Yahoo Autos Here's What VW Could Do With All the TDI Cars It's Buying Back
With its $10 billion buyback settlement finally approved, Volkswagen can now begin buybacks on 485,000 emissions-cheating diesel cars. Pretty soon, VW will have a huge stockpile of cars on its hands, so what's it going to do? Many will likely be scrapped, but some could live to get sold again.
According to Green Car Reports, Volkswagen is legally permitted to do three things with the cars it buys back: "recycle" them and salvage parts for resale, export the cars for non-U.S. resale, or modify and resell them in the U.S. as used cars. What VW ends up doing depends on whether or not it can develop a fix for its emissions-cheating cars. In the U.S., a fix hasn't yet been approved, but in Europe, it's already recalling and repairing cars, thanks to the EU's more lenient emissions regulations.
Green Car Reports says most of the cars will end up getting scrapped, though. Most of the buyback encompasses 325,000 VW and Audi diesel models built between 2009 and 2014, which weren't equipped from the factory with exhaust aftertreatment systems. Bringing them into emissions compliance would require expensive, complex hardware.
In other words, don't expect to see these older models for sale in the U.S., but there's more hope for the remaining cars affected.
The 2012-2014 Passat TDI used the same engine as all the other cheating 2009-2014 VWs and Audis, but it was equipped with an exhaust aftertreament system. Since the hardware is in place, it would be much simpler to bring this car into compliance.
Finally, there's the 2015 VW Golf and Jetta, and Audi A3–these cars were equipped with a new, less-polluting engine, and the hardware for an exhaust aftertreatment system. These are likely the easiest cars to fix, but it's also the smallest group with only 67,000 affected.
If you can deal with their tainted image, a fixed VW TDI could make a great used car deal. With a fix in place, the cars probably won't perform as well as they once did, but they're pretty great otherwise. Plus, they'll probably be cheap.
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