Almost two thirds of Romanians who own a Volkswagen car say they still trust the promises made by the German carmaker, although the percentage has fallen following the ‘dieselgate’ scandal, shows the poll conducted by D&D Research.
The firm compared a data set collected in 2013 about Volkswagen, Dacia and Ford brands to data collected at the beginning of October this year.
Thus, the share of Volkswagen owners who trust the brand’s promises fell by 8 percentage points against 2013 to 64%. Two years ago Volkswagen was the brand Romanians trusted most of the three brands analyzed, with a percentage of 72%, followed by Ford with 57% and Dacia 45%.
While confidence in Volkswagen has dropped, Dacia and Ford recorded strong growth at 74% and 78%.
The share of Volkswagen car owners who consider that the brand is communicating fairly with its consumers has decreased from 64% to 53%, while in the case of Ford the share climbed from 55% to 77% and in the case of Dacia from 47% to 81 %.
“Not at all good news for Volkswagen. It means that the impact of the disappointment of its customers will begin to be reflected fully in sales only from now on, despite the well-known preference of Romanians toward the brands made in Germany,” reads the D&D Research release.
Thus, only 55% of Romanians owners of Volkswagen consider that the brand is characterized by honesty, as compared to 73% two years ago. For Ford, this indicator increased from 66% to 79% and for Dacia from 52% to 83%.
The survey was conducted online and by telephone in 2013 and 2015, on samples of 1,043 respectively 770 people, with a maximum permissible error of plus/minus 3.5% at a confidence level of 95%. Data for this year were collected during September 30-October 7.