[man_and_machine]

Would all the VWs around the world where the dealers can't sell due to a sale ban be imported into India and sold cheap? Well, why not? If kerosine filled Auto can run why not a VW which is really far better? Then this dumping of Jettas could mean we get them at a discount. Are you in the game for a 10 L Jetta? Aye!

[hybridpetrol]

Originally Posted by man_and_machine

Would all the VWs around the world where the dealers can't sell due to a sale ban be imported into India and sold cheap? Well, why not? If kerosine filled Auto can run why not a VW which is really far better? Then this dumping of Jettas could mean we get them at a discount. Are you in the game for a 10 L Jetta? Aye!

For whatever reason the cars are imported, the cars will be considered CBUs, and hence there will be a lot of import duties to be paid!
10L for Jetta? Even Polo costs that much here for top variant!
If there is no After sales support from the company & spares are not available, even Audi A6 at 10L would be a highly risky proposition! (Considering that you would not probably get a car loan, and you need to spend this amount full in cash, fully aware that, if it turns out to be lemon, the only next stop is scrapyard!)

[aravind.anand]

While we are at it, Google ads seems to be having fun linking the relevant VW sites for us !



Clicking on the link takes us to this site - http://www.hgdlawfirm.com/vwemission...FZEsjgodIU4EJQ

[Thad E Ginathom]

Originally Posted by krsna777

On a similar note, BP is set to pay $21 billion for Mexico oil spill. Though the damage in this case is very high compared to the case of VW, this is not intentional. It's accidental. .... ... ...

Hmmm, accidental in the sense that a collision between two vehicles, both overtaking on a blind corner, is an "accident."

[im_srini]

Hi, makes me wonder : This is a well understood motor isn't it ?

I mean a lot of tuners out there have re-maps for this motor / ECU combo.

How did this "quirk" in the ECU code go missed & for this long ?

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by im_srini

Hi, makes me wonder : This is a well understood motor isn't it ?

I mean a lot of tuners out there have re-maps for this motor / ECU combo.

How did this "quirk" in the ECU code go missed & for this long ?

From the little technical information I have seen so far it appears this is a standard function on Bosch ECUs. Essentially for testing and some diagnostic functions, but VW used it as what is now know as the cheat switch.

Jeroen

[itwasntme]

Hope Bosch Bangalore has not showcased the defeat device coding as a case study of a highly successful end product. Am sure the Chancellor would not have been amused :-)

[man_and_machine]

Originally Posted by hybridpetrol

For whatever reason the cars are imported, ...
If there is no After sales support from the company & spares are not available, ... the only next stop is scrapyard...

This was on a lighter note.

However, when you even look at it as an option, I don't think its can be that extreme. We are still in BS4, the cheat is to beat a level equal to BS 6,7 (got that from VW dealer, again, some press release from VW India will supposedly explain that as I hear). So they can just remove the cheat code and sell it legally in India until BS 7 which I guess might be 2030, considering we have one BS step every 5-6 years. As an import duty is on the import price, so when you take the junk (junk as defined from US stock yard) and price the import price lower (anything above junk value is good) then you can still sell (and not scrap in the US car graveyards!) them here.

Again, this is just a wish! A wish that can work as we are allowed to breathe low quality air (and VW is not the only culprit). I guess the 1.6 and the 2.0 motors can pass BS 4 under test conditions. From what I know the official word was "when we move to BS 5, they just need to add a catalytic converter to all existing cars" (this from the dealer again, they say so many thing that they know and don't know at the same time).

I would even go further, if the existing cars on the roads = 11 in US, 8 in EU and similarly say 5 elsewhere totalling ~ 25 million cars worldwide, if they need to recall and can't re-certify them, what do you do? Buy them back, legally you might be forced to. Then you can import them here, (Delhi has bad air quality than Beijing), where a small amount of smog from VW cars don't matter to smog that is anywhere always there! Sell them as used cars (the import structure is different/less for used cars I guess). Sell them as company refurbished a.k.a Maruthi True value.

This is hallucination, but hey who thought you could even cheat in a car software!

[johannskaria]

Effect of VW fallout by SVP of Car and Bike show.

CnB SVP take on VW

[johannskaria]

“We will review all planned investments, and what isn’t absolutely vital will be canceled or delayed,” Mueller told some 20,000 employees at the German company’s headquarters Tuesday, according to an e-mailed statement of his remarks. “And that’s why we will re-adjust our efficiency program. I will be completely clear: this won’t be painless.”


Cutback Strategies

Labor leaders have been pushing Wolfsburg-based VW to reel in research and development spending to protect jobs, while management wants personnel expenses reduced as well, people familiar with the situation said before the carmaker published Mueller’s statement. Other options include lowering purchasing expenses and reducing sponsorship activities, with the extent of the measures dependent on the cost of the cleanup, said the people, who asked not to be named because the talks are private.

The German company may be forced to tighten an “incredibly inefficient” organization and lop funding out of a $17.4 billion research and development budget that was the world’s biggest last year, about equal to the combined figure at Apple Inc. and the former Google Inc., said Arndt Ellinghorst, a London-based analyst with Evercore ISI. Volkswagen’s R&D spending was higher than at Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Co. combined.

Business Insider article link

This latest incentive program will award a $2,000 loyalty bonus to existing VW drivers in the United States, to be applied to towards the purchase or lease of a new gasoline- or hybrid-powered vehicle. What's more, the offer can be combined with any other incentive on offer (save for employee or fleet discounts). The automaker is offering discounts of between $2,000 for a Passat to as much as $4,000 for a Touareg, CC, or Eos.

Autoblog report


Meanwhile the states in USA has started taking actions against VW

Now, the state's attorney general Patrick Morrisey has filed a formal complaint against the automaker's US branch for violating the West Virginia Consumer Credit and Protection Act. His argument alleges that VW "fraudulently manufactured, advertised, and sold" these polluting diesel vehicles as being good for the environment.

If the West Virginia case is successful, VW could be on the hook for serious monetary punishment. Morrisey asks that any consumers in the state get refunds totaling the premium paid over a gasoline model, the loss in resale value, and the expected costs of lost performance from the upcoming recall repair. On top of that, the automaker would pay the state $5,000 for each violating vehicle and all of the related costs for preparing for the trial. According to the complaint's legal documents (here, as a PDF), the state's DMV currently shows 2,684, diesel 2009-2015 VW vehicles registered there.

Autoblog report

[johannskaria]

ET article link

[ajmat]

Here is a brilliant article on why VW did what they did

http://www.autocar.co.uk/blogs/indus...asy-car-makers

Originally Posted by prashanthyr

The new CEO has just announced that there is a savage round of cost saving coming into force in order to pay for the management of the scandal (recalls, replacements, law suits etc), hence the question..

Bottom line is that the German factories are overstaffed. Skoda, Audi and Porsche as well as China bring in the moolah.

[AirWind]

Check if you car is affected? All these are UK sites, but assuming they have a universal database for the VIN,

VW: http://www.volkswagen.co.uk/owners/dieselinfo
Skoda: http://skoda-recallactions.skoda-auto.com/en-GB
Audi: http://www.audi.co.uk/owners-area/em...-your-car.html

[dark.knight]

The short of it is, as I've always maintained that attacking VW based on the software deception will solve about 2% of the problem worldwide at best. VW needs to face the law for false-advertising & wrongly manipulating governmental tests to get approval without deserving it, but that's about all. Let that continue separately and let the judgement be such that no other auto-maker would think of tweaking their vehicles fraudulently, again.

Something taken off the California Government Database:

As we breathe, the toxic gases and small particles of diesel exhaust are drawn into the lungs. The microscopic particles in diesel exhaust are less than one-fifth the thickness of a human hair and are small enough to penetrate deep into the lungs, where they contribute to a range of health problems.

Exposure to diesel exhaust can have immediate health effects. Diesel exhaust can irritate the eyes, nose, throat and lungs, and it can cause coughs, headaches, lightheadedness and nausea. In studies with human volunteers, diesel exhaust particles made people with allergies more susceptible to the materials to which they are allergic, such as dust and pollen. Exposure to diesel exhaust also causes inflammation in the lungs, which may aggravate chronic respiratory symptoms and increase the frequency or intensity of asthma attacks.

Diesel exhaust and many individual substances contained in it (including arsenic, benzene, formaldehyde and nickel) have the potential to contribute to mutations in cells that can lead to cancer. In fact, long-term exposure to diesel exhaust particles poses the highest cancer risk of any toxic air contaminant evaluated by OEHHA. ARB estimates that about 70 percent of the cancer risk that the average Californian faces from breathing toxic air pollutants stems from diesel exhaust particles.

However, let me play advocate to the car industry as well, by saying that in countries such as India, diesel is also widely used in industrial generators, power-backup generators, heavy vehicles like trucks & lorries (majority of which are well over a decade old and spew smoke thick as ash). This combined amounts to a totally unregulated mess and there seems to be no end to it. Unlike U.S, India is largely a thermal-energy reliant nation. A small write-up on thermal plants by Greenpeace website :

Coal-burning power plants are a significant source of Sulphur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxides (NOx), which are major players in acid rain and ground level ozone (smog). Nitrogen oxides are also greenhouse gasses that react with organic compounds to form smog, which damages plant life, making it vulnerable to disease and extreme weather. It can also impair human health by causing increased risk of asthma, lung damage and premature death.

Acid rain occurs when SO2 and NOX interact with water, oxygen, and other chemicals in the air to form sulphuric acid and nitric acid. This toxin can fall from the sky in rain over a widespread area, killing fish and plants. Forests are also impacted via direct damage to foliage and where forest soils have been stripped of nutrients by acid rain. The shocking impacts of acid rain on forests around the world have led to progress, in curbing toxic rain in the US and Europe for example. In India, a study in 2001 found that the inhabitants of 14 of India's 20 largest cities breathe air the government deems dangerous. Particle emissions from coal power stations are a major contributor to the poor air quality.

Suffice to say that as usual the only portion of a country which is negotiable & subject to control i.e the private players & the public, are being controlled by the government. Meanwhile the ultimate powerhouses of govt + lobbyists will continue their unregulated activities which will rampantly increase dangerous gas & particle emissions onto our air. Sad when you really look at it.

[evilshantanu]

Mods: I didnt find any thread on the recall of VW cars from the emission scandal. Hence starting a new thread

http://www.dnaindia.com/money/report...16-end-2132315

according to the above news, VW will start the recall of cars starting in January and will complete the process of fixing the engines by end of 2016

Now the questions:

- Does this news apply to the VWs in India as well?

- I have a vento TDI 2011 model, which is obviously out of warranty. I suppose and assume that since it has a VW TDI engine which poswers a Polo in the rest of the world, hence it should have the same high emission standards here as well.

What do you guys think? I have mailed the VW CC regarding this. Obviously they also might not be having any clues