The great VW diesel scandal. Will it affect resale values?

[TheWanderer]

Is anyone here who owns a TDi now worried about their resale values after the VW emissions scandal?

 

Do you think it will affect VW group cars (of which Skoda are a part) resale values overall? 

 

I was thinking of going TDi next time around for economy reasons, but I now think I'll be staying on the petrol side of things.

 

What's your thoughts on this scandal?

 

 

[Gabbo]

In 2 weeks everyone will have forgotten about it.

 

Until there are changes to VED & Company Car Tax grouping from CO2 to N0x, I don't see the demand for diesel changing so much.

Its cheaper to tax, cheaper to run per km and the wholesale price is cheaper than petrol at the moment.

[Orville]

I think diesels which falsely sit within a lower tax band will retain higher value than those who correctly sit higher. I also cannot see the DVLA retroactively increasing CO2/NO2 emissions for registered vehicles, so it will have no direct affect on resale.

 

On the other had it may have a huge affect on new car sales if bands are bumped up a notch or two. VAG may also try to cover their costs with price increases.

 

What could become a further headache for VW is if rival brands sue for loss of income due to their illegal practices. It could end up being a never-ending pull on their resources, as with BP's oil spill.

 

One thing is for sure. Diesel is no longer the environmental choice for combustion engines, and this will affect resales due to higher future tax levies. This ball started rolling long before VW stepped on it's own toes.

 

Petrol-EV's will likely become dominant over the next decade, with full-EV taking a decade or two longer to mature.

Edited 24 September, 2015 by Orville

[decuk]

Shortly the government are going to "simplyfy" the road fund bands anyway. So there won't be as many variations as we have now. Unless they have back tracked since I read that.

[StevesTruck]

Hopefully - can't beat a cheap diesel!

[kevberlin]

In 2 weeks everyone will have forgotten about it.

 

Until there are changes to VED & Company Car Tax grouping from CO2 to N0x, I don't see the demand for diesel changing so much.

Its cheaper to tax, cheaper to run per km and the wholesale price is cheaper than petrol at the moment.

As Gabbo says........few weeks at most and it will no longer be newsworthy. It's all being hyped up at the moment. Toyota safety problems did not apparently affect the resale of their cars.

[dredge3]

This will cost VW a lot. They will try to gain it back over the following few years. Lots of companies will try claiming for this and that

[citembe]

What could become a further headache for VW is if rival brands sue for loss of income due to their illegal practices.

That is not possible. VW is not liable for that.

[Orville]

This will go on for years until full fines and settlements are payed. As well as the U.S., the EU and Asian countries may impose penalties. Competitors will file for loss of earnings and loss of market share, and many more heads will roll.

Look how long the Toyota debacle has lasted.

Edited 24 September, 2015 by Orville

[citembe]

This will go on for years until full fines and settlements are payed. As well as the U.S., the EU and Asian countries may impose penalties. Competitors will file for loss of earnings and loss of market share, and many more heads will roll.

Look how long the Toyota debacle has lasted.

Competitors cannot sue VW for losses imposed by new legislation.

[Han2u]

I.M.H.O this "VW scandal", though very bad cheat, is just the tip of the iceberg. I would be surprised if VW is there alone after more cars have undergone similar tests. Quite often different metrics, no matter what they are used for, tend to optimize themselves.

Edited 24 September, 2015 by Han2u

[Orville]

Competitors cannot sue VW for losses imposed by new legislation.

No, but they can file for lost sales caused by VW's fake results. Many consumers will have purchased VW diesels because of their greener more effciient credentials (compative to other brands). This means that other brands will have lost out on sales, and thus market share because of deliberate foul practice.

 

At a time when the world's Governments (finally including the US) are trying to reduce emissions, they cannot allow the world's biggest auto manufacturer to get away with such deceipt. They will come down on VW like a ton of bricks, and every rival will want their share of the spoils.

 

..and because they are non-American they will get dragged through the mud and be disproportionately punished. The US does not like successful foreign companies that are bigger and more successful than their own.

Edited 24 September, 2015 by Orville

[Dedders]

http://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/372671-car-values-vw-group/

[Czechers]

No, but they can file for lost sales caused by VW's fake results. Many consumers will have purchased VW diesels because of their greener more effciient credentials (compative to other brands). This means that other brands will have lost out on sales, and thus market share because of deliberate foul practice.

At a time when the world's Governments (finally including the US) are trying to reduce emissions, they cannot allow the world's biggest auto manufacturer to get away with such deceipt. They will come down on VW like a ton of bricks, and every rival will want their share of the spoils.

..and because they are non-American they will get dragged through the mud and be disproportionately punished. The US does not like successful foreign companies that are bigger and more successful than their own.

To successfully sue VW's rivals would need to prove in court that they had lost out directly as a consequence of VW's malpractice. This isn't as straightforward as it may first appear. How do you prove a customer would have bought your product instead of a rival product? If I hadn't chosen my Octy there's no certainty I'd have chosen a Vauxhall or a Renault. I may well have chosen a Ford though. But how would Ford know that? And how would Vauxhall or Renault be able to sue for it? I may well have chosen the Octy anyway regardless of it having higher emissions. It would depend on how much higher the emissions would be and if that made a big difference to taxation. It's early days at the moment and many of those questions are unanswerable for now. I'm not suggesting there won't be those that try to sue, but more than likely they'd be suing for the sake of suing rather than having a watertight case.

[Orville]

To successfully sue VW's rivals would need to prove in court that they had lost out directly as a consequence of VW's malpractice. This isn't as straightforward as it may first appear. How do you prove a customer would have bought your product instead of a rival product? If I hadn't chosen my Octy there's no certainty I'd have chosen a Vauxhall or a Renault. I may well have chosen a Ford though. But how would Ford know that? And how would Vauxhall or Renault be able to sue for it? I may well have chosen the Octy anyway regardless of it having higher emissions. It would depend on how much higher the emissions would be and if that made a big difference to taxation. It's early days at the moment and many of those questions are unanswerable for now. I'm not suggesting there won't be those that try to sue, but more than likely they'd be suing for the sake of suing rather than having a watertight case.

They may not need to go to court. Look at the BP oil spill where BP was forced to compensate anyone and everyone who could sign their names on a claim form. So far it has cost BP $45Bn and rising. BP could certainly afford the best lawyers but still got screwed. I wonder what hurts the environment most, 10m barrels of spilled crude or 11m cars producing 4 to 20x published NO2 over 8 years or so? Edited 24 September, 2015 by Orville

[classic]

Not worried, bought on a pcp, I have a contract with a final value in writing. Was intending to buy the car at end of pcp but if values are hit I'll just run the contract out, pay the excess mileage charge and walk away ☺

[Steveker]

I suspect this issue will be exposed in all manufacturers,  what is the likely fix, well in my opinion, all diesels will be recalled to re map the engines to conform with EU regulations. What will be the consequence to diesel owners, your MPG will drop to petrol equivalents, so this will make diesels very unattractive.   I have spoken to one of the lease companies and they said people are already switching to Petrol.

[harrysprout]

Looking like the honeymoon period for the oilburner is coming to an end. Seems diesel is under attack from more than one quarter. I remember when I switched back to a petrol vRS MKIII and thought I might have made a mistake after five years of a Diesel MKII having previously had a Petrol MK II vRS before that.

 

Wouldn't surprise me one bit if the arse fell out of Diesel residuals and sales now.

[decuk]

The only people that should be really upset over this are the green tree hugging groups and the government that could have taken more tax off the ones buying them.

[HarryBB]

Cars are taxed on co2 not on Nox. But it is mostly those who live in high density cities who are losing out - air quality in London is dreadful.

 

Edited 25 September, 2015 by HarryBB

[Gabbo]

For sure in the long term diesel (& petrol) is not the future for motoring.

However, technology is always advancing & diesel engines with DPF & SCR already address some of the current concerns about Nox levels.

e.g. US Nox threshold as 1/3 of the levels of european cars today so a 60% N0x reduction in Europe is achievable today.

 

As good as newer turbo-petrol engines are, they still cannot compete price per kilometer with diesel.

 

The real problem today is the governements in Europe have got the balance slightly wrong with the taxation on fuel & VED.

Its too biased towards diesel (as most are based only on C02) so company car owners & joe public will take a diesel because you get a better car cheaper even though they don't need one (low mileage users) because even over short  distances its cheaper to run.

I would expect that they will address this in the future, either through company car bands, VED or most likely additional fuel tax on diesel branded as a "Clean Air Tax".

[decuk]

In London all delivery vehicles and public transport,(except new busses and underground) are diesel anyway.

In the "frozen north" Teesside the air is fine.....

[Gabbo]

As Gabbo says........few weeks at most and it will no longer be newsworthy. It's all being hyped up at the moment. Toyota safety problems did not apparently affect the resale of their cars.

 

This is a great point to put everything in perspective.

 

The Toyota accelerator pedal & floor mat issue allegedgly killed 40 people but I'm sure people are still buying them.

[mannyo]

CAP are not expecting the value of cars to be affected all, except a short blip then all will be forgotten as mentioned already.

[fireftrm]

In London all delivery vehicles and public transport,(except new busses and underground) are diesel anyway.

In the "frozen north" Teesside the air is fine.....

Really? Have you ever travelled onto the Moors, or up the A19 and looked down on Teesside, the air is very much not fine!