My take on this is no they don’t. As long as they are truthful they only report on the quality of the product and prevent many people of spending a lot of money from losing it by buying something that doesn’t work.
If your product is shit your company does not deserve to be shielded from the backlash, this is the core of (classic) capitalism after all.
I’ve owned several VW’s including diesels and yes, currently an id.4. I am a fan of VW cars, but I don’t really care about the perception of the company - I like the cars but it’s really more that I like my local dealership and find their cars superior to others at the same price point.
The reason I brought this specific incident up was because it’s easier to remember, but I find Doug fairly frequently was misinformed about things. It was fine when he was just showing off stuff he thought was interesting, but once he started reviewing cars currently for sale, it really jumped out to me that he’d just be ranting about stuff he just didn’t understand and was not a reliable reviewer. The only reason I kept tolerating him for a while was that he has access to interesting old cars I wouldn’t be able to see otherwise, but as far as the new stuff, he was unqualified imo.
I do agree with your point that most people would do test drives, etc, but this came at a time when these cars were not available on lots and many people began canceling their orders based on the perception of the car which seemed to be widely based on Doug’s review. I just happened to luck into one being at my dealer, and was able to test drive it, but at the time they were very hard to find and most peoples orders had not yet been delivered. It definitely hindered sales and was totally blown out of proportion.
That said, VW should have handled the response to it better - they basically just ignored it, and that’s on them.
I also remember the diesel scandal quite well because I was just about to sell my diesel beetle when the story broke and the price plummeted.
Thankfully between my dealer and VWoA they made it right, so it didn’t turn me off from them completely. What became known the following year was that it was not just VW, but almost the entire automotive industry engaging in similar tactics, but that was not nearly as widely reported.
As far as MKBHD, that makes sense, and it could be just an outdated opinion I have of them based on much older reviews.
This is straight up false. Yes most, if not all diesel engines were found to be out of regulation especially at idle. It’s a bad regulation and needs to updated, but of course lobbists have put a stop to that.
The major difference was that VW group was using arrestor devices to skirt the testing even on the highway. It’s why they paid the heftiest fine over all the other manufacturers. It was very purposeful, not saying the others are saints but there is a difference between neglecting to adhear and intentional deceit.
Do you think that maybe, possibly, that it could be a variety of factors that led to id4 orders being cancelled? And also, if it was a commercial failure I can almost guarantee the model would have been killed off rather than being updated into a 4th year. Not being able to test drive a car I’m spending a significant chunk of cash on is a way bigger turn off than a YT video and some stupid articles.
Like seriously, if you didn’t have the luxury of a very nice VW dealership, would you still have ended up with an id4? How do rekon availability and crappy dealerships didn’t play a bigger role than Doug? Idk what to fucking tell you bro, people don’t treat reviews as gospel, and if they do then they are most likely children and/or completely unable to afford the thing being reviewed.