a potentially faulty wiring harness in the Touareg, VW sent technicians to the homes of Touareg owners to fix the harness if necessary and reassure them of the vehicle's quality. The company now has a dozen engineers in the U.S. to monitor the Touareg and other issues.

None of that will fix a basic Touareg glitch: that strange name. After dealers heard it in 2002, some begged VW for a change of name, fearing that U.S. customers wouldn't have a clue about how to pronounce it. VW has tacitly admitted that they were right. Some of the first TV ads for the Touareg parody the pronunciation (which, for the record, is tour-egg). VW says Americans had difficulty pronouncing Passat when it launched. (Never mind fahrvergnugen.) But that doesn't dispel the sense that VW's marketing department is in triage mode. VW named the Touareg for a rugged tribe of African nomads. But it turns out that the tribe held and traded slaves until the 20th century — a poor association for a company that used slave labor during World War II. Last summer Pischetsrieder's worldwide sales and marketing chief Robert Buchelhofer resigned under pressure and was replaced with several executives who each command one brand.

Will such moves be enough to lure back customers like Jetta owner Ann Jones? A few weeks ago, she became fed up with her car and traded it in for a new Honda Accord. It's a testament to VW that she did so grudgingly. "I will miss the Volkswagen style, and I was saddened to leave my Jetta," she says. But her Accord provides her with something her Jetta never did: "I have more peace of mind."