Sept. 19, 2025 | VW price hikes; Pied Piper ranks brands by service drive scheduling practices

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Welcome to Daily Drive for Friday, September 19th, 2025.

I'm Kellan Walker in Las Vegas.

Today on the show, VW will hike prices for most 2026 models.

Automakers and suppliers warn the unpredictability

of tariffs make it harder to justify U.S. investments.

And the Senate confirms a new NHTSA chief.

Plus, Pied Piper has a new look

at how well dealerships are doing

using their websites to set up service appointments.

The very first step to keeping those customers

as well as everybody else is making it super easy

and satisfying, let's say, to schedule service.

Let's run through all the news you need to know

to keep up in the auto industry.

Volkswagen of America is raising starting prices

on most 2026 models.

In some cases, they're the second price hikes by VW

since the U.S. slapped steep tariffs

on light vehicle imports in April.

The latest price increases by VW range from 2.9 to 6.5%,

depending on the model.

The VW brand's U.S. sales plunged 29% in the second quarter

and 13% in the first half.

Automakers and suppliers are urging

the Trump administration to end

unpredictable expansions of tariffs,

saying they're making it harder

to justify investments in the U.S.

That's the message of a letter

this week to the Trump administration

from automotive trade groups and associations

representing other industries.

The business groups criticized the recent expansion

of steel and aluminum tariffs

to cover more than 400 new products,

including auto parts and industrial robotics.

They say it was implemented without adequate notice

and creates more cost and uncertainty for U.S. businesses.

The letter comes as the Trump administration

appears poised to expand the number

of vehicle parts subject to auto tariffs.

And the U.S. Senate has voted to confirm a new NHTSA chief.

The Senate voted on Thursday

to confirm Jonathan Morrison to head the agency,

along with 47 other nominees to other positions.

It's the first time that NHTSA has had

a permanent leader in three years.

Morrison is a former lawyer at Apple

and chief counsel at NHTSA

during President Trump's first term.

And those are today's headlines.

You can find more details on all those stories

at AutoNews.com.

Volkswagen's planned price hikes for the next model year

come at a pivotal time for the automaker.

Our own Jake Nier spoke with automotive news reporter

Jack Wallsworth today about the move

and how dealers might react.

Jack, welcome back to Daily Drive.

Great, thanks for having me.

Great, good to be here.

So Volkswagen of America is raising prices

on most of its 2026 models.

How much of this is about tariffs?

It's kind of tough to say.

Volkswagen hasn't come out and said

this is because of tariffs,

but kind of like reading in between the lines,

it definitely seems because of tariffs.

What's interesting with Volkswagen's lineup

is a lot of the vehicles were either refreshed

or redesigned for the 2025 model year,

which is typically when you see price increases,

but the fact that they're raising prices,

again, for the 2026 model year,

when there's been like hardly any significant changes

kind of makes you think of this

likely because of tariffs.

Volkswagen like many brands is reliant on imports.

They make vehicles in Mexico, Germany

and Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Most of their volume comes out of Mexico.

The vehicles that come out of Germany

are more lower volume, but still are significant.

So it kind of seemed like this was

probably gonna happen at some point.

The Volkswagen to their credit back in April

said they were gonna price guarantee vehicles through May.

They got extended through June

and then we saw a couple increases in mid July

and then as these 2026 model years

have come out more increases there.

So in some ways seemed inevitable,

but it's just kind of like the next chapter

on this, I guess.

Yeah, as you just mentioned,

and as you say in your reporting,

Volkswagen seems to be sort of especially exposed

to tariffs in this case,

but I'm curious how much of that could change maybe

with the new trade terms.

Obviously negotiations are going on.

We already have a framework in the EU.

Do you think that there's still a lot up in the air for VW?

Yeah, it does seem that way.

With, like I said, the vehicles they get out of Germany,

it's the Golf GTI and the Golf R and the ID bus.

Those are all relatively low volume,

but they're kind of halo vehicles.

They bring a lot of eyeballs to the brand.

The GTI and the R in this latest round of increases

had the most significant jump up close to 6.5%.

We don't have ID bus pricing,

but that potentially could go up.

And I think a lot of people like those vehicles,

but it's always the price is noticeable.

So if Volkswagen gets some relief on EU tariffs,

that would, it's still gonna be higher

than what they were pre-tariffs,

but that would certainly be better

than the 27.5% that they're facing right now.

And with the vehicles coming out of Mexico,

like I said earlier,

those are some really big volume nameplates.

The Tiguan has historically been their best seller.

We don't have 2026 while you're pricing,

but even if that's up a little bit,

that would be, the compact crossover segment

is super, super competitive.

And if Volkswagen's just redesigned their Tiguan,

it's the latest and best.

And if the price has to go up,

that's gonna have an impact.

So if they can get some relief out of Mexico,

it is worth noting that Volkswagen's made in Mexico

are USMCA compliant.

So it could have been worse.

It's not like Audi, where Audi has the Q5

also made in Mexico that is not compliant.

So Volkswagen brand is feeling a little less pain,

but I think Volkswagen like all automakers

are just, they're hoping for clarity.

And Volkswagen group leadership has just kind of alluded to

like once they have clarity on tariffs,

that might be when they make decisions

about potential plant expansions

or adding new production to US sites.

They've got the Chattanooga plant.

They could potentially add other brands and models there.

There's the Scout Motors plant

under construction in South Carolina.

That's been kind of alluded to being a potential spot

for additional Volkswagen group production.

But I think we might not see those announcements

until Volkswagen gets clarity on the tariffs

are gonna be going forward.

So more to come for sure.

I also assume that dealers are gonna be sort of waiting

very patiently, hopefully about the,

about what will happen with that.

As we mentioned on the show already,

BW brands, US sales, pretty rough first half of the year.

They've already been down.

Price increases, I assume, not great news for dealers.

Yeah, I know it's gonna be another thing

for them to work through.

At least they do have new-ish products.

You know, the Tiguan is,

it just came out in May of this year as a redesign.

The Taos and Jetta were freshened last year,

not significant.

I mean, at least the lineup is somewhat new.

It's not like they have a super old, old lineup here

and then the price increases come.

But yeah, another hoop for them

to jump through for sure.

Jack Wallsworth covers VW for us.

Here at Automotive News.

Jack, thanks so much for joining us.

You bet, thanks, Jake.

Coming up, a new look at which auto brands

are best at scheduling service appointments

by phone or a website.

That's next on Daily Drive.

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Welcome back to Daily Drive.

I'm Kellan Walker.

Dealership service customers want a seamless experience

when scheduling a service appointment

either by phone or through the store's website.

Pied Pipers, Cam and Fran O'Hagan

speak with automotive news senior retail editor

Dan Shine about what differentiated the brands

on top of their rankings for scheduling service calls

effectively from those near the bottom.

Fran O'Hagan, welcome back to Daily Drive

and to Cam O'Hagan, welcome for the first time.

Hey, thanks for having us.

So Pied Pipers back with another index,

I guess you would say from the brands

and how they do with service effectiveness.

Tell me what you guys looked at this time around.

Sure, so we have been measuring the brands

for service telephone for a while and ranking them.

In other words, what happens when customers try to call

and schedule an appointment?

But this year for the first time,

yes, we measured what happens when they call on the phone

but we also measured what happens

when they go to a dealer website

and schedule service online.

We combined those two to create a new service

scheduling effectiveness that measures it both ways.

And how are brands ranked or measured

or judged to come up with, to come up with this ranking?

You know, the easiest way to think of it

is the first step, let's call it the ante to play

is to meet customer expectations.

And if you think about it,

you're calling on the phone or if you're scheduling online,

really what you want is to quickly be able to reach someone

or something that can give you an appointment

short amount of time and the appointment isn't too far out.

It's not four weeks out or eight weeks out.

It's a reasonable amount of time.

So those two things are really the only things

that customers are thinking about

when they set out to schedule service.

Now there are also a bunch of things

that dealerships can do that go above and beyond that.

And the dealerships with the highest customer loyalty

tend to be the ones who go above and beyond.

I'd say another one.

So this is your first year mentoring service website

effectiveness, another important aspect

that both service website, service phone,

both from the charity importance of quickly reaching

someone or something, you know,

a schedule appointment online, that's too far out.

But another aspect of service website effectiveness is

what's the follow up confirmation?

Like do you receive anything?

Do you receive both email and text?

And that part is important as well

because you submit your service inquiry.

Am I going to show up to the dealership

and are they going to say,

who are you?

Well, we actually get it from that.

That's an important satisfier.

So we mentioned that as well

that since you've done those,

and that's the results that we found this year

or a lower rate of consistency

than we probably would have predicted

prior to getting the data.

When things went poorly,

when people used a website to try

and schedule an appointment for at a dealership,

what were some of the things

that you kind of found over and over

that went wrong for consumers?

Let's say it's a mix of digital failures

such as the appointment calendar

within the program, not working.

That came up as a reason multiple times.

The other, that's the most common

is requiring a VIN number either by Chrome

or through the website.

And how many of us know

our VIN number off the top of our head right now?

Unlikely.

So that's a barrier as well.

And for switching out to those brands

that scored well

when it came to service telephone effectiveness,

what were some of kind of the common traits

or takeaways that you noticed

with the high-performing brands?

So the top-performing brand

from the phone side

was Lexus that scored 68

on average out of the dealerships.

And what that meant was

the rate of a customer calling out

kind of set up a service appointment

that resulted in an appointment

to be scheduled 91% of the time.

The industry average is 81%.

A lot of the brands are neck and neck

but that's a pretty big jump ahead

of the average and their average number of days

after their own established appointment

was less than half the amount of time

compared to the industry average.

They're less than two days out on average

compared to before for the industry.

And then at the rate of the unprompted,

the service associate

asking about any other services,

the customer needs on main one,

upselling opportunity

that occurred about a third of the time,

the rate of that current in the industry

though is a lot less, I think, 3%.

So the top brands are doing it

more than double the rate

on a per customer basis.

And then also, I guess we have to talk a little bit about

like for bad things that maybe went poorly

when customers tried to call on the phone.

What are some of those hiccups

that kind of keep occurring

when you study these brands?

Well, I'd say that similar

those same metrics, but on the bottom end,

either a combination of visual problems

such as not reaching the user for big drops

in transfer or required in combination

of all of those issues or other ones,

the lowest brands in terms of overall performance

or telephone, the customers getting an appointment

for specific dating time

in the fifties and sixties percent of the time.

So big drop compared to the industry.

And for a web, there's another angle to consider

and that is, is it easy to change your appointment

or cancel your appointment?

And if you look at the rankings of the brands

for their web performance,

the ones at the bottom also tend to be,

let's call it negligent

and not give their customers a way

to easily change or cancel the appointment

without having to call somebody.

Let's talk about, you mentioned,

the Lexus was scored the highest

for in the telephone effectiveness.

Who were the two through five

in the telephone effectiveness rankings?

So two through five for telephone.

Second place is Subaru, square 65.

Lexus was at the top of the 68.

Third place was Mini with the 64.

So Mini was high in both of these.

Toyota with the 63 and BMW with the 62.

And what about for a website?

What's one through five for a website effectiveness?

So for the website side,

Fortune was on top of an average score of 71.

Industry average for reference,

came out to 59.

Second place was Mini, so Mini was high in both.

That's how well their overall

service getting effects was number one.

Mazda was third place for

the telephone website with 66,

followed by BMW 65,

and fifth place Cadillac with 65 as well.

So those kind of scores were combined somewhat

and to make an overall ranking

and Caminch and Mini came out on top

because they just, you know, based off

being high in both of these ones.

What are the top five overall?

Top five overall, so her overall service

and going back to this,

and at which he's never the phone and web aspect.

Mini on top of an overall average score of 66.

Lexus was 64, BMW was 64,

Mazda was 64, and then Pondrum was 63.

Industry average of 51.

All right.

So what's the overall takeaway

for dealerships and their brands

when they're thinking about, you know,

an important fixed ops,

always important for the bottom line of dealerships?

What should they be mindful of,

the lessons that they can learn from this

and making it easy for people to make,

come in and for service?

So what we find from talking with

service directors at the large dealer groups,

for example, they wake up in the morning

thinking about how do I hold onto

these three, four, five year old car owners?

I wanna keep them.

I don't want them to go to an independent.

And the very first step to keeping those customers

as well as everybody else is making it super easy

and satisfying, let's say, to schedule service.

What we also have found is that what we're measuring,

what's happening on the phone

or what's happening with the website

tends to be invisible.

And you can have a brilliant service director

if the brilliant service director

just isn't aware of what's breaking

and what's happening.

They can't really manage their business.

So it's super important to actually know what is happening

both on the phone and through web.

Okay.

Well, always interesting insights into service,

fixed ops operations at dealerships

and their brands that they represent.

Cam, Fran, thanks so much for your time.

Thank you.

Pied Piper's Cam and Fran O'Hagan

spoke with Automotive News senior retail editor Dan Shine.

That's Daily Drive for today.

I'm Kellan Walker.

Thanks to Automotive News executive producer Jake Neer

as well as our own Jack Wallsworth and John Irwin

for their reporting for today's podcast.

You can get the latest news on service and parts,

tariffs and everything happening in the auto industry

at AutoNews.com.

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for our weekend drive edition of the show.

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Sept. 19, 2025 | VW price hikes; Pied Piper ranks brands by service drive scheduling practices

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