VW fiddling emissions data

Pincher

It's a marketing opportunity.

The cow boys who went round botching cavity wall insulation for the subsidy money can now advertise for de-noxifiers.

If they are really cheeky, they can just re-label de-humidifiers and sell that.

I would tap into the MVHR (Mechanical Ventilation and Heat Recovery) idea. They install a heat recovery extractor on the wall, and claim that the incoming air has been de-noxified. Drill a hole through the wall, run a power cable with a fused spur, charge £1,000.

For the real idiots, charge £20k for a whole house ventilation system.

Don't forget, smog masks, for when you leave the house.
Dolce & Gabbana, Prada, Jimmy Choo, Gucci gas masks.
Poundland gas masks: Never!

Garethgrew

Will 2nd hand prices come down now?

Now that people know how toxic and bad economy diesel cars are they may prefer to sell ?

jase1

WellKnownSid wrote: »

I wonder how many Volkswagen's have been hidden away in the garage or left unwashed this weekend. No more Sunday afternoon bragging rights.

I wonder how many people bought their cars based upon the marketing.

Only an absolute tool attaches any kind of "bragging rights" to a Volkswagen. They are absolutely no better than a Ford or a Vauxhall.

I will admit to having had a quiet chuckle up my sleeve when all this stuff came out. A Golf is just a bog-standard Eurobox, yet to hear some people talk about it it's some kind of Rolls Royce. And don't get me started on the morons who happily pay £3-4000 on a 10-year-old one :rotfl:

bowlhead99

WellKnownSid wrote: »

I wonder how many people bought their cars based upon the marketing.

Reminds me of something said by a family member over ten years ago. "Oh the test drive? Well, yes, the Citroen drove much better, and had more equipment, and was a lot cheaper. But we went for the Volkswagen in the end. Because it's a Volkswagen".

And three to five years later it would still have been a Volkswagen, and maintained more of its value than the Citroen, due to marketing, status and perhaps reliability (though probably not reliability really, but there's a perception there); meanwhile the value of the Citroen and its extra equipment etc drops like a stone because they are perceived as flimsy 2CVs rather than German tanks.

Plenty of people will have bought their cars based on that sort of marketing and had those decisions pay off, due to the strong residuals. Not a lot of people will have bought based on the absolute level of diesel pollutants emitted, and not a lot of people will own a car through its whole life-cycle and so brand strength / residuals are quite important.

A Which article from 5 years ago noted the Audi TT had the most solid three-year resale value of any car on sale – at 71% for a 2.0 TDi 170 Quattro. Projecting the £27,375 car would have lost £7880 after three years and 36,000 miles and be worth around £19,495.

Citroen's Xsara Picasso was at the bottom of the heap, holding on to jut 20% of its original value over three years. From the list price of £17,695 for the 1.6i 16V 110 Desire, you'll be left with just £3599 after three years – a plummet in value of £14,096.

Part of the reason the Picasso's projected resale value was so poor was down to the massive discounts available when buying; What Car? Target Price was only £11,945, which slashes the losses to a slightly less eye-watering £8346, and a 30% residual instead of a 20% one.

WellKnownSid

Pincher wrote: »

Poundland gas masks: Never!

A handkerchief that you wee on, stuff into a plastic face mask and breathe through.
I can see it catching on...

jase1

bowlhead99 wrote: »

And three to five years later it would still have been a Volkswagen, and maintained more of its value than the Citroen, due to marketing, status and perhaps reliability (though probably not reliability really, but there's a perception there); meanwhile the value of the Citroen and its extra equipment etc drops like a stone because they are perceived as flimsy 2CVs rather than German tanks.

Which is fine if you're the first owner. However this works against you as a second owner as you want a second-hand car to have already suffered its depreciation.

All cars depreciate to zero over 15 years or so (apart from the premium models). The difference is that in the case of a VW, the depreciation is suffered by subsequent owners. Which means that there is sound logic in buying a VW new, but buying one second-hand is folly.

WellKnownSid

jase1 wrote: »

I will admit to having had a quiet chuckle up my sleeve when all this stuff came out. A Golf is just a bog-standard Eurobox, yet to hear some people talk about it it's some kind of Rolls Royce. And don't get me started on the morons who happily pay £3-4000 on a 10-year-old one :rotfl:

Having borrowed / hired / been a passenger in many Golfs over the last 20 years, I have to say that I found them all mind-numbingly boring. Apart from one - a then new VR6 I rode in which was fast but also smooth. But, nice though it was - it was only a Golf.

Anyway... I read that the German authorities have given VW until 7th October to publish their plan to bring all German cars up to EU standards or they won't be allowed to sell them, presumably just in Germany.

Audi have confirmed that 2.1m of their vehicles are affected...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-34377443

SEAT haven't yet said if all six of the cars they sold last year in the UK are affected...

custardy

WellKnownSid wrote: »

Plenty of other examples of "errors" (including fiddling the mpg figures) have resulted in no detectable change in resale values. Albeit not on this scale.

Truthfully, though, buying a conventional car powered by an Internal Combustion Engine fuelled solely by fossils was never going to be a long term plan.

If emissions / economy were that important - the GTE or equivalent would have been the better option.

I think the scale of this one could be far more detrimental.
I have listened to a few phone ins where its middle class old women who have bought VW polos for ever.
Look at Lancia,gone from the UK for a dodgy deal on crap Russian steel in the 80's that left them unable to shake the stigma of rot boxes.
It wont hit VW like that,however this is certainly going to hurt their image and finances heavily on a global scale.

Yolina

Audi: 2.1m of their cars have the "cheat" software. Not sure if that's included in the 11-odd million worldwide figure already disclosed by VW

WellKnownSid

custardy wrote: »

I have listened to a few phone ins where its middle class old women who have bought VW polos for ever.

Many of whom are driving petrols...

The biggest immediate threat is the banning of sales of Euro-V cars in countries where they have a lot still to sell if they don't come up with a plan by October 7th. They are working hard on a 'fix' for all Euro-V cars:

http://www.volkswagen.co.uk/about-us/news/689/dr.-herbert-diess,-ceo-of-the-volkswagen-passenger-cars-brand,-explains:-%E2%80%9Cwe-are-working-at-full-speed-on-a-solution

The next hurdle is what happens with fleet, which is more or less 50% of sales for most manufacturers. In principle, any large UK organisation (national charity, big company, local authority, NHS, retail chain, whatever) that has environmental, social, or other governance policies might be duty-bound to take VAG off their PSL, at least in the short term. Plus, there are rumours that the EU might stop buying asset backed securities from VWFS.

There have also been lots of stories about other manufacturers being implicated... but nothing concrete being said about any other manufacturer.

In fact, I read over the weekend that a BMW was also tested alongside the VWs by the American team that first broke this, and by all accounts it was entirely within spec. Interesting that this news never really broke... I guess it was better political capital to just hint that all of them there 'German Vee-hi-culs' might be affected.