Volkswagen cheats emissions tests!
- Thread starter coolsurfer
- Start date
Checked my wife's VIN and it turns out to be affected. Worth noting that it is a 1.6TDI, as some sources were stating only 2.0TDI was affected.
Now a waiting game to see what happens next I suppose regarding recall. Bit annoying as potentially might have been looking to change car over the next year or so and may (rightly or wrongly) make it more difficult to shift due to the uncertainty about it all.
I wonder if some dealerships might use this as an opportunity to encourage people to 'upgrade' i.e. push a new model at customers in affected vehicles and say they are offering a 'once-in-a-lifetime' special discount / trade-in value to say sorry for misleading them originally? e.g. offer £500 above market value and then cream the profits on the new car, so the customer who was stitched up originally is now shelling out thousands extra
Now a waiting game to see what happens next I suppose regarding recall. Bit annoying as potentially might have been looking to change car over the next year or so and may (rightly or wrongly) make it more difficult to shift due to the uncertainty about it all.
I wonder if some dealerships might use this as an opportunity to encourage people to 'upgrade' i.e. push a new model at customers in affected vehicles and say they are offering a 'once-in-a-lifetime' special discount / trade-in value to say sorry for misleading them originally? e.g. offer £500 above market value and then cream the profits on the new car, so the customer who was stitched up originally is now shelling out thousands extra
![[TW]Fox](/data/man-of-honor/2009.png){kind=avatar}
I wonder if some dealerships might use this as an opportunity to encourage people to 'upgrade' i.e. push a new model at customers in affected vehicles and say they are offering a 'once-in-a-lifetime' special discount / trade-in value to say sorry for misleading them originally? e.g. offer £500 above market value and then cream the profits on the new car, so the customer who was stitched up originally is now shelling out thousands extra
Exactly who in the UK has it been proven was misled?
The ONLY example of a test pass that was obtained purely by cheating is in the USA.
Associate
Media hype at its best! 
These are all Euro 5 cars - the Euro 5 NOX limit is significantly higher than the US EPA requirement. These cars would have passed Euro 5 without a 'defeat device' (Most cars have required AdBlue or similar to pass the US test, whereas no cars required it to pass Euro 5).
Soldato
[TW]Fox;28663376 said:
I'm emotionally traumatised by the whole scandal but if VW want to fix my car and return it with a large wedge of used twenty pound notes in the glovebox, I'll feel much better and be able carry on with my life
Soldato
Lots of people stating 'facts' in this thread, despite VW still being very unclear about exactly what has happened.
[TW]Fox;28663376 said:
As far as I am aware, nobody as yet. Doesn't really change my thought on the matter though, other than perhaps they would use different terminology (replace "misleading them" with "breaking their trust" for example, or delete that whole part after the word sorry if you like).
Caporegime
sensationalist journalism at its best. Its supposed to read like those manufacturers have been cheating too, when in fact its a completely seprate issue of cars not performing on the roads in the real world, the same as they do under test conditions. VW specifically made their car behave differently when it was tested, the difference is those manufacturers achieved the test results without cheating.
There are various reasons why you can't recreate test results in the real world, one of which is the "optimisation" that all manufacturers do for the test cycles and its why you never really match the claimed average MPG. Everybody has know this for a while, its not news, and its entirely why the EU is changing the way test in few years time.
just because the VW press department hasn't issued a public press release stating them, doesn't mean facts aren't available if you get them from reliable sources. After all every "fact" is only as reliable as the person who gives it.
Trust in what ? Nobody bought these cars because they wanted low n0x emissions. It was all because they wanted cheap road tax and a car with high fuel efficiency. none of which will change, VW are quoting a loss of a few mph on top speed. So what if your VW Golf diesel can now only do 116mph instead of118.
The ones who are being misled are the americans where VW ran a massive ad campaign boasting about how clean VWs were to persuade americans off petrol and onto diesel. They promised they were cleaner than petrol cars and made out they were some technical marvel and met the emissions regs of all the US states. None of which was true.
But nothing like that was ever done in europe. Europeans bought enough diesel cars just for the low tax incentives.
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Soldato
Personally, I'd leave it alone. It wasn't doing harm before and it won't do harm (other than killing unicorns) in the future.
I liked the guy on the BBC saying people "need" to get their cars "repaired" and of course you'd want the vehicle repaired. Why?
It's such a complete load of twaddle - just as much as VW saying it's all down to some sinister sneaky low down software engineers.
It's a very misleading article, it seeks to blame the car manufacturers for a classic example of regulatory failure (excluding VW, which is an example of a corporate failure).
The fact that the general performance is not reflected by the regulatory testing is not in any way the fault of the car makers.
Caporegime
I suspect the US buyers won't either.
But the US is a very anti diesel market and regards them as dirty and only useful in commercial situations.
VW ran a very specific marketing campaign selling them as being uber clean and highly efficient. They marketed them as being european and sophisticated against the antiquated and basic petrol engines found in the US cars with big lazy engines.
I think the Americans have a case for being mis-sold them, especially since the cars they were buying didn't meet the regulations and needed the cheat devices to meet the regs. The EU cars meet the regulations even without the cheat devices.
I acknowledge your point, but there has to be a portion of blame here in that they have optimized the cars to perform as well in the tests as possible, full in the knowledge that those figures won't be seen in the real world. They could easily come up with a more representative test and quote those figures instead.
But this is a problem with the entire industry, and why would they want to quote the lower figues?? Its also a problem (if the public are honest) that everybody understands. Most people know you don't get the quoted MPG and joke about it. Its also completely unrelated to the VW cheat devices.
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Trust in the company, I assume. It really doesn't matter, I just proffered VW's own terminology because the phrase 'misleading' seemed to be contentious. The point I was making was more around using the 'scandal', 'furore' or whatever one is allowed to call it here as a potential opportunity i.e. while in contact with customers, appear contrite and see if there is the possibility to drive further sales under that guise. Whether customers have actually been 'misled' or not, the reason they bought their car, whether they have any understanding of emissions etc is almost irrelevant in this context, it's more about whether there is an exploitable opportunity or not [what do some dealerships do with customers they are in contact with for any reason - try to sell them something, of course!]
Soldato
My vw caddy work van is on the list. Not sure how the recall will effect me, I can't be without my van for long.
Soldato
- Joined
- 31 May 2009
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The dodgy software doesn't affect the engines, but the real world performance will be higher than stated emissions it would appear.
They need real world figures like NCCAP safety ratings, independent, and all using a various range of tests.
They need real world figures like NCCAP safety ratings, independent, and all using a various range of tests.