Ah, Portland, Oregon. Land of the steampunk coffee shop, farmer’s market, urban goat-herding, and of the most insane bicycle riders around anywhere. Oh, and protesting…and don’t let us forget that it’s the land of protesting, posturing, and proving to any and everyone paying attention to you that you are the pinnacle of the farm-to-table, eco-minded, hip culture. And that’s all before I inject my own bias against the place. Oregon has some beautiful scenery and some excellent reasons to visit, sure. But Portland…no. I’d rather take a day trip to Mosul without body armor before I willingly stop in that city again for anything other than a fifteen-minute lunch break.
But why is the city on my radar today? Easy: this note, which has been appearing on TDI-equipped Volkswagens in Portland. Jalopnik reported on this, and confirmed that it is more than someone being funny…someone is actually putting these notes on cars in the city. Someone has actually taken the time to print out notes, and (I assume) ride around town on a bike, slapping these notes onto dirty Vee-Dubs. I tend to view myself as being kind of an asshole, but whoever is actually doing this is outshining me twenty-to-one. Volkswagen owners who just found themselves lied to and deceived by the company and possibly the regulatory agency aren’t the offenders here, they are the victims. Their intentions were good…buy a good-MPG diesel car. Nothing wrong with that, up until that dirty little secret about defeat devices got leaked out. So the car isn’t as eco-friendly as the owner believed it was. That isn’t the owner’s fault and I promise that they are probably as upset as you are, Whiny Note Man. So take you protesting, passive-aggressive ass to some dive coffee bar and keep it there in stony silence, because twenty to one I’m willing to bet that if you tried to slap a similar note that told some brah in a coal-rolling Cummins to “consider a different car” because your inner hippy is crying, that you would be lying on the ground in pain before you could cry out about male aggression and how it oppresses your moral sensibilities. Take your sympathy and concern and jam them far up your digestive tract, along with your freshly balled-up note. Do yourself, Portland, and just about everybody else in the free world a favor and keep your opinions to yourself. You don’t see the unicycling Darth Vader bitching, do you?
I’ve never wanted a VW more than I do now.
If you’ve ever seen the show Portlandia it pretty much nails the city of Portland and its quirkiness so with the posting of the flyer I just laugh, and yes there’s a skit about that very thing in one of the episodes
unless the guy on the unicycle is torching off his own flatulent methane, he’s not carbon neutral. That’d be pretty cool though… ass rocket power and Amazing Grace!
That, and they have to use spotted owl ink and old growth redwoods paper for the streaming mental diarrhea from this paper wasting, littering loser.
Instead of slinking off to the coffee shop, I suggest he catch the next available flight to Moscow, then get a bicycle and ride it all the way to VW headquarters in Germany while flying a protest flag. If you’re going to be a bicycle riding, tree hugging hippy, do a protest in a way that would make the original ’60s hippies proud instead of a passive aggressive, wussy protest.
And, I will bet that same twerp helped put Obama in office!
Don’t blame me I voted for McGovern
Hey stupid –
The republican part put Obama in office by running McCain/Palin
to lose on purpose !! Wake up and join reality
I agree with Brian Cooper, I would be proud to own one now, if they have engineers smart enough to fool the man for all this time, they have some pretty intelligent engineers !
Been to Portland many times and all I can say is…….PORTLAND SUCKS!!!!!
Lets hope that the idiotic person that left the note just drops dead. Have a great day to you all.
Good on VW for giving a shit about the consumer. Want good fuel economy, ok. Want decent power (all things considered), sure. Want a comfortable car, with high quality materials, build quality as well as interior and exterior style, we can do that.
Oh wait, the epa wants crazy emissions standards because its a diesel? Ummmm, sure they alone can have that, the rest of you get the car you wanted and the government gets what they want (in testing anyways).
For all the hippies crying about the environmental effects, go jump in a lake with some bricks tied tightly to your feet.
This note is ridiculous, but expected from the unrealistic coffee swilling hippies in their hemp pants and organic grocery bag, single speed pedal bike having ways.
If you think Portland sucks, try out Eugene sometime.
VW is doing what I’ve been doing for years –> de-tune my junk to pass smog, then re-tune to back normal drivabilty.
BTW, I love Ninkasi Beer –> brewed in Eugene and maybe the best thing to come out of Oregon.
Then it comes out of you….
Ninkasi brewing is one of the greats out here.
Whenever they have a booth at a beer festival I’m at, I plan all my visits around them: Anderson Valley then Ninkasi, that new outfit from Redding, then Ninkasi again, Sierra Nevada then back to Ninkasi. It works out pretty well.
All this turmoil coming from the hippie wagon mfg. Its great! If I caught the douche putting that sticker on my car I would break his hand in the door. Screw you, its private property.
This whole VW thing is just making my life easier, to be honest.
I haven’t lectured a single person on how my old pickup has amortized the pollution from production about twenty years ago, or how it’s lighter than a modern economy car. I just blend in now, and it’s fantastic!
Thank you, Dieselgate!
Yep, normal for Portland to have some self righteous enviro-nazi plastering cars with their bulls*#t. I get really pissed when I find someone has touched my ride putting a flyer on my windshield and when I catch them in the act,
I let them know, with extreme prejudice.