Will a ‘Goodwill Package’ Win Back Angry VW Owners?

The offer announced Monday is a gesture of goodwill to 482,000 owners of cars whose 2-liter four-cylinder diesel engines have been implicated in the growing scandal, the company said.

Since September, the manufacturer has been the subject of investigations by United States federal authorities after tests revealed that a few of its models with two-liter engine diesel engines were equipped with software to reduce their harmful emissions when undergoing mandatory testing pollution.

VW also said it continues to discuss potential remedies with US and California emissions regulators, including the possibility that a few of the affected cars could be bought back from customers. Volkswagen later acknowledged that the company installed the software on almost 11 million vehicles world-wide.

According to the automaker, those who opt for this VW-sponsored program are not giving up their rights to sue for damage.

Volkswagen’s disclosure that it had underreported carbon dioxide emissions affecting a possible 800,000 cars across Europe was prompted by an internal whistle-blower, the company announced on Sunday.

The paper said VW engineers tampered with tire pressure and mixed diesel with their motor oil to make them use less fuel, a deception that began in 2013 and carried on until the spring of this year.

“We can’t punish someone who has taken such a courageous step”, said a top VW official to Blid am Sonntag. But once those cars were out on the road, they spewed out more than 40 times the allowable limits of nitrous oxide.

Volkswagen will notify owners starting Monday; Audi will launch its program Friday. They will then need to show up at a Volkswagen dealership, with their auto, ID, goodwill package and proof of ownership, to have the cards and roadside assistance service activated. (TDI stands for “turbocharged direct injection”, the diesel engine technology developed by VW). The new gift card offer comes with “no strings attached” and won’t prevent drivers from continuing with lawsuits, a spokesperson at Volkswagen told the Associated Press. Citing information from the company, the ministry said that of the 2.4 million vehicles affected in Germany, just 540,000 would require a complicated hardware fix.

The agency appears to have been caught off guard by VW’s emissions-cheating system, which appears to have allowed non-compliant diesel vehicles to be certified for years before the problems were discovered by West Virginia University researchers and the global Council on Clean Transportation.