Dieselgate: Huge recall planned, other brands hit
Recall expected but could be some time coming, as country after country halts VW diesel salesA massive recall is about to get underway to fix the world’s 11 million emissions-cheating Volkswagen Group engines. All that needs to happen now is for Volkswagen to figure out how to fix them, where they are and what makes and models the engines are in.
Yes, more than a week after the #Dieselgate scandal became public, embattled Volkswagen still hasn’t locked down which badges the affected four-cylinder turbodiesel engines sit behind, much less how to fix them.
Volkswagen’s Czech subsidiary Skoda overnight announced that 1.2 million of its cars had the “defeat” code in the engine management computers of their 1.6- and 2.0-litre diesel engines.
Almost all of the affected Skodas were sold in Europe, Skoda insisted, with the brand having no presence in North America. Volkswagen’s other volume brand, the Barcelona-based Seat, put about 700,000 of the EA189 engines into its cars.
With Volkswagen claiming only five million of the cars are wearing its badges and Audi admitting to 2.1 million, that still leaves 1.8 million engines soaked up in Volkswagen’s Commercial vehicle arm.
Incoming Volkswagen Group CEO, Matthias Müller, told a Monday meeting of about 1000 of Volkswagen’s leading managers that it had drawn up a “comprehensive plan” to fix the cars. This will be presented to German Transport Department authorities in the next few days, the new boss stated.
A Volkswagen spokesman told UK magazine Autocar overnight that it would not be rushed into a fix that might not work… What he should have said was that they would not be rushed into a fix that might not work, again. Volkswagen recalled the half-million cars in the US last December for a software reflash that didn’t fix the problem.
“We don’t want to be fast, we want to be certain,” the spokesman said.
“Over the next days and weeks we will write to all affected customers and we will put in place free-of-charge fixes for all affected customers.”
motoring.com.au believes the contact will be made with European and US owners first. It’s not clear when Aussie owners will be alerted – or even if they will. Volkswagen Australia is still to make any announcements regard the extent or the effect of the software cheats on Australian deliver cars.
In terms of global rectification, some cars are believed to need no more than a software upgrade to the engine management systems, while others are likely to need significant hardware reworking to let them use a more conventional, more expensive system using AdBlue (urea) after-injection.
The plan will need to be presented before October 7, the deadline set by the German Government for Volkswagen to deliver a rigid timetable to make the 2.8 million affected cars there legal, or risk having them and their owners grounded.
It’s being made curiously difficult, though, because Volkswagen still isn’t releasing data and VIN numbers to its markets to help them contact owners of Dieselgate cars – or to help them ease the uncertainty for those whose cars are unaffected.
Both Skoda and Seat have ordered their dealers to stop selling the cars with that engine, though it was being phased out in favour of the newer, (allegedly) cleaner EA288 motor and the Europe-wide stock of the affected cars was considerably fewer than 10,000.
Volkswagen distributors in Italy, Belgium, Denmark and The Netherlands have asked their dealers to stop selling the Euro 5-spec engines caught up in the scandal, though Euro 6-compliant models can remain on sale.
The Swiss Government has gone further, threatening to ban the sale, new or second-hand, of any of the 129,000 Volkswagen Group cars registered in the country
In other news, Volkswagen’s standing on the stock exchange keeps getting hit, and now it’s getting hit in more ways than just its share price.
Its cheating ways will next week see Volkswagen AG removed from all of the Dow Jones Sustainability indexes, which track and rank the companies considered to be the most economically, socially and environmentally sustainable in their industries.
It is also included on the London Stock Exchange’s like-minded FTSE4Good index, which will next sit to review company suitability in December.
Volkswagen’s shares are down 39 per cent since September 18, losing €27.5 billion in value.
Dieselgate related reading:
ACCC issues statement on VW emissions saga
Müller locked in as Volkswagen CEO
BMW forced to deny emissions rigging
Volkswagen boss Winterkorn to go as crisis spreads
Dieselgate worsens, 11m vehicles could be affected
Tags
Please see our Editorial Guidelines & Code of Ethics (including for more information about sponsored content and paid events). The information published on this website is of a general nature only and doesn’t consider your particular circumstances or needs.
