VW Legal Team Says Buy Back Possible For Up To 320,000 US Diesels

VW lawyers and accountants figured out it is cheaper to buy back the cars ($3.2-$5.0 billion) and have the sellers sign a waiver against bringing or participating in any legal actions. Its all about the money. Take the buyback price now or take your chances in a class action law suit. VW betting most people will take a bird in hand and save them billions on litigation and potential awards.

As far back as exploding Pintos, it has always been a "cost/benefit" analysis by the bean counters. It's not about safety, or ethics, or caring about the people who lined your pockets by buying your products. Another example of VW doing this is sending US customers -- a highly critical-of-VW market, and where their sales haven't been that strong -- fast cash and gift cards to placate them... but *only* the US Market. In Europe, where VW sales are much stronger and consumer thinking less critical of the brand (in spite of Dieselgate), people are pissed that they're not getting the same stroking the folks in the US are.

BTW< the "VW *MIGHT* buy back cars" thought has been running since the beginning of Dieselgate. This is not news. It'll be news when VW reports they ARE doing it, and they release the number: how many cars, how much are they offering.

It is cheaper to buy back the car and sell it about the same price in 3rd world countries than getting sued by the owner/collective owners.

The practice of selling defective products in 3rd world countries has been outlawed in US with sever penalties. If not illegal in Germany VW may be tried in court of public opinion if they try it. With the internet everyone knows all and sees all. My guess is that the recalled cars will be scrapped for parts.

If thsee vehicles are legal in other countries that do not have the same environmental regs as the USA then selling them there is allowed. Priced well those cars could be a great deal for those customers giving them a lot more car than they could normally afford. Latin, South American and Asian vehicles don't have air bags for example, and sell for less then their USA versions so people can afford them.

i like that ! scrapped for parts and made into next years model :)

The cars need to be bought back at original list plus interest paid on the loans/leases because the cars were never legal to be sold in the first place.

VW could also give all 320K people new Fusions. :)

My guess is the non-SCR cars would be the most likely candidates for buy-back. With SCR I would expect it won't be difficult to restore proper emissions. The non-SCR cars would require such extensive modification that buy-back would be cheaper.

I don't think full list buy-back is necessary. But I do think that a value calculated 6 months before it all it, with a additional amount for the bother.

By doing it this way, rather than through lawsuits, means the consumer receives the full benefit, not the lawyers. I would accept that far faster than dealing with a class action.

Makes a lot of sense. Arguing for full original price reimbursement while these owners had full usage of the cars for X years and miles, and prior to the VW admission were likely raving about their vehicles would be a tough legal sell. Financial harm is recent loss of resale, with a sweetener and maybe a real deal on a new VW would be a fair solution.

@Vette71, you're short sighted. If the legal outcome is that all VW has do to is to compensate owners for loss of value, that would not serve as a deterrent to all manufacturers skirting the law and throwing cash. By making VW pay full price for each and every car it buys back that (1) serves as a well-deserved punitive damage to the company and (2) restores the owners to wholeness.

The reason that owners raved about their cars was because they believed that TDI = clean diesel. VW allowed them to be puppets to be laughed at all the way to the bank.

Matt. I know many VW TDI owners and all raved about the MPG but nary a one ever said a thing about it being clean. Even my local VW dealer never mentioned clean when I was looking at a Touareg TDI before I bought my GC "Ecodiesel". It was all the MPG. Environmentalists buy a Prius or EV. VWs are fun to drive.

The EPA will punish VW mightily for violating its regulations as the EPA is allowed to do by our laws. Perhaps the EPA will share some of that booty with the VW TDI owners but I wouldn't bet on it. They'll use the money for themselves.

If you had been in your current position back in the 70s, 80s, and 90s would you have espoused full purchase price refunds for all Pinto and Explorer/Firestone owners, punishing your supplier?

@Vette71 given that I know when to invest and divest, yes. I most decidedly DON'T have all my eggs in one basket.

I have no allegiance to any car brand. My allegiance is solely to the business outcome.

A VW/Porsche/Audi dealer--before dieselgate--would make its profits from Porsche and Audi with VW making a faint profit or breaking even--if you were lucky--or more likely, you lost money on VW for reasons I have detailed before.

The business case was not what I wanted, so I divested. Yes, people thought I was crazy.

Now that the Audi/Porsche cash cow TDIs are not generating profits for dealers, owning a VW/Porsche/Audi dealer is suddenly a precarious situation.

I do know that VW dealers are preparing a class action lawsuit against VW for loss of income.

If VW left the USA and the parent company doubled down on Audi and Porsche, I would gamble and buy in low.

Given how VW's DON'T hold their value and given how the TDI mess has eroded that value further, to say to an owner "Here's $3K for what your Golf would have been worth if we didn't act criminally and sell you an illegal car." is a double cash rape.

First, because the car must be taken off the road, the owner has lost his car.

The paltry amount VW would pay out for the actual worth of the car would not allow the owner to get a suitable replacement.

It would force the owner to have to go into debt.

I would ban VW from offering owners a deal on a new VW because that is profiting off the misery of the people VW screwed over.

If this plays out as you advocate, VW gets an easy get-out-of-jail-free card and VW owners get screwed over.

As for the Pinto/Firestone thing, that's an apples-to-oranges comparison and you know it. When Ford put the tires on the Explorer, the tires were not illegal. When the Pinto went to market, its gas tank was not illegal.

Any coverup of issues that crop up after the fact is reprehensible, BUT before the fact VW knowingly and with malice set out to break the law and get away with it.

THAT is the context of why I would make them pay full list plus interest.

Matt, don't remove the potential for VW to offer something substantial on a new car. I agree with some of what you say here, but is VW going to give me sticker price on my 2009 Jetta that was a year old when we bought it? That seems out of line.

And if they bring a new Tiguan with the plug-in hybrid powertrain just shown in Detroit, and made a respectable trade-in offer (which would also benefit the dealer), I would give it serious consideration. Right now, I'm in the waiting mode. I doubt my Passat will be offered a buy-back (since it has SCR), but between a cash settlement for its value loss AND a really, and I mean really, good offer towards a Tiguan or the upcoming CrossBlue, they'll keep me with them. Just don't deny them the opportunity to make me such an offer.

@atc98092 if you only knew the sheer contempt with which VW holds its customers, you'd never want another.

I lost count of the number of arguments I got into with VW representatives who would not cover warranty work because they blamed the customer.

I lost count of the number of arguments I got into with VW representatives who would not pay warranty repairs in a timely matter.

The VW warranty is BRIEF and repairs once out of warranty are expensive.

We had numerous component failures (DSG and 2.0T in particular) on customer cars just outside warranty that VW would not cover--that sometimes WE covered for the sake of dealer reputation.

If VW owners accept a VW bribe to go into debt to buy a new VW and thereby absolve VW of legal damages, then the morons who do so deserve the cash rape that VW dishes out and I have no sympathy for them.

Matt understand your feelings about VW. It is widely shared by the VW dealer community. If this article is true VW is going to pay dearly beyond the $40 Billion in EPA penalities.

http://www.thecarconnection.com/news/1102037_volkswagen-employees-managers-knew-about-diesel-cheat-in-2006#src=10065

We'll see how the VW TDI owners make out.

I would never buy a VW product, ever, but as a window into the psyche of diesel owners, I own a 2013 MB GL350 Bluetek. I bought it because one of my friends had a toureg disel and told me about the great diesel fuel mileage and the phenominal range.

I needed a 7-seater so the GL350 is it for me. Its a fantastic vehicle and I can assure you, I don't care at all what comes out of the tailpipe, I just LOVE the 450 pound-feet of torque (it feels like you could chain the thing to a tree and pull out the tree from its roots) and I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE the 600+ mile range I regularily get out of it. I once drove from NYC to Montreal and back and almost made it on one tank - averaged 27 MPG in a 6,000 pound 7-seater SUV. Its just a genius vehicle. If I had an Audi or VW diesel and liked it, I wouldn't care one bit about emissions (as long as the resale value wasn't impacted).

I think the most fair way to handle the situation is to fix what can be fixed and then offer a settlement for resale value degrading. Though, I'm sure some owners will hate to give back their cars if forced to.

AMEN. Exactly how I feel about my GC Diesel. All the VW TDI owners I have talked to want keep them "as is" because they love the mpg and the driving. They would buy another VW TDI if they could, knowing full well the reliability and repair cost issue, although the diesels haven't had as many.

As a 2013 VW Jetta TDI owner, you've hit the nail on the head. I didn't buy it for clean emissions. I bought it for the MPG and fun-to-drive factor. The 30/42 city/hwy on the sticker is a low-ball estimate. I rarely hit anything lower than 33 in the city and typically average 36-40mpg in combined city/hwy driving. The torque from the engine is truly amazing and makes up for the slower ramp-up to 60mph in my normal day-to-day commute.

As for the scandal, it really doesn't bother me that VW got caught with their pants down. The engines in question were already in the process of being phased out and VW plans to fix or buy back affected vehicles. I don't feel personally "lied to" because emissions were not a concern for me. As long as the fix maintains a similar MPG or fun-to-drive aspect, I'm good. If they buy back my TDI so I don't owe anything on it, that's fine too - and I'll likely end up with another VW in my garage in the end.