Volkswagen to give owners a mere pittance of cash....

[dixiegrrrrl]

Volkswagen to offer owners of its smaller diesel cars $500 Visa card,
$500 voucher for services or purchases from dealers, says source.

The offers would be a gesture of goodwill to owners with 2-liter four-cylinder diesel engines that have been implicated in an emissions cheating scandal. The offers could be announced Monday.

VW has admitted that about 482,000 diesels from the 2009 to 2015 model years have software that turns on pollution controls during government tests and shuts them off on the road.

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/46c04799225f4954babd76261e1b9a0f/ap-source-vw-offer-gift-cards-vouchers-diesel-owners

So, if you spent thousands on their car, YOU get 500.00, and in your name, the dealer gets 500.00
and YOU still have to make your payments on the car????

And, most likely, that 500.00 will come with a gag order and promise not to sue Volkswagen.

Would YOU take that deal

[Renew Deal]

1. $500 isn't bad, but is VW required to fix the problem?

Is it even fixable? $500 in services at the dealer isn't nothing.

[Javaman]

2. they better fix it if they don't want anymore bad PR.

personally, I think they should fix it, give the owners cash AND set up some sort of fund to help combat climate change.

[Renew Deal]

4. Is it fixable?

That's what I've been wondering from the beginning. It doesn't sound like a software issue. The software is just set up to temporarily trick the testing equipment.

[Javaman]

5. probably a redesign of the various hardware pollution control devices and more than likely

the cat converter.

but my days breaking down and rebuilding engines are far behind me. The tech is such that my knowledge is a thing of the past. so this is just off the top of my head.

if they skated around what was actually required to meet the pollution specs, that means to me that it wasn't a cost plus effect on the engine design and tried to fake their way past it. aka they would have lost money.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

8. That depends on what you mean by "fixed".

I'd guess it may be as simple as reprogramming the engine's computer. But, I'd bet that to get the emissions down to the levels that are accepted by the tests, the power and fuel economy may be sacrificed.

VW has some ads in which people are surprised by the diesel's power. That may end.

So in some owners' eyes, the "fix" will turn out to make the engine seem "broken".

[Renew Deal]

9. That was more or less my point

I doubt they can get into compliance without hurting the car somehow.

[ryan_cats]

3. I

I admire VW for exploiting a loophole and sticking it to the man.

[Nye Bevan]

6. You do know that what they did to cheat will kill people prematurely?

Fifty-nine people in the U.S. will likely die prematurely as a result of the excess emissions allowed by Volkswagen's test-cheating software, according to a new study. If each of the nearly 500,000 offending diesel cars in the U.S. stays on the road, the death count could climb as high as 140.

That's the verdict of researchers at Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who quantified the human health impacts of the excess nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions from VW vehicles produced between 2008 and 2015. The peer-reviewed study was published Thursday in Environmental Research Letters.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/volkswagen-emissions-deaths_56337dd2e4b063179911fd1b

Are you positive that the perpetrators of this are worthy of your admiration?

[ryan_cats]

7. They absolutely

They absolutely do.

Using weasel words like 'likely' allow me to do the same so it's very likely people will live longer as a result of VW's most admirable con.

Catch 22 allows me (and VW) to get away with anything not specifically prohibited. Not to mention keeping lawyers employed writing ever longer disclaimers and ensuring each new pharmaceutical ad mentions the grizzly ways you might die if you use the product.

[Nye Bevan]

11. Defending huge corporations that cheat emissions tests so they can spew out extra pollutants?

I don't think there's any point in continuing this discussion. Have a good day.

[B Calm]

10. How much did Toyota and other companies pay for those exploding air bags?