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Volkswagen's Audi unit managed to make its 3.0-liter V6 turbodiesel engines run clean on tests, a study says, with the simple expedient of keeping emissions controls active for about 22 minutes, given that nearly emissions tests run no more than than 20 minutes. Ergo, a clean motorcar when information technology mattered most: when authorities were watching.

These are the engines supplied by Audi for use on the Audi Q7, Porsche Cayenne, and VW Touareg models. The story was first reported past the German newsweekly Bild am Sonntag. It said US officials found three such rogue programs in the engines.

2012-Audi-Q7-TDI

The 2022 Audi Q7 TDI. (Credit: Audi)

While VW has reached terms to compensate owners of 4-cylinder VW-Audi diesels (below), for nigh 85,000 owners of iii.0-liter V6 diesels, no settlement has been reached with the US government. There's also the possibility that California might push for a tougher settlement, since it has the right to set stricter pollution rules. (This goes back to the era of crippling smog in the LA basin from the 1950s through the 1980s.) In July, California rejected VW'due south initial plan for fixes and buybacks. So a deal on the V6 diesel could exist some months away.

The side by side stride: VW Group officials are due to meet with EPA officials Thursday.

Four-cylinder deal has been hammered out

Volkswagen Group, which includes Porsche and Audi every bit well every bit larger and lesser lights (Bentley, Skoda), has resolved the flap over emissions cheating with a half-one thousand thousand hundred four-cylinder diesels in the US. Information technology will spend $xv billion to fix and/or buy back the non-compliant cars. The corporeality also includes money not going directly to the owners. Volkswagen says, "Volkswagen will pay an additional $2.seven billion for environmental remediation and commit another $2.0 billion to promote Zero Emissions Vehicle applied science."

Owners should be getting goodwill checks or credits presently. It's a good deal, non counting the immense hassles: The payouts and buyback should be more than than the car is worth, assuming you take enough actress coin on hand to buy a new automobile and pay the new sales taxes and licensing fees. Your check from VW is not going to purchase you a make new VW and let you lot walk away owing nil.

Actually, non anybody thinks it's a good bargain. Consumer Reports has chimed in:

[T]he buyback and lease termination options are entirely justified, [just] they should be revised to increase buyback values and ensure that all consumers who leased their vehicles—including those who used a company other than the VW Credit service—do not incur any remember-related costs.

Consumers who receive an emissions fix—if i is canonical by regulators—should have a period of fourth dimension to render a modified car if they are unsatisfied with how it operates. This would give them a 2nd hazard to have the buyback or charter termination. It would help VW get more than consumers to participate in the recall by protecting them from being stuck with a motorcar that has worse performance or fuel economy than it did before.

Any approved emissions modification program should conspicuously inform consumers of buyback or lease termination alternatives and improve protect them from improper liability waivers or releases.

A VW owner who takes VW's current best offering isn't out of luck if a ameliorate i comes along. To keep everyone happy, as the offer improves (if information technology improves), 4-cylinder owners who took VW's early-bird offering are notwithstanding in line to exist compensated with better offers coming after.