You probably shouldn’t have bought a VW in the first place! Its no secret that we are no fan of the VW. We do however understand what people love them, why they buy them and why they were the number one selling car in recent years. That we suspect is all about to change.
In light of the recent VW diesel emissions scandal many Volkswagen owners are unsure of what to do now. Our basic advice is to keep the car. VW will be required to rectify the emission faults in the vehicles at no cost to the consumer. The payoff will most likely be a higher fuel consumption and more than likely a loss in power from the Diesel range of cars.
Having said that, we won’t know until the time comes if those payoffs are in fact accurate. It is advised to wait and see at this stage. It is incredibly unlikely that the corrections will be a huge problem for most owners and the value of the vehicle is unlikely to take a dive. For some, the mere fact that they were the victim of a scandal and directly lied to through VWs clean diesel campaign, may be enough to warrant walking away from the German manufacturer but for most I doubt this will matter.
Whilst many talk of mega fines for the company, that could sink the company we find this also to be unlikely. Talk of $18 billion fines from USA alone are only rumour at this stage, taking into account that in years past GM was directly responsible for over one hundred human deaths due to its scandal and were hit with a $0.9 billion fine, again the talked about figures are unlikely.
Will the scandal cause the company to sink, go bankrupt, go into receivership or require government bail outs? Talk from owners of both petrol and diesel VW have implied that the scandal may be so big that the company will be forced to close its doors and thus rendering spare parts for all of its makes unobtainable. This is not a realistic fear. According to some articles, the global diesel car sales for VW account for just under 20% of VW sales leaving over 80% of its global sales not involved in the scandal.If these figures are accurate or even close to accurate, VW will still have plenty of pocket money when the dust settles.
Additionally if this unlikely event did happen. The auto industry’s backbone is the aftermarket spare parts wholesalers and retailers. In the event that VW did fold, it would present an amazing opportunity for many of the worlds auto Entrepreneurs and they would snatch up the opportunities to produce and sell the required parts for VW’s. While ever there is demand, someone will be able to provide the required parts.
Overall its most unlikely that this will have any real lasting effects for the consumers and it is believed that VW will survive it all. They will have lost many fans over it and will spend the next decade re-establishing trust and honesty. If its any consolation this is not the first scandal that has threatened the VW ranks back in 2008 the company was dragged through the courts over bribery and blackmail scandals. The company bounced back from that.
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