VW emissions recall, anyone had it?

FlyingFish · 17 Jun 2016 at 19:21

I've recently become an owner of a 3 yr old tiguan, 2.0 Tdi.
Love the car and it drives great.
Now the dealers have been in touch to say the emissions recall from vw has come through and want to book it in.

Has anyone had this done to their vw/Audi etc and noticed any difference to how it drives? Negative/positive?

I can't get to the dealers any time soon, and part of me wants to wait to make sure it's not a change for the worse.

FWIW I'm not fussed that much about the so called 'scandal' malarkey.

Cheers.

paradigm · 17 Jun 2016 at 19:25

Mine's in on Tuesday for a service and the recall.

I'm not really fussed if it affects power delivery as it'll be going in a few months anyway, but I'll at least get to see back to back if it makes a difference.

SDK^ · 17 Jun 2016 at 19:30

No dirty diesel here

HangTime · 17 Jun 2016 at 19:36

My wife's car is affected and had nothing concrete through yet just vague letter saying it will be called in some time this year. As it is a 1.6 it needs more than just a software change but some hardware change as well which concerns me a bit in terms of performance/economy so I'll wait until some real world results are published before we book it in, if at all.

FlyingFish · 17 Jun 2016 at 20:09

Yeah I wouldn't mind waiting until a few opinions are in before committing to have it done. I'm just wondering now if declining this fix will affect the warranty with vw?

Semple · 18 Jun 2016 at 07:45

Is there a list of VW / Audi models that are affected?

*Moangroan* · 18 Jun 2016 at 12:29

If you are keeping this car for more than a year you are going to have to get it done regardless or it will simply not pass an MOT emmision test i would think.

So 3yrs means an MOT just due or due in the next year.

TheVoice · 18 Jun 2016 at 12:55

*Moangroan* said:
If you are keeping this car for more than a year you are going to have to get it done regardless or it will simply not pass an MOT emmision test i would think.

So 3yrs means an MOT just due or due in the next year.

Why wouldn't it pass? The entire point of the 'cheat' was to make it pass tests.

That said, I doubt the MOT test would be thorough enough to fail a car that hadn't been recalled anyway.

Frozennova · 18 Jun 2016 at 13:22

TheVoice said:
Why wouldn't it pass? The entire point of the 'cheat' was to make it pass tests.

That said, I doubt the MOT test would be thorough enough to fail a car that hadn't been recalled anyway.

The cheat had nothing to do with MOT, it was to reduce the emissions on the drive cycle texts to reduce tax and inflate economy figures

wildman_33 · 18 Jun 2016 at 14:21

I'm still waiting on another letter, mine went in for a service last month and when I asked they said I should expect a letter any day now but they knew very little apart from that.

HangTime · 18 Jun 2016 at 23:08

*Moangroan* said:
If you are keeping this car for more than a year you are going to have to get it done regardless or it will simply not pass an MOT emmision test i would think.

So 3yrs means an MOT just due or due in the next year.

There was talk last year of the possibility of changing MOT regulations to fail un-recalled vehicles, but I haven't seen anything to suggest that this has happened. Wife's car passed MOT this year without issue. I think they'd need to give plenty of notice in any case.

Rainmaker · 19 Jun 2016 at 00:48

FlyingFish said:
Yeah I wouldn't mind waiting until a few opinions are in before committing to have it done. I'm just wondering now if declining this fix will affect the warranty with vw?

First to say I'm not fully versed so I'm speculating as you are. However I really can't see how they could void the warranty if you refuse to accept an emissions modification that (potentially) adversely impacts the car's drive or performance in the real world.

"No thanks I'd rather decline your offer of modifying the car."
"OK sir, we shall void your warranty in that case."
"Great, so now you're retrospectively backing out of warrantying a car in the condition you sold it to me, because I'm refusing your 'fix' for your own illegal cheat device? Fine, I'll take a refund minus costs for usage, then?"...

Maybe not, but you see the point. Plus EU regulation 1999/44/EC, which by now has been incorporated into member state laws, states that OEMs can't refuse to honour a warranty based on other owner choices. It's often cited by savvy smartphone users. For example, OEMs often say rooting a phone voids the warranty, but this legislation says that unless the OEM can prove with an independent report that the root is what directly caused the fault (eg a custom kernel overheating the CPU), then the statutory two year warranty cannot be voided as the root is effectively irrelevant.

I should imagine the same clause would hold water for a car. If you choose not to accept their 'fix', they can't then decline warranty work based around a chain fault, bodywork, whatever. I'd be highly surprised (and somewhat amused) if they could later blame even a fuel, emissions or exhaust fault on their own illegal cheat device, so your failure to allow them to remove it surely couldn't count against you? IANAL and all that but it was my first thought. I'm sure Google (or more learned members here) will know the real answer.

p1RATE · 19 Jun 2016 at 06:36

HangTime said:
There was talk last year of the possibility of changing MOT regulations to fail un-recalled vehicles, but I haven't seen anything to suggest that this has happened. Wife's car passed MOT this year without issue. I think they'd need to give plenty of notice in any case.

I'm not sure how they would even go about that so I can't see that happening. Perhaps going in with a certificate to say its been done or physically checking the software. Emissions can be quite varied so I doubt it would be measured that way. Afaik it is just prgroammed to produce less nox whilst stationary so perhaps one with low levels they can investigate further.

Nasher · 19 Jun 2016 at 09:05

TheVoice said:
Why wouldn't it pass? The entire point of the 'cheat' was to make it pass tests.

That said, I doubt the MOT test would be thorough enough to fail a car that hadn't been recalled anyway.

They will almost certainly fail if they haven't been sorted I think. The emissions are many times the allowed limit without the cheat.

Kuros · 19 Jun 2016 at 09:07

I expect the next to time you take it in to them for a service, they'll perform the change anyway.

Kenai · 19 Jun 2016 at 09:07

Nasher said:
Because they will now be WAY above the allowed emissions limit unless you have had it sorted.

Ummm.. No, they won't.

They didn't magically start producing more emissions when some articles appeared in a newspaper.

If anything they'll produce more emissions AFTER the fix.

Nasher · 19 Jun 2016 at 09:12

Kenai said:
Ummm.. No, they won't.

They didn't magically start producing more emissions when some articles appeared in a newspaper.

If anything they'll produce more emissions AFTER the fix.

No because they will cut down the engine power so that it falls within it's limit, that is the "fix". Then they will eventually start failing any cars which have not been done.

Theres a reason VW and Audi are giving massive discounts on diesel cars at the moment

Kenai · 19 Jun 2016 at 09:19

Nasher said:
No because they will cut down the engine power so that it kicks out less. That is the "fix". Then they will eventually start failing any cars which have not been done.

No. These cars go back to 2009 models, they'd already have been failing MOT for emissions if they were WAY above the limit without the fix as you suggest.

Orionaut · 19 Jun 2016 at 09:33

The emissions as far as the MOT are concerned will be determined by the effectiveness of the exhaust after treatment system (DPF/Catalysts) for removing soot.

The "Emissions" that are of concern here are nothing to do with this. The Exhaust emissions for the MOT, which at the moment only test particulate smoke for diesel engines (as long as the exhaust after treatment system is working correctly) will be just fine on unmodified cars.

The emissions that were cheated on were the emissions produced during an extended driving cycle under load. For now, this more complex emission test (Which included NOX and CO2 measurements) is not used for MOT purposes.

Nor is it ever likley to be, it would massively increase the cost of MOT testing and would likley be so sensitive that back in the real world, owners would need a new engine and exhaust system every year in order to meet the original factory gate figures.

FlyingFish · 19 Jun 2016 at 10:07

That's what I thought. That it was just a software trick that the ecu applied when it thought it was under certain test conditions. And it wasn't until a proper test house spotted the difference that they realised what the car was doing. And from what I understand nothing to with an mot but more to do with its CO emissions and tax bracket.