Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Volkswagen Settles Diesel Emissions Lawsuit Right Before Trial Set To Begin (theverge.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the narrowly-dodging dept.

Volkswagen settled a major diesel emissions class action lawsuit brought by hundreds of vehicle owners right before the case was set to go to trial. "The German auto giant's U.S. division settled the lawsuit brought by a North Carolina man and over 300 other owners of diesel cars who allege fraud and unfair trade practices," reports The Verge. From the report: The trial could have featured testimony from current and former VW executives and would likely have caused a spate of bad press for the automaker regarding the Dieselgate scandal. Since it first broke in 2015, the controversy has led to the resignation of VW's CEO, seen a handful of executives sentenced to jail, and resulted in billions of dollars in fines and settlements. VW is being sued by some consumers after it admitted to using software to cheat on diesel emissions tests, sparking the biggest scandal to hit the auto industry in decades. David Doar, the North Carolina man along with more than 300 other U.S. VW diesel owners, rejected settlement offers from a 2016 class action that would have reimbursed them for the value of their vehicles. Nearly all U.S. owners of affected VW vehicles agreed to take part in a $25 billion settlement in 2016, which included buyback offers and additional compensation for about 500,000 owners. But according to Reuters, some 2,000 owners have opted out, and most are pursuing separate claims seeking additional compensation.

74 comments

  1. Lets be honest here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The vehicle owners suing Volkswagen are only after money because they have a chance at it. They saw 45+ MPG on diesels and said "sounds great!" and bought it. Not "oh well the NOx levels are lower than other diesel vehicles so this is what I want"

  2. Europeans by 110010001000 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The funniest part of this saga is the decades that Americans had to listen to Europeans going on and on about how their clean diesels were infinitely superior to the American gas guzzlers. Turned out the whole thing was a lie and they inhaled it for decades.

    1. Re:Europeans by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Um, there's only one fraudulent clean diesel here, and it's VW. The other manufacturers didn't cheat on their emissions. So the point stands.

    2. Re:Europeans by davecb · · Score: 1

      My understanding is that VW was just the worst of a bad lot (;-))

      --
      davecb@spamcop.net
    3. Re:Europeans by 110010001000 · · Score: 3, Funny

      Thats true. No other European manufacturer did it. Nope. Not one. Just VW.

    4. Re:Europeans by 110010001000 · · Score: 2

      Nah, let them believe it was just VW. Yup, just VW. They rest of your diesels are "clean".

    5. Re:Europeans by 110010001000 · · Score: 3, Funny

      Nope it was just VW. Certainly not Mercedes! They would NEVER do that. Diesels are clean. It is amazing how angry people get when their myths get popped. Oh yeah, Nokia made the best phones too.

    6. Re:Europeans by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually a lot of European brands cheated, and a lot of Japanese brands cheated. American brands are used to getting caught cheating so they invented bullshit CAFE standards to mitigate that.

    7. Re:Europeans by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Volvo will be the next in the courts. Evidence was already released.

    8. Re: Europeans by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      While I canâ(TM)t stand diesels, the same teams tested multiple other manufacturers and found no one had done what VW did to cheat the test.

    9. Re:Europeans by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, respiration problems, pulmonary disease, and choking from pollution is funny if you say so. Also you are retarded.

    10. Re:Europeans by labnet · · Score: 2

      Thats true. No other European manufacturer did it. Nope. Not one. Just VW.

      You sure....
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      --
      46137
    11. Re:Europeans by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Truth hurt or something?

    12. Re:Europeans by Solandri · · Score: 5, Informative
      There are a lot of factors at play here, going both ways, making the situation a lot more complicated than such a simplistic analysis.
      • The diesel cycle is more efficient than the Otto cycle used in gasoline engines. If you want to produce the most energy possible via combustion from a given amount of fuel, dieseling (pressurizing fuel until it auto-ignites) is the way to do it.
      • Diesels produce more nitrous oxides. However, it is not an inherent property of diesel fuel. It is a consequence of the reaction temperature. Even an engine burning pure hydrogen at a high power output will produce nitrous oxides. NOx is produced when atmospheric nitrogen combines with atmospheric oxygen using excess energy in the reaction chamber. Because the diesel cycle is more efficient, it results in higher combustion temperatures, which results in more NOx production. That's the unfortunate trade-off here: Higher fuel efficiency (less CO2 emissions) comes at the cost of increased NOx emissions.
      • The strategy employed by newer diesels is to inject a measured amount of diesel exhaust fluid (DEF, marketed as Ad-blue). It's basically ammonia, and combines with NOx to convert it into nitrogen gas and water. The process is patented by Mercedes, and licensed by other diesel engine manufacturers. VW's former CEO hated it and demanded VW engineers come up with a way to make VW's diesels compliant with emissions regulations without using DEF. Someone somewhere in VW made a decision to lie and pretend they could do it, rather than admit that they couldn't.
      • When you refine oil, it naturally wants to break down into a certain amount of gasoline and a certain amount of diesel (the diesel hydrocarbon chains are longer). You can break down diesel into gasoline with further refining, but it's energy-intensive. It's virtually impossible to convert gasoline into diesel. Consequently the most efficient use of oil is to simply use gasoline and diesel in the ratio in which it's most easily refined. The U.S. with its larger travel distances and large trucking industry uses about the right ratio of diesel (trucks) vs gasoline (cars). Europe, with its smaller travel distances and greater prevalence of rail transport tends to use less diesel than is refined. So they end up with excess diesel, lowering its price relative to gasoline, creating an incentive to produce cars which run on diesel. (This is also why diesel prices go up in the winter. Home heating oil is virtually identical to diesel, so the supply of diesel for transportation fuel is reduced during the winter.).
      • Diesel is a denser fuel than gasoline. It's about 12% heavier than the same volume of gasoline (there's 12% more "stuff" in a given volume of diesel). So the MPG figures you see for diesel are a bit overstated since we measure these fuels by volume, rather than by mass. It's still got a higher energy density though (about 3% more energy per mass). And the higher combustion efficiency means cars/trucks still get more distance per unit mass of diesel than gasoline. It's just not as much as the MPG would suggest.
      • Particulate emissions (mainly carbon soot) are higher with diesel, but newer diesels simply capture it in a filter and burn it off (converting it to CO2) at regular intervals. Despite this additional CO2 production, diesel's CO2 production per vehicle mile is still lower than gasoline's.
      • The emissions standards are a moving target, gradually becoming more stringent over the years. For example, the EPA limit on NOx emissions was 1.25 g/mile in 1994, lowered to 0.07 g/mile in 2004, and in 2017 lowered to 0.086 g/mile of NOx + other non-methane hydrocarbons. So while VW's emissions far exceeded the 2004 limit, the cars actually would've complied with the 1994 limit. In particular, the 2015 VW diesels actually complied with the EPA limit, they just slightly exceeded C
    13. Re:Europeans by Golden_Rider · · Score: 1

      Seriously, do you even read news?

      Renault thought to be cheating at emissions tests for 25 years. (use google translate, German article) https://www.auto-motor-und-spo...

      Nissan, too: (use google translate, German article) https://www1.wdr.de/wissen/tec...

      Ford accused of cheating: http://www.thedrive.com/sheetm...

      Fiat/Chrysler accused of cheating: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/0...

      Mercedes emissions cheating: (they already had recalls) https://www.extremetech.com/ex...

      BMW emissions cheating: (they already have recalls for affected cars - those had Renault engines due to a cooperation, which makes the Renault claims above more valid) https://cleantechnica.com/2017...

      You can find articles like this for pretty much EVERY car manufacturer, if you simply google. Funnily, in recent testing, VW Diesels had among the lowest emissions results. Seems they fixed their stuff on newer models after the scandal.

    14. Re: Europeans by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not true. They've all been caught. Volkswagens are actually among the cleanest.

    15. Re: Europeans by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Diesels are cleaner than petrols. All of the emissions shenanigans is about NOx. Diesels produce less of just about anything else that can come out of a tailpipe.

    16. Re: Europeans by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ford and GM were caught too...

    17. Re: Europeans by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Does employing a different trick with the same result make it any better? The fact of the matter is that they've all cheated in one way or another.

    18. Re: Europeans by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually, Mercedes is relatively clean. The only Mercedes cars with excessive NOx emissions are those with Renault engines. Fiat, Renault-Nissan, Ford and Hyundai seem to be worst.

    19. Re: Europeans by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Worst in what sense? Their cars have the lowest real-world emissions according to most tests. The only thing that sets them apart from the others is that they admitted and drew consequences...

    20. Re:Europeans by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      The funniest part of this saga is the decades that Americans had to listen to Europeans going on and on about how their clean diesels were infinitely superior to the American gas guzzlers. Turned out the whole thing was a lie and they inhaled it for decades.

      And the Europeans were right. Your critique ignores the ever changing landscape of the internal combustion engine and also the ever changing formulation of the fuel. At the time where diesel shined from a health point of view, petrol was horrid. It was hell inefficient (gas guzzling), extremely dirty, had higher levels of NOx emissions, oh and spewed a shitton of lead into the air in dense population zones. But things did change over the years mainly driven by the health / environmental crisis of the moment:

      Diesel sulphur emissions were brought way down.
      Petrol eliminated lead from its formulation.
      Diesel massively reduced heavy particulate matter.
      Petrol increased octane making it suitable for higher compression.
      Diesel sulphur emissions were brought down again.
      Petrol increased fuel economy and phased out MTBE to remove Ozone.
      Diesel increased fuel economy even more through new injection techniques and lower cetane values, but with the downside to adding NOx emissions.
      Petrol engines added catalytic converters and petrol phased out BTEX.
      Diesel sulphur emissions were brought down again.
      Diesel engines added urea injection to get NOx under control.

      * This timeline is not in the correct order, but the point is both Petrol and Diesel have been under constant improvement since the 60s.

      The state of affairs now:
      Petrol produces slightly less NOx (human health concern) than a diesel engine with a Urea system.
      Diesel produces significantly less CO2 (which is why there's no rush in Europe to replace it with petrol).
      Petrol produces slightly less smog causing fine particulate matter.

      But there are two key points: The VW scandal was the result of cost cutting and fraud. The cleanliness of diesel isn't far worse of petrol engines, but it is expensive to get diesel to this point.
      Don't assume where we are now is where we will stay going forward. It is would be absurd to claim that either diesel or petrol has a long term future benefit over the other given the developments of the past, and speaking of the past, the Europeans were right... at the time, just like they are right now where they are banning diesel cars from inner cities more agressively than petrol cars.

    21. Re:Europeans by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Was it? Some vendor, cheated about some vehicles, some engines, some tests, this implies everything is a lie whatever the vehicles, the vendors, the engines. Must be true.

    22. Re: Europeans by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's right. /sarcasm

      https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/02/daimler-included-emissions-cheating-software-on-diesels-german-magazine-says/

    23. Re:Europeans by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 1

      The funniest part of this saga is the decades that Americans had to listen to Europeans going on and on about how their clean diesels were infinitely superior to the American gas guzzlers.

      Well, it's not funny any more for folks in Germany who own diesels . . . about 46% of passenger cars there.

      A German high court just put a nail in diesel's coffin with a judgement allowing bans of diesels in cities:

      http://www.bbc.com/news/busine...

      Of course, the fat lady hasn't sung yet, and the government and auto industry are working frantically to think up a solution which won't end up in pitchforks and torches. The German police have already stated that they do not have the resources to enforce a ban.

      So basically, if you own a diesel, its value has just dropped from a few thousand Euros to zero. And actually diesel owners will probably be required to get their cars refitted with cleaning devices, which will cost a serious amount of money. So the value of your diesel is negative now. A lot of folks will not be happy about that. The Green Party, who was the main backer of the ban, is already back-peddling, stating that it is the government's and auto industry's fault, not the end consumer.

      But at the end of the day, instead of "Pin The Tail On the Donkey," they will have "Pin The Bill On The Taxpayer."

      --
      Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
    24. Re:Europeans by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Shut up you fat retard.

    25. Re:Europeans by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No GM was the first to pull this trick, and the Germans copied and improved on 20 minute timers.
      Warm or hot car engines run more efficiently. I suppose GPS locations could tell the car when it ok to pollute a tad more. The fines GM and some truck makers received was small beer - VW really settled for too much.

      In 2018 a new standard came in? Interesting times ahead, because premium only is already maxxed out
       

    26. Re:Europeans by drinkypoo · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Diesels produce more nitrous oxides. However, it is not an inherent property of diesel fuel. It is a consequence of the reaction temperature.

      No, it's a consequence of running lean. If you run rich, like gasoline cars do — modern ones actually run rich at WOT, and rich-lean-rich-lean (switching back and forth) at all other times — then you don't produce NOx. When combustion chamber temperatures are highest, they are running rich (WOT under load) so they don't product NOx. Except wait! Direct-injected gassers run lean most of the time, like diesels, and they can produce NOx too. So they have to be carefully tuned to avoid it, which means injecting more fuel than you need. That either means increased exhaust valve temperatures, or more load on the catalyst; either way it means more wasted fuel. Meanwhile, DEF injection all but eliminates NOx output, and it's not like it's expensive either.

      VW's former CEO hated it and demanded VW engineers come up with a way to make VW's diesels compliant with emissions regulations without using DEF. Someone somewhere in VW made a decision to lie and pretend they could do it, rather than admit that they couldn't.

      They could, but they could not simultaneously make the cars sporting. The power output from a clean diesel without DEF is anemic. Mazda tried it, and they decided that they couldn't actually do it while making the car fun to drive. They wondered, in fact, how VW had managed it. The answer, of course, was that they hadn't. Mazda took their diesel engine research and applied it to gasoline vehicles, and they claim to have invented the first practical compression-ignition gasoline engine. They haven't, and are liars; It's actually spark ignition. They claim the spark is used to "moderate" the reaction, but that's totally false, and they know it. It's there to initiate the reaction at a specific time, which is called spark ignition. The technology is actually analogous to CVCC, not compression ignition. It's just an unwieldy and complex way of doing what Honda was doing with intake design and carburetors back in the seventies.

      Particulate emissions (mainly carbon soot) are higher with diesel, but newer diesels simply capture it in a filter and burn it off (converting it to CO2) at regular intervals. Despite this additional CO2 production, diesel's CO2 production per vehicle mile is still lower than gasoline's.

      This is also wholly incorrect. Gasoline vehicles simply produce finer, more hazardous soot than diesels. Alas, the trap filter does nothing to reduce the amount of soot that comes out of a diesel. It's not actually a filter, it's just another catalyst. The soot is burned in the "filter", resulting in... finer soot. The most dangerous soot is PM2.5, aka particles under 2.5 microns. Soot particles smaller than cilia (which are about 1.8 microns or larger) cannot be efficiently swept out of the lungs by them, which is what makes them dangerous. Instead, they lodge in the epithelium of the lung, where they are irritants which can cause cancer. Without a trap filter, diesels produce soot well over PM2.5, which means that you can reasonably cough it up.

      TL;DR: Diesels make NOx because they run lean, not because they are hot. Diesels with filters and gasoline engines both produce more hazardous soot than diesels with no filters. The soot is less dangerous specifically because you can see it. Gasoline cars are simply sneakier killers, and most of what you C&P'd is wrong.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    27. Re: Europeans by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Worst in what sense? Their cars have the lowest real-world emissions according to most tests.

      Only the tests which they were designed to cheat on. In real-world testing, the engines regularly emit more than twenty times the allowable limit. In the USA, diesels have to compete with gasoline with the same emissions standards, so it's absolutely a fair fight between fuels.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    28. Re: Europeans by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      The only Mercedes cars with excessive NOx emissions are those with Renault engines. Fiat, Renault-Nissan, Ford and Hyundai seem to be worst.

      Why is Ford so bad at making small engines? They've really never been able to build anything but a V6 or a V8 that's worth a damn. (I guess the 300ci straight six is okay, but it's not as durable as the 292 chevy.) Ecoboost vehicles universally fail to reach their EPA mileage estimates.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    29. Re: Europeans by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Only the tests which they were designed to cheat on. In real-world testing, the engines regularly emit more than twenty times the allowable limit.

      Not true. There have been several large scale real-world studies in multiple countries and every time VW's recent diesels were among the cleanest in terms of NOx and the Euro 5 models (that had defeat devices before the recall) were middle-of-the-pack. Fiat and Renault do have a few models that get close to 20x the limit in some tests though.

      In the USA, diesels have to compete with gasoline with the same emissions standards, so it's absolutely a fair fight between fuels.

      That's an unfair fight, since both technologies have different strengths and weaknesses. It's perfectly reasonable to hold diesels to a higher standard for CO and VOC and petrols to a higher standard for NOx.

    30. Re: Europeans by Zak3056 · · Score: 1

      My 3.5EB F150 gets 20-21 mpg typically (been as low as 18.4 when it was really cold and I wasn't doing much interstate driving). It has less than 7k miles on it, so I expect that to improve in time. I doubt it'll ever hit the 24MPG that the EPA sticker claimed for highway miles, but the sticker is based on a 2WD single cab and not a 4WD crew cab (don't know in what universe that makes any kind of sense) so I'm ok with that. The 2.7EB is supposedly fantastic all the way around. Either way, the Ecoboost trucks are fun as HELL to drive, and the mileage is as good as the minivan it replaced. :)

      I drove a 2.3EB (4cyl) Mustang and that was a blast, too. Can't speak for fuel mileage.

      --
      What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
  3. Smells like a shakedown by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Nothing more. OMG Hurt Feelings coz. my car wasn't as green as I was told. Vehicle buy-backs leaving acres of new cars parked up gathering dust. A massive waste of resources and more.

    What the hell. The whole thing stinks and when people smell money they go for it, especially in NZ

    1. Re:Smells like a shakedown by 110010001000 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You are right. People should just sit back and accept that corporations can lie and pollute freely. If they complain, it must just be a money grab. Poor corporations certainly aren't trying to grab money - they just want to make good products for us all.

    2. Re:Smells like a shakedown by PPH · · Score: 2

      My car wasn't as green as I was told

      Don't care. In fact, I'm taking my settlement money and having a performance chip put in my car.

      --
      Have gnu, will travel.
    3. Re:Smells like a shakedown by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nothing more. OMG Hurt Feelings coz. my car wasn't as green as I was told. Vehicle buy-backs leaving acres of new cars parked up gathering dust. A massive waste of resources and more.

      What the hell. The whole thing stinks and when people smell money they go for it, especially in NZ

      They designed their cars to cheat on emissions tests and added untold amounts of pollution to our environment, all to save a buck. You know how all the other companies managed to meet the diesel emissions? With expensive systems, mostly using DEF. VW decided to cheat instead and make more money off their cars.

      This is basically every evil-corporation-prays-on-society story you've ever seen, except real.

    4. Re:Smells like a shakedown by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

      If they complain, it must just be a money grab.

      This was a pure money grab. Look, VW cheated, and polluted, and they should pay for that. But the pollution hurts everyone, not just, or even especially, the owner of the car. So why should the owners (who were not harmed any more than the general public) get a sack of money?

    5. Re: Smells like a shakedown by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Name one car manufacturer that has never cheated on emissions in any way...

      What happened at VW was bad, but it is hardly an exception. They've all been caught, usually multiple times and there are probably countless tricks that haven't been uncovered.

    6. Re: Smells like a shakedown by thesupraman · · Score: 1

      BMW?

    7. Re: Smells like a shakedown by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      BMW is currently being investigated by the KBA. They do seem to be cleaner than most, though.

    8. Re:Smells like a shakedown by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      So why should the owners (who were not harmed any more than the general public) get a sack of money?

      Because their cars are devalued. In some places they made VW buy the car back too, which stopped it harming the general public and fairly compensated the owner for the loss of their property and hassle of replacing the car.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  4. VW paid me about twice... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    what my car was worth. These people are just greedy. They should have taken the pile of cash and been happy.

    1. Re:VW paid me about twice... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      They should have given you nothing. US environmental laws are a joke - just a way for asshole lawyers to get rich.

    2. Re: VW paid me about twice... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Just because you're a pansy and a loser who will accept whatever crumbs your corporate overlords deign to toss your way doesn't mean real Americans should bend over and take it up the ass like you did.

      Why should they? Because now you feel dumb knowing they're going to get a much better deal than you did because they weren't lazy slaves?

    3. Re:VW paid me about twice... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Then they fixed it with a software update and resold it for half price to people like me.

    4. Re:VW paid me about twice... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      US environmental laws are a joke

      This is what happens when you talk about something you don't understand. Our emissions laws are the toughest on the fucking planet - in fact that's the reason VW decided to cheat.
      Maybe you shouldn't talk out of your ass.

    5. Re: VW paid me about twice... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I hate to burst your superiority complex, but they're not. They are only excessively strict for one particular exhaust gas component, that happens to be the only one that diesel engines have trouble with. Of course, there is an exception for 'light trucks', roughly corresponding to the category of vehicles which American manufacturers happen to sell with diesel engines as well.

      The US emissions limits for particulates, CO and volatile organic compounds are laxer than those in Europe and last time I checked, they didn't set a limit for particle number at all. Most other countries tend to follow European regulations. Also, many US states do not have any form of periodic emissions inspection, thus leading to phenomena such as the infamous coal rollers and vehicles with excessive emissions due to lack of maintenance for prolonged periods.

  5. VW is a Nazi company. Never forget that. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I'm German, and I know very well, where VW came from. The corporate culture did not magically change since back then. They're still the same pieces of shit. And if you want to work there, you either are like that, or you won't. Corporations are like lifeforms, in that they don't just change their personality either.
    And remember: Nobody of nearly all employees needs to be a piece of shit himself, for the company to be one. It's enough for everyone just "doing his job", and saying "it's the rules" (which Germans LOVE, by the way. Hence the red pedestrian lights jokes.).

    And German cars might have had a very good rep over in the US, but here in Germany, we're so used to them, that they are just normal. So with our always-complaining German attitude, you can bet that we bitched the fuck outta them. It might look like we disliked your cars in favor of ours. But it was more like us just hating ALL the things, and you hearing more about yours.:)

    So I'm sorry to say that, but us finding our own companies sleazy lying manipulative pieces of overpriced shit with boring-as-fuck design and the personality of a chartered accountant who doesn’t even want to become a lion tamer, doesn't make American cars one bit less gas guzzlers that can't drive anywhere but in a straight line, with outdated technology and low build quality. ;)

    (We Germans are very straightforward. VERY straightforward. Doesn’t mean we don't like ya.)

    ___
    For the record: For some time, Japanese cars were considered the best in reliability and quality around here. (That time seems to have passed.)

    1. Re: VW is a Nazi company. Never forget that. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      About 7 years ago, I practically was begging to test drive a Golf GTi; the kind with the plaid red and white stripes in dark gray. I was practically saying âoeshut up and take my moneyâ! A dealership in Houston fucking shot me down without ever returning a phone call. It was like a punch to the gut after a failed 3rd time call.

      So I bought a Toyota. Fuck VW!

    2. Re: VW is a Nazi company. Never forget that. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Funny, I had the same experience trying to buy a cruze from chevy, so I got a VW instead & got more trunk space(SportsWAGON!! woo) and a nicer interior for the same price. can't beat the scandal warranty either, unlimited miles on both my bumper to bumper and powertrain.

    3. Re:VW is a Nazi company. Never forget that. by ivan935 · · Score: 1

      Utter nonsense. I think you need reminding how long the end of WWII was... coming up on 73 years. Of course things didn't magically change overnight, things like that take place over time, like the last 73 years. VW is a massive multinational company, with over 600,000 employees, the majority of them outside of Germany. The company didn't even maintain its senior management after the war, with the British running it for a few years, before it being handed over to the head of Opel. They cheated on diesel regulations because they wanted to make an extra buck, but if you want to believe they did it because they're nazis, feel free.

    4. Re:VW is a Nazi company. Never forget that. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Counterpoint : My Grandfather worked for VW during the war and he reckoned NOx was pretty harmless on the grounds that they tested some NOx gas vans and all the subjects survived.

    5. Re: VW is a Nazi company. Never forget that. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Only a true German would correctly hyphenate boring-as-fuck.

  6. Give it a rest! by AJWM · · Score: 2

    "regarding the Dieselgate scandal"

    It's been more than 45 years since the Watergate break-in. Can we give the "-gate" suffix a rest already?

    --
    -- Alastair
    1. Re:Give it a rest! by sjames · · Score: 2

      Are you trying to start gate-gate or something?

    2. Re:Give it a rest! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Awesome, now we have Nomore!gate. Thanks alot.

    3. Re:Give it a rest! by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

      Can we give the "-gate" suffix a rest already?

      Can you suggest a replacement? It is better than "scandal" because it is 3 letters shorter, plus it has a different nuance: "-gate" implies that there was a cover-up, while "scandal" does not.

    4. Re:Give it a rest! by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      It's been more than 45 years since the Watergate break-in. Can we give the "-gate" suffix a rest already?

      But it's only been about 5 years since the -gate suffix was popularised. (It wasn't watergate that did that). Also VW's dieselgate was a few years old now, and kind of in the middle of the everythinggate times.

      So no, it is called dieselgate and will be referred to as dieselgate going forward. Changing it now would just make finding information about it more difficult in the future.

    5. Re:Give it a rest! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "regarding the Dieselgate scandal"

      It's been more than 45 years since the Watergate break-in. Can we give the "-gate" suffix a rest already?

      No, what we should be doing is retro fitting the "-gate" suffix to the Watergate scandal and now calling it Watergate-gate.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vB9JgxhXW5w

    6. Re:Give it a rest! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Are you trying to start gate-gate or something?

      Gate-gate has already happened. It's another name for Plebgate.

  7. Americans gave themselves a free pass.. by thesupraman · · Score: 1

    A few of the American corps who tried to transplant euro style small diesels got caught out, but they never sold many of them.

    The thing to remember is the bulk of American Diesels are in 'trucks' (of the pickup type), and they just gave themselves a nicve fat emissions standards exemption on all of them.
    Why do you think America kept bringing in tighter and tighter rules (which mostly only applied to the euro imports)?

    Complain about Euro diesels after you start emissions testing your 6.5l supercharged petrol pickups!

  8. Germans by Tsolias · · Score: 1

    They have EU as their bitch, where they sell their useless products, and now they officially expanded corrupted tactics across seas. Don't forget EUidiots to buy German products made outside of EU... because gov backed companies like siemens-daimler-VAG-e.t.c. can and will move production outside of the "Union".
    What would have happened if the firm was Italian or Spanist or even worse from the land of the rising sun? I bet they'd offer a good deal to buy them and everything would be fine.

    1. Re: Germans by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Forgot your medicine again?

    2. Re:Germans by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      They have EU as their bitch, where they sell their useless products,

      Useless products? I'm loving my A8 Quattro. I've been driving a 300SD until now and the A8 gets damned near the same mileage, is twice as comfortable and twice as capable, and the body won't ever rust. I only regret I didn't buy a Boxster, since I don't really need back seats and I'm now moving back to the coast.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    3. Re:Germans by Tsolias · · Score: 1

      Enjoy your audisteer, then. The fact that you enjoy something, doesn't mean it's good.
      My P11-144 had problems and all of them were caused by german components, e.g. Bosch MAF sensor... and that's a problem with every car that got that Bosch sensor.
      Anyhow, Germans have learnt to build upon others' corruption.
      e.g. In Greece, you know "pay debt" e.t.c., the German government has been financing and covering corrupted executives from Deutsche Bank, Deutsche Telekom, Siemens, Daimler and other companies so as to infiltrate into the public system and make a country in-need to buy exclusively products and services.. and even worse, sell public profitable companies to German Monopolies.
      On top of that, Germany sold submarines that didn't work to their E.U. "allies" ... and the most laughable case was when the Germans sold their useless Tanks, the Leopards to the Turks, in order to genocide the Kurds. The ridiculous result was that the Leopards were completely broken, they were countered with common AT missiles and Turkey, Germany's cousin, sent them back for further improvement.
      You might say, corrupted countries get those results. No, Greece's financial "saviors", France and Germany, made Greece to buy those useless weapons from them in order to give Greece financial assistance.
      Cyprus got screwed for a few bn. Euros which is not even close what Italy had to pay only for their banks.
      Germans have been screwing the whole world. You might be happy with your reich products, just as a kid is happy with a stick and a rock. Germans have been setting the Euros standards, they have been setting the NCAP standards, they have been in the FIA FIFA and other committees and everything they touch turns to shit.
      Have you seen how superior were always the diesel german cars? Or how great the Euro X german engines are? Have you seen that some VAG X model has been the car of the year? Well all those cases have repeatedly been manipulated by Germans to favour german companies and products.
      The situation in E.U. is not even comparable to the U.S.. In E.U. you have to be competitive to each other and if you have a passive role, it seems that you will have to consume and nothing more.
      How is this related or connected to the U.S. companies? Well, be sure that there will be a case where a U.S. based company will get the same favour for it's shady business in E.U.... I just don't know if it's going to be in the form of new regulations for companies like monsanto, or something that Alphabet or Apple did.
      the aforementioned examples are easily applied in the rest of the victims of the E.U. coproration... but you have to check for Ireland, Spain, Italy, Cyprus, Island, e.t.c. separately.

    4. Re: Germans by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sure, it's all a conspiracy against the lazy...

  9. Sue them! :-) by xxxLCxxx · · Score: 2

    I can only encourage everyone to sue Volkswagen. They have a big mouth, but once push comes to shove – they prefer to keep things under the hood. They even 'settled' here in Germany, where it is almost impossible to win against a company. Needless to say that they deserve what is coming to them and more.

  10. Re:Sue them yourself! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Have you filed a lawsuit yourself? Or do you just want to encourage people to spent lots of money on a lawsuit with a highly uncertain outcome?

  11. If you want to see a documentary on the VW scandal by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Netflix has a Dirty Money series, and the first one is on the VW Diesel , walked through step by step. In addition, the testing has shown that in Europe all the cars are cheating in some way.

    You will be saddened by how much they knew and for how long it's been going on.

  12. Re:Sue them yourself! by xxxLCxxx · · Score: 1

    Have you filed a lawsuit yourself? Or do you just want to encourage people to spent lots of money on a lawsuit with a highly uncertain outcome?

    There's the big mouth. Didn't take long. *lol*

  13. Re:If you want to see a documentary on the VW scan by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Netflix has a Dirty Money series, and the first one is on the VW Diesel , walked through step by step. In addition, the testing has shown that in Europe all the cars are cheating in some way.

    You will be saddened by how much they knew and for how long it's been going on.

    You only assume I'm saddened by this. Personally, I think it was a quite ingenious way to cheat, a real life example of how "you get what you measure" in action. Had the test regime hadn't taken the easy way out, this wouldn't have been possible.

    I'm guessing that VW isn't the only ones who do this kind of thing, they just got caught by some random chance.

    This whole thing doesn't make me sad at all... It's just another round in the cat and mouse game where the government makes the rules but the manufacturers really hold all the technology cards. Innovation will be the result..

  14. Travelgate and Filegate by tepples · · Score: 1

    But it's only been about 5 years since the -gate suffix was popularised. (It wasn't watergate that did that).

    It dates back no later than 1993 with Travelgate and Filegate.