Volkswagen to recall 4.6 lakh cars in 2016

Volkswagen will be recalling another 4,60,000 cars equipped with 1.2 TDI diesel engine, said the Wolfsburg-based giant on Sunday after the German regulatory authority KBA approved it. KBA approves new vehicle types, vehicle parts, product safety and recalls vehicles if necessary. And approval has been passed by KBA, valid for countries throughout Europe.

Currently, KBA has approved the 1.2-litre diesel engines (EA189) for a software update, which is incorporated in the Polo, Skoda Fabia and Volkswagen subsidiary Seat’s Ibiza hatchback. VW’s 1.6-litre engine is also in line to get the software update along with a mesh to be installed near the air filter. The cheat software was not just restricted to the 2-litre TDIs but the smaller diesels as well, and is now impacting the VW groups in markets where the smaller cars are more popular than the Jetta.

KBA promises that this approval will not affect the current performance, economy or noise of the tweaked cars, while VW has confirmed that the vehicles pending tweaks remain safe to drive. The owners of the affected vehicle will be intimated via letter, after which they will have to take an appointment with a local dealer and get the update done, free of charge. The procedure should take 30 to 60 minutes.

VW’s 1.6-litre TDI engine from the same EA189 engine family awaits approval from KBA which includes both, hardware and software changes.

The number of VWcars gone in for repair now stands at over 5 million, whereas the total number of diesel cars affected are 8.5 million, with VW’s hardware and software testing in the US still pending for over 4,75,000 cars.

We are not yet sure about the after effects of this new development on the VW cars being sold in India but the 1.2 TDI was on sale here before the 1.5-litre engines were introduced so the older cars with these engines could come under the recall.

Source: Reuters