New VW factory

[Kubelmann]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nd5WGLWNllA

Check out this awesome video of the NEW VW factory.

[perrib]

Looks like VW spend 1,000,000 times more money on bling than quality control. Almost every Tourag and Phateon were bought back by VW. The incursion into the dark side by hiring a GM executive is still haunting them today. State of the art has nothing to do with quality.

[Kubelmann]

Some people (including me) would say VW never produced a decent car after 1980 Nearly every new bug that rolled off the line had a defective fensterheiber that had to be replace or parts replaced. Most of the convertibles sat in dealership shops waiting parts so the tops would go up and down. Very poor quality control. AT 20,000 miles most water cooled VW are all falling apart.

[raygreenwood]

That is actually an Audi line that was making that car. All of the Audi lines look like that. Its actually very smart. They start with a semi-clean room (low level). They have the Audi mess measuring system integrated with the entire line to check fit and finish. Its why for much lower cost, Audi, VW, Seat and Skoda have fit and finish that rival or surpass anyone.

The glass/see through thing has no bearing one way or the other. The plant could have had walls made of anything for the same cost. Even the VW Puebla line for Jettas and Beetles in Mexico has semi-clean room automated sctions in it. Looks the same on the inside...just has no glass walls except inside dividers.

The wood floors keep dropped tooling damage, noise , dust and maintenance down.

In fact...a fews years back when there was flooding in Dresden tha damaged the museums..I believe that VW/Audi allowed closed the assembly line and allowed all of the museum displays to be moved into teh production line for viewing until the museum could be repaired.
Some of that line is probably government subsidized .

Also...not one iota of it has anything to do with GM. General motors wishes they had VW's fit and finish quality level.

However...GM influence has been heavy in parts aquisition models and some sub-assembly design...and in some parts sourcing. I do think that has been a mistake and caused some quality issues. Ray

[Captain Spalding]

The glass/see through thing has no bearing one way or the other. The plant could have had walls made of anything for the same cost. Even the VW Puebla line for Jettas and Beetles in Mexico has semi-clean room automated sctions in it. Looks the same on the inside...just has no glass walls except inside dividers.

Sorry, have to disagree here. Just the real estate costs alone make the idea of putting the factory in the midst of the city a questionable one. That parts tram? Good for traffic, but adds to the cost compared to having the factory outside the city beside its own spur. Clean rooms are one thing, but exterior walls made of glass are more expensive and and less energy efficient.

The wood floors keep dropped tooling damage, noise , dust and maintenance down.

Wood floors are neither low cost nor low maintenance, compared with pretty much anything else.

It looks like a great place to work, but I'd have very mixed feelings if I were a shareholder.

ETA: I LOVE the Apollo 11 Haynes manual. Genius.

[DannyK]

Some people (including me) would say VW never produced a decent car after 1980 Nearly every new bug that rolled off the line had a defective fensterheiber that had to be replace or parts replaced. Most of the convertibles sat in dealership shops waiting parts so the tops would go up and down. Very poor quality control. AT 20,000 miles most water cooled VW are all falling apart.

With all due respect Mr. moderator, my '03 Eurovan Westfalia has 160,000 plus miles on it and has driven to every one of the lower 48 states without one single problem. Just consumables like tires, brake pads and one battery. I'd call that pretty decent.

[Kubelmann]

Sounds like you have had a very positive experience with your EuroVan/ I have a few friends who have one and they also have good things to say about them.

[DannyK]

I will admit that I disliked every car on my local VW Dealers lot recently though (except the 74 Thing I was sitting in at the time).

[Kubelmann]

They seem to have peppy engines and a series of poorly designed sub system that start failing around 20-30K miles..