Dieselgate: More VW engines implicated
Now 1.6-litre TDIs are under the spotlight, as German minister confirms Dieselgate cheat code was sold in European VolkswagensThe other shoe has dropped for Volkswagen. For almost a week, the German car-making giant had kept the focus of its emissions-cheating software code on the United States.
But now a senior German politician has confirmed that the “defeat” code in the 'Dieselgate' scandal was fitted to European-delivered 1.6- and 2.0-litre EA189 turbodiesel engines.
“We have been informed that also in Europe, vehicles with 1.6- and 2.0-litre diesel engines are affected by the manipulations that are being talked about,” Germany’s Transport Minister Alexander Dobrindt confirmed to England’s Sky News yesterday.
While Volkswagen originally admitted to fitting the cheat -- which cranked up extra emissions-cleaning efforts only when it thought it was being tested in a laboratory -- to 500,000 cars, it has adjusted this upwards to 11 million cars.
Dobrindt’s admission is the first time anybody has mentioned the smaller 1.6-litre turbo-diesel engine, which comes off the same EA189 architecture and is built in the same plants as the 2.0-litre versions caught cheating in the US.
This could expose Volkswagen to greater liability in Europe, where the smaller diesel engine is a mainstay motor in its Golf, Polo, Passat, Tiguan and Golf Sportsvan models. It is also spread throughout the Seat and Skoda ranges and in the A3, at the bottom end of the Audi family.
Audi and Skoda both admitted yesterday that the engines in question had been fitted to their cars between 2009 and 2013, in the A1, the A3, the A4 and the A6 in Europe, and the Czech brand’s Fabia, Roomster, Octavia and Superb.
There is no confirmation yet from Volkswagen on the engine’s infiltration in the Seat line-up, but it’s expected to be in the Ibiza, Leon, Toledo and the Alhambra people-mover.
There are fears growing in the official Volkswagen silence, that the V6 turbo-diesels could be involved in the cheat, because they are managed by the same Bosch engine management computers.
Still, though, Volkswagen remains officially silent about the location of the 10.5 million affected cars it hasn’t sold in the US.
While it has confirmed it will recall the US-sold cars (cars which have already been recalled, in December last year, to have their engine management software reflashed, unsuccessfully as it turned out, to counter the same emissions results), it has yet to even hint at whether the rest of the world’s affected cars will be recalled.
VW has confirmed that all of its EU6 cars are properly compliant and officially certified, despite which sales of its diesel-powered cars are drying up in the face of official probes and requests from Australian, Canadian, US, South Korean, Italian, German, French and British governments.
The German government isn’t concentrating solely on Volkswagen, though, and has promised to scrutinise other car-makers on the German market.
“It is clear that the Federal Office for Motor Traffic will not exclusively concentrate on the Volkswagen models in question, but that it will also carry out random tests on vehicles made by other carmakers,” Dobrindt said.
Daimler, the parent company of Mercedes-Benz, insisted it had no cheat codes in any of its products, all of which complied with NOx rules around the world.
BMW this week came under fire from German magazine Auto Bild for an X3 xDrive 20d allegedly returning NOx numbers 11 times higher on a real-world test than the maximum allowed in the official EU6 laboratory test.
Though that is the kind of discrepancy that snared Volkswagen in the EPA’s trap, BMW insisted it did not manipulate any of its emissions tests and denied the report.
“There is no difference in the treatment of exhaust emissions whether they are on rollers or on the road,” a BMW spokesman said.
Oddly, Auto Bild said the car failed a test by the International Council on Clean Transportation – the same body whose University of West Virginia test failed Volkswagen, but cleared the BMW X5 xDrive 3.0d six-cylinder diesel.
“No specific details of the test have yet been provided and therefore we cannot explain these results,” the spokesman said.
“We will contact the ICCT and ask for clarification of the test they carried out.”
That hasn’t stopped market fears of the Volkswagen “cheat” crisis spreading to other car makers.
BMW’s share price fell 7.3 percent last Friday, Daimler was down five per cent and key automotive supplier Continental was down four per cent.
Bosch, the company that supplied the ECUs at the centre of Volkswagen crisis, is privately held.
Dieselgate related reading
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BMW forced to deny emissions rigging
Volkswagen boss Winterkorn to go as crisis spreads
Dieselgate worsens, 11m vehicles could be affected
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