Volkswagen Australia confirms ‘dieselgate’ recall – UPDATE

Volkswagen Group Australia (VGA) today confirmed it would conduct a recall of vehicles fitted with the EA189 diesel engine at the centre of the ‘dieselgate’ furore. This makes VGA among the first regions confirm as much.

But owners of affected vehicles can’t yet head to their dealers to have the engines designed to cheat emissions tests adjusted, because a technical solution is not yet ready to roll, and may not be until next year.

As we know, it may require both software and hardware changes, depending on the model. 

“The relevant government authorities have been advised of this action and VGA will continue to work closely with them as it awaits further information from the head office of Volkswagen,” VGA said today.

"VGA will write to all affected customers to advise them of the next steps in the process and keep them updated. Until a technical solution is made available by Volkswagen’s head office, customers do not need to take any further action.”

It is the latest development in the scandal that has engulfed the Volkswagen Group over the past few weeks, decimated its share price and claimed the scalp of global CEO Martin Winterkorn, among others.

Earlier this week VGA announced the creation of an online tool to check if your vehicle was affected. The VGA recall will cover 83,593 Volkswagen passenger and commercial vehicles, and Skoda. These are among the roughly 11 million cars affected worldwide. 

VGA last week also suspended the sale of all 1.6- and 2.0-litre diesel vehicles in Australia fitted with EA189 diesel engines affected by defeat device engine code.

Read all our Volkswagen Group dieselgate stories here.

Volkswagen Group Australia’s managing director, John White, said: “I want to assure all customers that the affected cars are technically safe and the necessary measures will be undertaken at no cost to them.

“We will do everything we can to fix this problem and regain the trust of our customers.”

Volkswagen and SKODA customers who would like to find out if their vehicle is affected can enter their Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) via a link at: www.volkswagen.com.au, www.skoda.com.au or www.volkswagen-commercial.com.au.

Customers can also contact a dedicated number for our call centre on 1800 504 076.

Affected VGA diesel vehicles include the following. No petrol cars are affected, and those diesel cars affected are safe to drive.

Volkswagen Passenger Cars – 61,189

Skoda – 5,148

Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles – 17,256

New diesel Volkswagen Golf 7, Touareg, Amarok (post-2012), Transporter and Crafter models are currently listed as “not affected”. New diesel Skoda Octavia generation 3 models currently listed as “not affected”

Volkswagen subsidiary Audi Australia has announced it will also recall 16,085 of its vehicles caught up in the saga.