Thumbs DOWN: VW Eos

VW has had a few problems lately, not GM health care cost sized problems but problems none the less. Namely, quality issues and a failed attempt to move up market with cars like the $45,000 W8 Passat, $80,000 Pheaton and $40,000 Touareg. At this time the high end Passat is gone, the Pheaton is leaving this year and the Touareg is a slow mover. It is in this time that VW is coming out with the Eos, or EOS, whatever. The Eos is a expected to be a premium hard top convertible. Trouble.

People don’t want a premium VW. People that want to drop money on a German car look up Audis and BMWs. The sales stats show this. So can the Eos prosper where other cars, that did get favorable reviews, have failed? Let’s see my view…

The Look: Ho hum. It’s certainly not a bad looking car, and it does have a nice VW interior but does it excite? I think not. I think it’s not as attractive as the new G6 convertible – which will get reviewed later – and the Eos can be expected to be much more costly. I think to break the mold VW needs bold designs and not merely interpretations of the classic Golf look.


Look at those little bits behind the door! Way too much going on.
The Top: As I stated VW has been plagued with reliability issues for the last 10 years or so and are still often at the bottom of the ratings. Into that environment the Eos shows up with a powered droppable hardtop that is so complicated looking that it would make a Japanese origami master cringe. The comments I heard around the display at the show can be summed up as people wanting nothing to do with a top that complicated combined with VW’s reliability ratings.


The "trunk" of the Eos while deep and long has only a 10 inch tall opening. Try to get a piece of luggage in there.
The Eos will fail, unless it starts at $25,000 and comes with at least a 5 year warranty.