Volvo "dieselgate"
 

Has anyone looked into this?

https://www.leighday.co.uk/latest-up...CHfbvG1auGmeEA

I just saw it on FB and wondered what the general feeling was amongst the Forum members

Cheers

Dave

Ambulance chasing. I'd like to see some evidence they've done anything wrong before they tempt me to go along on their fishing expedition. At the moment the accusations appear unsubstantiated, and are being denied.

To be honest though, if I were that worried about emissions then I wouldn't have bought 3 x 2.2 tonne diesel SUVs in succession.

^^^^ agree with that! LOL.

(Copy of a post I did in the Lounge a few weeks ago)

It's a "Class Action" attempt by a growing population of the legal profession who aren't interested in honesty or people's well being.

The process is simple in practice, if a large corporation did something which "injured" a large number of people (physically or financially) by joining a "class-action" claim the matter is dealt with by the courts as a whole rather than each claimant having to start their own claim, deal with the court themselves and the courts having to assess each individual claim.

The first step the solicitors have to do is amass a list of "opt-in" claimants - those people who may have a case. The do this with sponsored ads on Facebook and other social media, it's relatively cheap to do that and in many cases they will actually make some money in the process through clickable ads on their own website...

Once they have gathered a number of people - say 500,000 Volvo owners, they can go through the process to start the class action claim, even though the likelihood of a successful outcome might be very low. In the process of that they will likely ask for what would seem a small administration fee from the claimants - say £35. If just half of they 500,000 pay that, it's nearly 9 million quid. They then go to court, if they lose they'll keep the change, if they win the claimants will get a share of the winnings net of even more deductions for expensive fees and lunches.

The ads are just laughable clickbait - I went onto a Vauxhall one this week and put the registration number of my compact tractor in and it said I could be due compensation...

Class actions are a good thing when it comes to situations like people harmed by working in industry which damaged their health or drugs with harmful side effects that were not declared, but the problem is it is now mostly abused by shyster legal firms. The ads on social medial are suggesting that car owners could get up to £10,000 compensation when really I don't think there is a single car owner of any vehicle (even if fitted with "cheat" software) that could substantiate they suffered losses remotely near to that value (remember class actions are about compensating individuals' losses - it's not usually about punitive fines and other sanctions). If you read the classified ads the diesel scandals don't seem to have dented re-sale values of cars, which I think would be the main feature of any claim.

Where you ever mis-sold PPI? Well now you might have been mis-sold TDI. My Facebook feed is now poisoned with these ads for owners of Mercedes, Volvo, Audi, Vauxhall etc. It's 99% a legalised scam as the firms are pressing on with it and the chances of anyone getting anything are very remote.

I have not read or seen a single piece of evidence that Volvo ever "cheated" the emissions testing.

My daily workhorse is a Seat Exeo, which is one of the affected VAG models. This all aoriginally when VAG were identified as deliberately installing software to reduce the engines emissions under test conditions. VAG in other countries have been made to give compensation/ buy back vehicles but for some reason are fighting it in the UK. As far as I'm aware the XC90 doesnt have this 'cheat device' fitted to reduce emissions under test conditions, or have I missed some news?

I'm not seeing much evidence that VAG's 'dieselgate' scandal has done them much harm. Shame really, seeing how it did so much to undermine the public's confidence in diesels.

It cost VW Group 30 billion dollars in fines and compensation in the America alone, against an annual worldwide profit in the region of 10 billion dollars (from a turnover around 229 billion - margins are slim).

Its estimated by some pundits that when all this is eventually resolved it will have wiped out a decade of profits worldwide, so its done them a lot of harm.

The company were responsible for the murder of hundreds of babies born to slave labour in WWII, but then lied about this right up until the 1990's. The VW Group board did not come clean until 1996, by which time most of the survivors had conveniently died and the compensation bill was conveniently minimised. They then more recently get caught out with dieselegate, estimated to be responsible for 5000 air pollution related deaths every year in Europe alone.

Why anyone would buy a car from a company with an 80 year history of death and deceit is anyone's guess. One of the nice things about Volvo is they have never been proven to be emissions cheats (accusations have emerged, but no actual proof has been forthcoming and Volvo continue to deny it), didn't make weapons or vehicles for fascists, and didn't murder children.

This is a fabrication or at best, stretching the point.

In 1945,Volkswagenwerk was bankrupt and facing total dismantling until rescued by Allied intervention. Today's Volkswagen did not really exist until 1948, when founded as a trust. If you're going to blame its post-war people for things in which they did not take part and/or over which they had no control, why not start with Major Ivan Hirst?


(which would be equally as silly)

That is often trotted out by VW fanbois and apologists, but the law says otherwise.

VW Group AG is a legal continuation of the original organisation, and can trace its contiguous ownership and management back to the the years precceding WW2. The very first sentence says it all...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen

The company was indeed rescued by Major Ivan Hirst and almost certainly would have faltered without his intervention, but was never legally owned by either him or the British government. The company has changed legal status and form over they decades, but there is direct and traceable legal continuity from one end of its history to the other.

That VW Group eventually paid compensation in the 1990's is a matter of public record. Why did they pay out tens of millions of Euros is, as you say, there is no legal continuity between the organisations? Clearly VW Group did not think itmsilly, and ducked, dived, dodged and lied about it until 1996, before eventually making an admission.

They lied. So not only did those acts taken place during the war, but the board of the modern company saw fit to lie about it, only coming clean when the weight of evidence against them was such that they were, frankly, looking very silly with their persistent denials. These are senior board members from modern times, lying about murder and death, not the actions of people that occurred 8 decades remote in time.

Indeed, as recently as 2019 the VW chief executive, Herbert Diess, thought it appropriate to quip, "Arbeit Macht Frei" at a company event when referencing the organisations profits. This translates as "Work Sets You Free", the words set in wrought iron over the gates at Dachau. It's clear they have not learned any humilty, and are unrepentant about the organisations history.

And your assertion also conveniently overlooks the estimated 5000 annual additional deaths in Europe from air pollution that VW's deliberate failure to adhere to emissions laws is believed to have caused. If anyone else killed 5000 people a year in Europe you'd be baying for blood, yet here you are sticking up for them. Strange.

Oh, dear!