The U.S. Department of Justice has made public a document detailing what will happen to the thousands of 2.0 L TDI diesel cars Volkswagen will buy back in the aftermath of the company's emissions cheat scandal.
Dubbed a "partial consent decree," the 225-page legal doc is a heavy piece of work that states the cars VW buys back can never be made roadworthy again, unless Volkswagen comes up with a way to modify them to meet the emissions regs they were built to cheat the first time around.
If Volkswagen had it in mind to dump the dirty cars in parts of the world with less-stringent emissions rules, as Daniel Beaulieu suggested might happen, the DOJ also forbids that, again, unless the cars can be retrofitted to run clean.
But even that seems doubtful, quoth the folks at the DOJ, as "At the present time, there are no practical engineering solutions that would, without negative impact to vehicle functions and unacceptable delay, bring the 2.0 Liter Subject Vehicles into compliance with the exhaust emission standards...."
So all of that means a whole bunch of VW 2.0 L TDI models are about to find their way into a scrapyard near you, minus the engine control units (ECU), the engines themselves (the DOJ says the dirty motors will all have holes punched into engine blocks to render them inoperable) and, for some reason, the cars' structures, as the frames will have to be cut in half.
Beaulieu provided a handy overview of what has transpired since he wrote his Dieselgate from the Driver's Seat feature last week:
- June 28th: general terms of settlement for the USA made public on the day of the EPA / VW court appearance; nothing learned vs leaks, except max compensation is $10k, not $7k;
- VW Canada for the first time indicated that the US settlement may not apply directly to Canadian customers (rhu-oh); until now, VWoC claimed they would follow VWoA;
- VW US puts out a settlement website, shows a chart with a range of buy-back values plus compensation for every affected car line; the more recent and expensive the vehicle, the bigger the compensation is (biggest number is for the top-trim 2015 Audi A3 TDI);
- VW US will reveal all details and buy-back values after the July 26th court ruling;
- At this point, US customers will enter VIN and mileage of their cars in the website and will get their exact buy-back value and compensation;
- VW Canada has a separate court date on July 29th when Canadian settlement details will be made public, more than a month after VWoA.
Says Daniel: "From a Canadian perspective, we know nothing right now and we have to wait until August when, hopefully, we'll get as much information as US customers now have. Trim lines are different in the US, but the buy-back for a Golf 5-dr TDI SE is $24,000-$29,000, and compensation $6,500-$7,400."
