Have you ever wondered the fate of those thousands of diesel Volkswagens that the company bought back from their American owners in the wake of the diesel emissions cheating scandal?
There were a spectacular 350,000 of them that have been stored in 37 compounds across the country. Crushing them all would be a horrendous waste, not to mention a further abuse of the environment. So, what’s happening to them?
According to a Volkswagen spokesman at the Los Angeles motor show, they’re being retrofitted with corrective hardware and then, depending on their age and condition, sold to Volkswagen dealers for retail or sent to auction.
The cars are being sent in waves in order not to flood the market and lower their value. According to our man, the residual values have been better than you might expect, because, he says, there are quite a lot of people who still want a diesel TDI engine, despite the unfortunate history.
Not every car gets saved. A 100,000-mile 2013 Passat, for example, will ride again, but older cars with higher mileages will be scrapped, because rectification doesn’t make economic sense.
There's no indication of how long the process will take, nor what proportion of cars will be scrapped, but it's good to hear that a significant number of them aren't going to be trashed.
Join the debate
brian245
Amusing
I find this storey highly amusing; there are buyers for these cars, yet GM and Ford are closing down car production in the USA because they cannot sell them.
What does this tell us.................
jason_recliner
Pods
VAG cars are rubbish but they are water tight. Why not scatter the cars around inner city areas as homeless shelters?
centenary
"I find this storey highly
"I find this storey highly amusing; there are buyers for these cars, yet GM and Ford are closing down car production in the USA because they cannot sell them.
What does this tell us................."
Erm, that more people can afford a second hand car than a brand new one? Or maybe some people do not want to suffer the depreciation on a brand new car?
Ralf S.
It tells us...
VW is a nice environmentally sensitive company that isn't just wasting the cars that were sold wven though they deliberately polluted the environment until VW got caught, by just crushing them. Yay! :)
Ralf S.
LP in Brighton
Everything has its price
It tells us that everything has its price and the rules of supply and demand will always apply. So given that these VW diesels are in still in relatively short supply (controlled by Volkswagen), no longer sold new and much more economical to run than any similar petrol car, then I can see there will be demand. Besides America has a large population, so it only needs a very small percentage of drivers to want one...
Antony Riley
VW buy back
So how many did V W buy back in the UK thought not ! NONE is the Answer what a company they are
si73
Why do they need reworking, I
Why do they need reworking, I thought the scandal was misrepresenting the emissions of these diesels. There was nothing wrong with them other than the emissions were higher than vw said. Resell them with corrected figures and none should need scrapping, they may cost the owner slightly more to run if they have an emissions based road tax over there, but that aside they should make good cheap used cars.
si73
I will add that I know vw
I will add that I know vw used cheat software that got around the emission tests but if retested on wltp or similar a new figure could be used for these cars without resorting to the fix that ruined european cars.
Ralf S.
They're re-working them
They're re-working them because they exceeded the legal limit and by some margin.
Ralf S.
Bar room lawyer
P'*d off Former 2011 UK Tiguan owner
In 2016 I followed what seemed to be a mandatory recall for emissions update on a 2011 Tiguan 2.0 TDI 4x4 auto, which had run perfectly for 70,000 miles. After the update, it became virtually undrivable, DPF regenerated itself 4 times in 6 miles, MPG dropped from 35 to 22 and at one point 4.7MPG. It was traded in for a Mazda 3 at the earliest opportunity.
Brother in law's 2012 Audi A4 Estate 2.0 TDI, the emissions update VW says it needs has been ignored, the car runs fine and so long as he has it, won't be going to a VW dealer for service as they would do the "upgrade" by default.
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