Some Diesel VW Drivers Aren’t All That Happy With Dieselgate Fix
Volkswagen says they’ll see them in court.
When Volkswagen announced their fix for European cars affected by Dieselgate, they claimed that it wouldn’t affect fuel economy or engine performance. Guess what. It affected fuel economy and engine performance, according to a large group of owners.
VW has been patching cars in Europe for about a year. The 1.6- and 2.0-liter diesel engines are both getting software patches, and every 1.6-liter gets a new “flow transformer.” The flow transformer is a plastic tube placed in front of the mass airflow sensor which delivers a more precise airflow measurement to the sensor fixing the emissions problem along with the software update.
These measures are pretty customer-friendly. VW said a 2.0 takes about a half hour and a 1.6 takes about an hour to fix. Since so many cars are affected, the patches are good for getting a lot of cars fixed as fast as possible.
However, the Volkswagen Diesel Customer Forum, which has over 1,000 members, is not pleased with the patches. They’ve released a long document laying into Volkswagen AG with a list of gripes concerning performance, efficiency, and various mechanical problems with patched engines. Mechanical issues being blamed on the emissions fix include turbo failure, injection failure, excessive noise, and more.
Perhaps what’s more biting than the mechanical complaints are the personal ones made by this scathing document. It accuses Volkswagen of responding to any Dieselgate related complaint with “we have heard of no other issues from other customers who have had the update applied.” Apparently, that’s the generic response every time a complaint is raised which is pretty inherently dishonest.
As a response, Volkswagen is pretty happy with the fix and doesn’t seem concerned about the nay-sayers. In fact, VW will gladly hash out any serious complaints in court. Are the dissenters mistaken or is another Volkswagen scandal about to break?