weasley

VW did not exploit a loophole, they out-and-out cheated. The testing may be flawed in terms of its relation to reality, but the protocols under which testing is carried out are very well-established and defeat devices are explicitly forbidden. There was no loophole. The ECUs were deliberately programmed to present a ‘clean’ running condition when on a test bed - which it could easily work out by how it was being run (no steering inputs, bonnet open, very well defined acceleration and speed conditions etc) - but then revert to a more pleasing driving condition when used in real life. This meant that on the road they were nowhere near compliant with the emissions legislation they were sold as being compliant with but they did have a nicer torque curve and better fuel economy. The ‘fix’ was said to clean them up without affecting peak performance figures. This is carefully written because whilst peak power and/or torque may be the same, the shape of the curves won’t be and this affects how a car feels to drive. As soon as I heard about all this I stated that this was going to lead to issues with power, EGRs and DPFs; I’m in no way pleased to be right. I refused the fix every time it was offered to me. VW displayed an arrogance and contempt for the law and for its customers that was driven by cost-engineering - it was cheaper to cheat than to try and do it properly - or at least it was until they got caught. And yet still they fly off the shelves.

Certainly less than people may be expecting, but there is a real loss of value in terms of residuals and resale value.

So far so good. It has been confirmed by the court that VW did fit a defeat device and VW's attempt to appeal this has been dismissed. The judge has been pretty unimpressed with VW's arguments. Still no idea on when or if any actual compensation will be paid, nor how much it might be.

I seem to remember there was a maximum number of tracks it would list.

OK. First of all there's the thread where the gearbox damage was identified and rectified: Then there is the thread where I noted a judder from the car and subsequently discovered that they hadn't secured the propshaft to the gearbox properly.

Happened to me too, thankfully in warranty but the rectification work done by the Skoda dealer left the car in a lethally dangerous condition. Luckily I caught it before it killed anybody.

I came home tonight and the wife reported "I can't close the boot". Sure enough, it just bounced and pushing the 'open' button on the tailgate resulted in a brief 'drilling' sound. No amount of tapping, hitting, whacking, locking, unlocking or anything solved it. So I took the lower tailgate trim off (what a pain that is, but eased by an excellent diagram I found on this very forum) and discovered I don't have a socket suitable for getting the boot latch off. A dash to Halfords remedied that (it's a splined-drive type, but a T40 Torx undoes it) and so I got the latch off. It is a single unit comprising the latch and opening 'solenoid' which is sealed... but not sealed enough to stop me getting in! On disassembly I found that a plastic worm gear had sheared, which rendered the whole opening mechanism useless and had the unfortunate side effect of failing the latch in the 'open' state, hence the boot wouldn't shut. The 'solenoid' is actually a motor that turns a plastic worm gear; this worm gear slides a plastic.... slider.... along to pop the latch mechanism open. The motor stops when the slider reaches its limit and there is a spring that winds the gear back again when the motor stops applying torque. The drilling sound was this motor spinning the broken worm gear and grinding the broken parts together. The only solution is going to be a new latch unit... after posting this I will be trawling the 'Net for a part number and possible supplier. Failing that I'll have to call a dealer tomorrow. Until then I have managed to remove the broken worm gear, meaning the latch will close but we now can't open the boot without climbing in from the rear seats and operating the emergency unlock. At least it is secure and safe.