VW Diesels
 

This looks nasty...and they got caught...

"The Environmental Protection Agency on Friday accused Volkswagen of installing software on 482,000 diesel cars in the U.S. to evade federal emission regulations, potentially exposing people to harmful pollutants.The German automaker adopted what the EPA called a "defeat device" to trick U.S. regulators into believing that its cars met Clean Air Act standards, the federal agency said in a statement.
The agency said the diesel cars that violated federal standard were the 2009-14 Volkswagen Jetta, Beetle and Golf, the 2014-15 Volkswagen Passat, and the 2009-15 Audi A3.
Those cars emitted nitrogen oxides, which can exacerbate respiratory conditions such as asthma, at up to 40 times the standard level, the EPA said.
Volkswagen admitted to investigators that it had installed the defeat device, the EPA said." ...(more)

EPA accuses Volkswagen, Audi of evading emission laws

Awww shucks. Guess I'm gonna have to buy a 535d instead.

Big deal.

Does anyone really give a hoot about what the EPA is Griping about today? They need to focus more on the problems they cause then something as ridiculous as this.

I care a lot. I remember the days here in southern CA when the smog was so thick it burned your eyes and lungs.
Chuck

:thumbup:

I'm no enviro-nut, but I do care about what I breathe, and "truth in advertising". I do hope VW gets slapped down for this.

Yes, but they also need to make sure the epa numbers being reported are actually near to real world.

No dawg in the fight, but other than creative/sneaky programming on VW's part, having the full tilt boogie emissions system kick in only when being 'read' at inspection, is either bad luck, stupid decision, corporate crap, or quirk of fate...

I suspect 2 & 3.

No EPA fan here: the general process of the EPA being anointed a long, long time ago to 'enforce' and now, dream up new regs and new methodologies for many situs, and their lately using IRS like arbitrary decisions, gives one pause. Add in that the current regs were composed/supported by our elected idiots, and some gangs of lobbyists of one ilk or another.

If VW really did what CARB and the EPA suggest, then shame on them. It is normal corporate dodge ball, but that kind of crap along with Hyundai, et al fudging on the Hwy mpg is slime wad action supported either tacitly or covertly by the high suits.

I suspect some real stinging fines, though the pre fine negotiations are in full arm wrestle mode at the moment.
GL, mD

Makes me want to buy a VAG diesel.

:iagree:

Emissions Cheating Found by Curious Clean-Air Group
Ah oh ...:wow:

but then
Whew!
:bmw:

VWs market value dropped about 15 BILLION dollars in one trading session!

By the time all this is over (fines/making vehicles meet EPA standards) it's expected to cost VW almost 20 billion!

Then they have the "bad image" reduced sales to deal with.

Much more than 20 bil, me thinks. It is 15 billion loss in value and up to 18 billion fines. Next question is what are they going to do with the affected cars. If they have to retrofit urea injection this could cost a lot, and probably will never work right. And the class law suits have already started. As someone said already on another forum this may be too much for VW to swallow.
I really cannot understand why someone in his right mind will want to save $1-2 k on a car when the potential fine is 20 times that. ANd doing that for 6 years too :dunno:

Corporate greed at the highest! After seeing how GM watched people dying on the roads yet continue to settle cases on the down low this does not surprise me. Considering GM actually killed and maimed hundreds, I can swallow VW pill.

I hope someone goes to jail

It sounds like the software installed on the vehicles turned off already installed emissions devices. The fix would be to install updated software that doesn't do so. The vehicles could seemingly meet the test standards, but were tuned to not adhere to those settings when they detected operation that was other than the test cycle.

^^^The computer cuts the power and change the engine mode so it conforms to the emission standarts. These cars have no DEF, or Urea injection installed and this is what takes care of the nitrous oxides.

If that's the case, any software fix WITHOUT the addition of urea injection will result in serious power reduction.

This.

Yea, they have been sending people recalls trying to get this software bs thing wiped out, but lot of people have tunes already. VW is telling them it will wipe the entire computer.

Funny how last week 7 valuation houses were giving VW a must buy rating. Now they are nearly -30% this week. Still recommending a buy at under $100.

VW was posed to be the biggest global automaker. Curious how much rape they are about to receive globally.

They are down 20% in franfurt too.. Joint investigations are pegging the number of affected vehicles at 11 million.

Simply hilarious! Enjoy:

https://youtu.be/dKef1JFpiCA

^^ :rofl:

P.S. Why was this topic moved? I think it was legitimate to stay in the E70 forum.

:rofl: :thumbup:

Not necessarily, but possibly.

The trade off when designing the map is between NOx and fuel efficiency. Using SCR provides more headroom, but without it, you are trading mpg for grams of NOx.

So they had two maps, and a detection algorithm that recognized the EPA test cycle (throttle movements, speed, etc) and used either map 1 (EPA) OR map 2 (mpg).

What will be interesting is if the reduction in mpg with the legal map takes the vehicle down to the advertised fuel efficiency, or below. If the former, then customers have been getting a free ride of sorts, polluting more but saving on fuel. If the latter, then I see buybacks.

Volkswagen is making the E70? :rofl:

There are many factors in the trade off calculation with NOx.

First would be fuel efficiency.

Power would be there also, and potentially engine service intervals, engine life, etc.

To me, the big question is, what about the rest of the (non VW) automakers?

We know that engine maps have been tuned for the EPA fuel efficiency test, everything from shifting parameters to cold start modes vs warm start modes. That is legal, if done within limits.

Is it possible that no other manufacturer has played with similar algorithms as VW has done? Certainly the large truck engine manufacturers did it, but what about the current fleet?

For those interested in the technical description of what the EPA says VW did, here is the EPA Notice of Violation.

http://www3.epa.gov/otaq/cert/docume...a-09-18-15.pdf

Sure thing. If you cut the power in half, the NOx will be reduced in [almost] half. I meant that Urea injection will allow for reduced NOx without sacrificing the power and efficiency too much. Reports mention that X5 diesel passed the [real world] tests with flying colors. I dont know which model it was, but E70 is down only 20 or so hp (5-6%)of the ROW model. Thanks to the Urea injection.

Although not given the name, it does look like a BMW E70 to me from the back. Picture on page 38 of the entire study performed by Univeristy of West Virginia on behalf of ICCT :

http://www.theicct.org/sites/default...al_may2014.pdf

Altough I'm not questioning the findings of the investigation, it makes me wonder how and why were these cars chosen for the study and not others/or more, as there are other diesels on the US market

Thanks for posting. On page 41 it is clearly visible that test veh C is E70. You can be sure now all diesels would be tested very soon ;)
It is interesting that even VW with Urea injection showed increased NOX emissions. These probably could be fixed with computer reflash.

VWs market value down 26 billion $s as of this afternoon.

I might have to add some to my portfolio if it drops much more.

And CEO is out! http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN0RL0II20150923

Wife bought a leftover '14 TDI Sportwagen in June. We just rolled over 5k miles since we took a trip to Georgia last week.

AVERAGING in mixed driving is 39 mpg and we haven't even gotten the first oil change done and break-in oil is still in there. My buddy is pushing 30k miles with the same car and now averaging 45-47 mpg.

The car is great, drives like a champ and is fun and torquey, and the mileage is awesome, we are totally happy with it but I'm sure the class action lawsuit is underway from owners who are personally injured since they purchased a TDI.

Be interesting to see what the mileage is after the fix is installed.

VW hired the BP oil spill lawyers. Stock went up. . lol. But true.

So maybe once we get rid of all this DEF and SCR crap, our mileage will go up as well, not that high but im sure it will go up to 30 :)
Now, where to find $2k for this "mod"

I'm sure it will hamper performance, and mileage. According to the EPA, the recall will not be mandatory (perhaps if the vehicle is sold one would need the recall to be performed prior to registering to a new owner), and you would still pass your state emissions tests for the most part anyway so its a non-issue for me.

Once the warranty is up I plan on chipping the car anyway so personally its not really an issue I'm concerned about. However, if VW sold a car claiming 40+ mpg, and a software update was mandated to correct their false advertisement reduces mileage by 10-15% or more as well as engine performance, you bet I'd be looking for a reimbursement of sorts by VW, because we would have bought a non-diesel model if that was the case and obviously we paid a bit of a premium for the diesel based on VW's pricing and diesel pricing in general.

Funny thing is, I wanted my wife to get a CC 2.0T, she fell in love with the diesel wagon though.

Can't imagine it will not be mandatory. The cars are not emissions compliant. They should not be allowed to be operated in that state.

I don't know if the EPA has that kind of authority

You mean, they'd leave half million non-compliant emission cars just putt-putting around ;) I dont think so.

You're correct they don't, and actually in many states, the cars ARE emissions compliant as ithey sit because there is no emissions testing in many states, or the standards are not as high as CARB.

I don't think you can claim that they are emissions compliant because of a lack of state testing. They had to be federally compliant to be sold, and they weren't.

For those preferring to opt out of the VW fix and join the 'rolling coal' club, I would expect that relicensing will be a problem, as well as any warranty claims for those still under warranty.

Heads of development at Audi and Porsche resign.

Meanwhile, back at BMW, an X3 20d exceeds Euro 6 emissions limits by 11 times in an independent road test. BMW denies using defeat devices, as their shares drop 10%.

BMW Drops on Report That X3 Diesel's Emission Exceeded EU Limit - Bloomberg Business

This could be a hit that passenger car diesels don't recover from.

The Real Winner in the VW Diesel Scandal? Hybrid Cars | WIRED

Nice time to buy Toureg TDI or Q7 TDI...just saying!

Those who opt to not have theirs fixed are far from rolling coal.

From a dealer motivation standpoint, absolutely.

From a security of warranty and resale value perspective, time will tell.

:rofl: Shopping for a X5 Diesel on Monday. Just checking….:dunno:

Looking at the notice of violation(posted by JCL above) EPA has a a more important authority in approving vehicle sales in the US. They successfully strong armed VW which was forced to admit cheating.

Right. Pulling their certification for importing new cars is not the same as prohibiting registration of used and already in use vehicles. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out. While I do believe this will probably all blow over soon, I am glad I don't currently own a TDI due to the up coming potential hassle.

I wouldn't say it is for importing, it is for permitting to sell, as the regs apply equally to domestics and imports.

I think of it as being more analogous to possessing property that is illegal. The current owner didn't commit a crime, but the goods are tainted by their provenance.

Interesting read and opin, from Jenkins in Sat's WSJ...



By
Holman W. Jenkins, Jr.

Sept. 25, 2015 6:06 p.m. ET

Martin Winterkorn lost his job over the Volkswagen emissions cheating scandal, but his head should be the least to roll. Lord forgive us for saying something that could be misconstrued as supportive of Donald Trump: If the Trump phenomenon is a revolt against “stupid” elites, there is much to revolt about.

A consensus has formed, in a remarkably short time since the VW scandal, that Europe’s rush to embrace diesel cars was a colossal policy error. For a meaningless cut in greenhouse emissions, Europe got higher emissions of nitrogen oxides and diesel particulates. While claims of thousands of additional deaths from this diesel pollution are questionable, Europe now realizes it converted half its cars to diesel for no good reason. And this is just the beginning.

If carbon dioxide is a problem, cars were never the solution. Cars and light trucks account for less than 8% of global emissions; U.S. cars and light trucks account for less than 3%. U.S. car makers are being required by government to spend hundreds of billions on fuel-mileage improvements in the name of global warming that will have virtually zero effect on global warming.

The real carbon problem, if it’s a problem, is upstream in power plants and heavy industry. If those problems are solved, cars might as well go on burning gasoline. If those problems aren’t solved, cars contribute little. What if we insist on carbon-free cars anyway? Even then, the internal-combustion engine is far from obsolete. Hydrogen, manufactured using non-carbon energy, could fuel the cars we have on the road now. So could biofuels. Electric cars, which we subsidize out the wazoo, not only are insufficient to solve any carbon problem. They are unnecessary.

Much remains to be learned about the VW scandal, but the Economist magazine, blindly marching along, already thinks the answer is more rigorous testing to make sure cars achieve their meaningless emissions goals. And adds: “If VW’s behavior hastens diesel’s death, it may lead at last, after so many false starts, to the beginning of the electric-car age.”

The electric-car age? Why?

Expect, even now, a decorous investigation of the VW scandal. Don’t expect a full exposure of the panic when the company realized it could not hit the U.S. emissions targets for nitrogen oxide, plus the Obama fuel mileage requirements, plus customer expectations for price and performance in an affordable sedan.

A private study, carried out by West Virginia University and the International Council for Clean Transportation, set off the scandal in the first place. The study focused on three diesel vehicles: two modest VW sedans and a much larger, more expensive BMW SUV.

The BMW was a full 1,600 pounds heavier—thus naturally suited to diesel, with its low-revving torque—and carried twice the sticker price, helping to accommodate elaborate clean-diesel technology. The BMW’s mileage was good, not spectacular, and the vehicle met EPA’s nitrogen-oxide limits.

It’s easy to imagine BMW whispering in somebody’s ear that VW’s claim to have generated low NOX emissions, high mpg, excellent drivability, at a small sedan’s price point, just didn’t add up. And it didn’t.

Yet the iceberg here is much deeper. As we’ve pointed out many times, the Obama fuel-mileage rules are designed to bite after he leaves office. In the meantime, they were mostly designed to prop up Detroit’s SUV and pickup business. Volkswagen itself is partly owned by the German state of Lower Saxony. The company is largely controlled by IG Metall, a German union deeply entwined with German politicians. Don’t believe any guff that the company and politician class did not share a goal of evading any mandates that endangered VW’s growth and employment.

Call it a go-along mind-set in our elites: Politicians who accept huge costs on behalf of the public in order to pose as saviors of the climate, for policies that will have no impact on climate change; business people who play along out of self-interest or fear; a science community whose members endorse the RICO Act to prosecute people who question the claims of climate science.

As a historical note, the mental antecedent here is the energy crisis of the 1970s, which became conflated with the environmental crisis of the 1970s, bequeathing an intuition that requiring higher-mileage vehicles would solve some actual problem (it wouldn’t).

Alas, a genuine coming-clean would be very different from what we’re about to get out of the VW mess. Let car makers build the cars the public wants; these cars would likely be roughly as safe and clean—or more so—than those churned out under regulatory mandate. Naturally, readers will doubt this last bit: They are wrong, because, in their innocence, they believe reason plays a bigger role in our regulatory designs than it actually does.

Politicians Hope Scandal Stops at VW - WSJ

Some interesting developments in the past few days:

1) Bosch develops VW's engine control and emissions software. Bosch writes a program that changes the test mode. Bosch writes a letter to VW advising that the program is for test purposes only, and can not be used on vehicles for sale. The letter is dated 2007. A copy of it was just published in a German paper.

2) The European Central Bank finances VW's new car sales, finance, and leasing program. They advise that they won't be lending any more money to VW, evoking a comparison with Greece. New car sales will be a challenge.

3) Germany's motor vehicle department demands that VW submit a plan by October 7 to rectify the emissions of 2.8 million VW diesels sold in Germany. If they don't, the government advises that they will pull the type approval, making it illegal to operate those vehicles on public roads. Consumer lawsuits grow in number.

4) More engineers and managers leave VW, but that is not so much news as it is a steady stream now.

From the above, it doesn't look like the EPA is VW's biggest problem.

Jeff

Interesting. EPA and US prosecutors could be some VW people biggest concerns. Especially now after the giant appeared to have very tiny legs and probably will not offer protection to employees/ex-employees.

When you google VW diesel a couple of the top listings (advertised) are class action lawsuit signups.

The thirst is real.

I suspect that the propensity to pursue litigation is different by country. When I Google I don't get any class action lawsuit links (here in Canada).

However, one of the top search hits is this photo, from Portland. It is a flyer found on the windshield of a TDI.

It gets uglier by the day, as the back stories and thinly buried info seeps out.

I suspect VW is going to have to set aside/take future charges on a lot more than the that $7 B, in the next few weeks.

Wonder if PCar can survive: great cars, high ratings & loyal fan base, but they need a large deep pocket Mother to keep going. Maybe a buyout target.

That Portland flyer is typical, imo. Reminds me of our closest 'city' of Asheville...

How would you like to be that new CEO of VW? PCar guy, hoping to land at the new PCar company after the homecoming floats have burned and the dust and ashes settle.

Good dig out, JCL...
GL, mD

I can't stand Portland. It is the hipster capital of the west.

I'll be surprised if VW actually takes a beating on this. I am guessing it is going to be a slap on the wrist, or it'll come out that other companies are doing something similar. Nothing happened to GM, who actually killed people, and everyone seems to have forgotten about the killer airbags before that even came to a resolution.

As far as the new CEO goes, some have been speculating that this whole thing was a ploy to get him into the chair and do the spring cleaning/restructuring that VW needs.

Then you have others conspiring that this whole thing is just to get diesels off the road entirely

It may or may not be a slap on the wrist in the US, but it is a global problem for VW. If they get into deep enough trouble in Europe (see posts above) then it won't matter about the US, they won't have any cars to sell there.

I actually think it is a bigger problem for diesels than VW. As regulators rationalize the different fuel tax rates, and tighten up the NOx standards in Europe, life will get tough for those trying to shift consumers to diesels.

But you're in Seattle. You won the title!

What if someone made that flyer and put it on his windshield to show in the court how much humiliation is to drive a TDI, before he asks for his compensation :yikes:

The EU is a collection of push overs. I doubt they have the balls to cripple VAG. But we are also still trying to figure out what exactly happened. If it does come out as blatant cheating, it'll be bad, but not crippling bad.

No no, Seattle is the capital of Subaru driving Granolas sporting gay pride bumper stickers. Portland is just Hipsters and Hobos.

It is the German government that set the ultimatum, not the EU

VW has admitted what happened. There is third party corroboration from the supplier that developed the software and told VW not to use it on road vehicles. Do you think there is doubt about what happened, and whether it was or wasn't intentional cheating?

It has yet to be seen how it actually got into production vehicles as well as evidence for intent to deceive. It could have been that the upper management deiced to cheat, or the test software got implemented and overlooked/forgotten about, or a disgruntled employee(s) purposefully implemented it. We don't know exactly what happened as far as that goes yet. What we do know is that there has been a significant amount of drama in the higher ups for years.

All I am saying is that all the cards are not yet on the table.

That statement alone speaks volumes. Lots of electric car lobbyists all over the world nowadays.

VW should just cut a check for the difference of sticker between a TDI and a gas model of the same car for owners (I.E. if a Gas engine and samely equipped Golf is $22,500, but a TDI is an upcharge of $2,000, cut a check for $2,000) etc, for those who wish to keep driving their diesel after the fix is implemented.

Then for those who wish to keep them, the warranty on the the engine and emissions equipment (DPF's are spendy to replace) for 150k miles regardless of age.

For those who are so horribly wronged, offer them retail price on trade in towards a new purchase, or buy back.

Yes its going to cost a ton of money for VW but instead of letting the lawyers get billions, and the actual purchasers geting $48.06, it might be helpful for them to be proactive here.

As a TDI owner (Q5 Diesel) who isn't impacted (like the X5 I've got the more sophisticated AdBlue system) I'm still pissed at VW for not being innovative enough to create a solution that passes U.S. standards. On the flip side I'm also pissed at the EPA for their anti-Diesel regulations that make it basically nearly impossible to meet emissions on a low cost Diesel. I mean is a 50 MPG car spreading 10% (on average) more NOX than allowed REALLY worse for the environment than a 20 MPG car meeting NOX? I'm thinking no when you factor in the cost of fueling (and obtaining the fuel) for that 30 MPG difference. It's also interesting to me that the EPA pollutes a massive river by being negligent and you don't see nearly the same level of anger as you do here on their part. Just my 2 cents....

Unfortunately the real "losers" here are the TDI owners who paid a premium for a "clean diesel" and now find themselves with a vehicle attracting the social stigma of the Ford Pinto. They are the ones that VW needs to make it right with.

Great post, and I actually am surprised you are from SoCal and posting this. The river is something I have been saying for weeks, but that was an
"oops" moment.

But yes, agreed on many fronts with you, and as a 2.0 TDI owner, yes we are the real losers. We keep our cars for years and planned on keeping the '14 Sportwagen for at least 5-7 years when we purchased it in June, but I'm sure resale value is going to suffer.

I do plan on having the car tuned and keeping my emissions system intact after the "fix", which I'm sure is a software reflash from VW which will keep the car "neutered" a bit and in the dyno mode 100% of the time. The aftermarket tuners can bring the performance/mileage back, and will most likely be more fun to drive than it is now, after done.

Other TDI owners like you also suffer now, because its hard to change the stigma as most people are uneducated armchair consumers and voters who hear you say you have an Audi diesel and they accuse you of it being dirty, etc.

It isn't just other TDI owners. It will also be other diesel owners, more so the passenger vehicles than the pick up trucks.

You should start with the correct incremental emissions. The EPA said up to 40 times for NOx, not 10% more. I am sure it varies in the real world, so let's use 20 times just for a quick calculation.

Is a car getting 2.5 mpg really worse for the environment than a 50 mpg car? Most would agree it is, IMO. The thing is, people don't think about emissions, but are focussed on fuel efficiency. That is what led to VW implementing the cheat. If you think about 20 times factors though, and apply that to something that we all care about, fuel efficiency, it puts another light on it.

40x sounds like a big number, but what is the extent of that number? How does it factor into real world situations? Also, what is the trade off? Don't diesels emit less Co2 than gas cars, but higher NOx? Does the significantly better fuel efficiency (and everything that entails, from processing, to transport, to consumption) offset the higher NOx? Is 40x higher still cleaner than 10, 15, 20 years ago?

What is the BIG picture here? Everyone is just saying "omg NOx".

^^^I'm with you there Josh.

Real world testing showed 10-35 times the standard. That testing was extensive. Some tests showed up to 40 times, and that is what the EPA announced. I went with 20 times in my example above, for lack of a better estimate.

The product development trade off is NOx vs (hp/fuel efficiency/torque/drivability - pick one or all)

A significant trade off for the manufacturer is cost. The cheat was most likely implemented to avoid the cost of things like SCR, while offering a product that consumers would adopt in greater numbers

No, higher NOx is not offset by greater fuel efficiency. If we wanted to do that calculation, you would have to do a human population health impact analysis. We know the impact of smog on annual deaths by country. There have already been calculations published of how many deaths in North America the VW emissions resulted in indirectly. For the fuel consumption/CO2 "upside" you would have to estimate the lives saved by the delay in global warming effects.

Diesels emit less CO2, which is why Euro vehicles tended to diesel engines (Euro rules have focused on CO2, at least up until now, but that is changing). Also, CO2 is related to fuel consumption, so CO2 is used as a proxy in Euro emissions regulations.

CO2 is a greenhouse gas, so the primary impact is on global warming and resultant climate change. NOx is a primary contributor to smog, which has more immediate health impacts in cities.

Europe is getting more worried about smog, and is coming up with NOx regulations. That will put a dent in the popularity of diesels in Europe, particularly if governments there decide to start taxing diesel fuel more like they tax gasoline, which is a real possibility. It all comes down to cost of ownership. A diesel vehicle with more expensive emissions controls, without government vehicle subsidies at point of sale to promote diesel industries, and without reduced fuel taxes relative to gasoline, has a hard time competing with a gasoline engine or alternate fuel. That is why this all matters, diesel was a gamble that Euro manufacturers bet on, and which they now have to reconsider. Some may already have done so; look at how BMW is promoting the i3 and i8, relative to their diesels (at least in some markets).

Consider that most diesel vehicles have been sold with tax breaks (subsidies) that were passed on to purchasers. Governments have started claims against VW to get those tax breaks back for the past years of fraudulent sales.

I keep hearing about the EPA, but US vehicles represent only 4.5% of the problem for VW. A drop in the bucket. The future will be played out on a larger stage IMO.

Interesting read from a slightly different perspective, about Euro carmakers and the differences between published emissions results and those achieved in practice.

The study linked below shows what the spread is for various popular vehicles, including some BMWs, and includes a discussion on some of the optimization methods used. Things like pushing the brake pads back into the calipers and taping over the door seams before a test. Changing tires for low rolling resistance tires, and overinflating. The background is that in Europe that is no central EPA group that does the test, rather manufacturers hire their own testing agencies and report the numbers. Those numbers aren't just for consumers who want to know what their fuel cost will be, they are the basis of tax rates and green vehicle incentives, and so on. That means that governments are pursuing automakers regarding potentially inflated claims, as tax fraud.

Bosch, who supplied the cheat software to VW, were referenced by a source who claimed the same software was supplied to BMW. BMW denied using it on vehicles for sale, and there is no evidence of a similar cheat. But there is a wide gap between reported and real world numbers, 48% in the case of the 5 series.

More of the iceberg.



Full report:

http://www.transportenvironment.org/...2015_FINAL.pdf

This swiss paper (French) says just that. It would have cost 300 euros a pop to use SCR as proposed by then boss Wolfgang Bernhard and enginner Rudolf Krebs. Apparently the plan was shredded when Martin Winterkorn took control around 2007. Just look like a bad strategy Le scandale Volkswagen a éclaté pour une économie de 329Â*francs - LeTemps.ch

It looks like Audi and Porsche have "EPA mode" software too!

In the news this AM.

^^Yep, the 3.0L diesel, WITH Urea injection also has a "dyno mode" built into the ECU so it cuts emissions back when being tested. All the Touaregs, Q7's, anything else with a 3.0 TDI is also going to be recalled.

Good news is the word on the street is a "rebate" of some sorts may in the works for affected owners in order to stave off the class action suits from people. I've said it once and I'll say it again, if they want to make it right just give a refund back on the price difference between the comparable gas engine model as you paid a premium for the clean diesel engine - Would put some money back in owner's pockets, and hold them over until "the fix" is realized.

I doubt most owners would accept the gas vs diesel refund and a significant reduction in HP/TQ from the fix.

When Ford owned Mazda, they printed the HP figures of Japanese Miatas in the US market dealer lit, the US cars had around 10 fewer HP due to restrictive exhaust.

The owners drove the cars, found the US spec cars had acceptable HP and purchased.

When the BS HP figures were found out, Ford/Mazda offered around $2500 to each owner or return for full refund. Most chose the latter.

I don't see VW getting out of this without providing owners a return/full refund option.

I think the rebate would be to stave off class action lawsuits. Unless in perhaps the People's Republic of California, they can't force a recall.

Yes I understand you might be able to hold off re-registering a car, but in Jersey for example new cars are sold with a 5 year registration so it would be years before many get it done or were "forced to".

Thank god for aftermarket chip tuning companies

Thats a big blow adding the 3.0tdi. My friend has a 13 3.0tdi Q7 and absolutely hates it. Given the chance she'd sell it back in a heart beat and get back into a X5.