VW buyback

Looks like they are announcing the deal tomorrow for the VW TDI buyback. Sounds like they are going to offer the pre-scandal blue book price, plus somewhere between $5-10k cash on top to each owner willing to trade it in.

VW gets until 2018 to formulate a fix if possible.

Total cost in buyback and fees estimated at $15B, and that's just the U.S. market.

I thought about going out and buying discounted diesels under the gamble that something like this would happen. Coulda woulda shoulda.

I wonder if cars have to be stock to turn them in. If pre buyback price plus $5-10k I'll have driven for 90k miles and two years for free. I wonder how long we have for the deal?

So, a Mini-Market is suddenly created. Un-modified engines are probably safest.

How and when do they set the "pre-scandal blue book" price, I wonder.

PMRacing wrote: I wonder if cars have to be stock to turn them in. If pre buyback price plus $5-10k I'll have driven for 90k miles and two years for free. I wonder how long we have for the deal?

Same boat. Only have 72k on it in two years..... I just want to break even on the deal, still have 17k owed.

As soon as it's announced, I'm turning it in even though they say everyone is allowed to buyback doesn't mean they won't change the rules midstream with verbiage already in place....

So what do you think? Will there be a poop pile of TDIs available in a month? Can VW resell them after the buy back?

Sultan wrote: So what do you think? Will there be a poop pile of TDIs available in a month? Can VW resell them after the buy back?

Yes, but only to foreign markets like South Africa.

I will be first in line for the buy back, can't wait to get rid of this car! I listed mine for sale last year the week before the scandal news broke in preparation for our family growing and have been stuck with it ever since.

I also wonder if they'll restrict the "pre-scandal" price reimbursement to those who have owned cars since before the scandal hit, to limit profiteers?

They sure went after VW pretty hard for selling what amounts to clean cars that have not been shown to have injured or harmed anyone and seem to be a lot easier on Takata and the OEMs that installed the airbags that actually kill people. The whole scandal makes me wonder what is the actual motive of our government. It is clearly not about the safety of the public or the protection of the environment.

In reply to T.J.:

They are not clean- so the environment was harmed as was health, and there was shown to be a intent to cheat from the get go.

Remember, the actual emissions were more than 10x the standard they were going for. Up to 30x at times, IIRC.

I'll be curious what it does to prices in the used tdi market..

In reply to T.J.:

Additionally; VW is being handled by EPA, Takata is DOT/NHTSA. Also, VW built a cheat in flagrant offense to the laws, Takata made something shoddily and didnt move quickly enough to correct it (which, to be fair is also against the law).

mrjre42 wrote: I'll be curious what it does to prices in the used tdi market..

Theoretically- the price of used legal diesels will go up, quite a bit. The entire diesel market will lose 300,000 cars. Most of them under 10 years old- which is the heart of vehicle lifetimes.

Yes, I realize VW cheated intentionally, but even at 30x the limits are these cars not less polluting than most cars on the road? They would've been considered clean cars what, 10 years ago?

This is not about pollution or the environment. It is punishment for not following the rules. Seems like a vindictive childish response to me. It's not like they actually broke a law. They broke some EPA rules which are not really laws since the do not come from the Legislative branch, but are just invented by the Executive branch. Just seems silly and petulant to me. If I was at Ford and followed the rules I would be upset at VW for not following them too, but don't pretend this is about pollution or clean air when it is clearly not.

EDIT: I didn't go and look up the facts and I may be talking out of my ass here. The above is just my opinion and it may be terribly wrong.

T.J. wrote: Yes, I realize VW cheated intentionally, but even at 30x the limits are these cars not less polluting than most cars on the road? They would've been considered clean cars what, 10 years ago? This is not about pollution or the environment. It is punishment for not following the rules. Seems like a vindictive childish response to me. It's not like they actually broke a law. They broke some EPA rules which are not really laws since the do not come from the Legislative branch, but are just invented by the Executive branch. Just seems silly and petulent to me. If I was at Ford and followed the rules I would be upset at VW for not following them too, but don't pretend this is about pollution or clean air when it is clearly not.

For me it is. I thought VW had one thing going for them. They lied to me, and everyone out there, and hurt our lungs doing it. They knowingly made my health worse than they told me they would. And that isn't even mentioning the whole greenhouse gas thing.

Besides, turn it like this: If I was a doctor and made a mistake, 1 time, and killed 1 person on the operating table, that is awful. It happens. If I kill 30 people? That is only 30 times worse, right? Not a big deal...

I know it seems like a ridiculous analogy--and it is a little extreme--but VW has impacted the health of millions if not billions of people, and they fully intended to do so.

T.J. wrote: If I was at Ford and followed the rules I would be upset at VW for not following them too

Now that would be childish

In reply to T.J.:

You are talking out of your ass. Go look up the facts.

T.J. wrote: Yes, I realize VW cheated intentionally, but even at 30x the limits are these cars not less polluting than most cars on the road? They would've been considered clean cars what, 10 years ago? This is not about pollution or the environment. It is punishment for not following the rules. Seems like a vindictive childish response to me. It's not like they actually broke a law. They broke some EPA rules which are not really laws since the do not come from the Legislative branch, but are just invented by the Executive branch. Just seems silly and petulant to me. If I was at Ford and followed the rules I would be upset at VW for not following them too, but don't pretend this is about pollution or clean air when it is clearly not. EDIT: I didn't go and look up the facts and I may be talking out of my ass here. The above is just my opinion and it may be terribly wrong.

No, they were emitting closer to 40 years ago cars. These cars are from 10 years ago, and were 10-30x the standard back then, not today. The data I saw, they are not much better than a car without catalysts on it- and that came across the board in the early 80's.

And they DID break a law. The Clean Air Act is a law, not a set of rules. That's why the option of criminal charges exist. All of the EPA laws do come from Congress, are signed by the President, and stand up the court challenges.

It's about the environment and about the law.

I looked at the history of the EPA standards. It looks like the VWs would fall to be about where cars were required to be prior to 1990 or so if we go with 1 g/mi or back to the 70's if we go with 2.4 g/mi. (The WVU testing came up with 0.61 - 1.5 g/km or about 1 - 2.4 g/mi.)

Can you show me an actual victim? If millions and millions of peoples health has been impacted, then it should be easy to show me one person who is an actual victim.

If VW has damaged millions and millions of peoples health, then how are you not for a mandated cash for clunkers type deal that crushed every car made before 2004 when the tier 4 standards came into effect? Why is it ok to roll coal in a brodozer? This is what I am talking about. This is not about the actual emissions or harm to people or the environment. This is all about payback for making the EPA look like idiots.

I am not defending VW here. I am glad they were caught and don't like cheaters. but the hypocrisy of this whole situation is just plain silly.

I think the clean air act tells the EPA to set some limits, but the limits are not the actual law. They are what the EPA decides they are. That is what I mean when I say these limits are not truly a law. They are an executive branch created rule. Either way, lets crush all vehicles older than 2004. It's for the children.

I would rather the government worry about the at least 10 people who have been killed by airbag shrapnel and maybe do something to stop the defective air bags from still being sold in new cars instead of worrying about fictional or imagined potential harm. Takata knew they had a potentially deadly device back on 2004 and they have been killing people since.

VW cheated, got caught, has to pay the piper now, end of story.

But on the grand scale, even at 40x the limit, how much of an impact does it really have in the environment of 500k vehicles over 10 yrs when 10 million vehicles, roughly a million a year last time I looked at any production figures, were produced over that same timeframe? We can quote whatever other hit button topic for facts and find out the numbers don't lie, they all mean jacksquat, or in much simpler terms aren't even a bump, to the overall number. Same principle here....

Now, go out live your life, help others, and quit being offended at every little thing that can bother you. Make American great again.

In reply to Ranger50:

That is pretty much my point minus the campaign slogan.

In reply to T.J.:

VW has actively defrauded investors, consumers, and the general public. They knowingly did it, even though the profits gained came at the cost of increased pollution and yes, health effects for millions.

If you don't believe in penalizing a company for this, then there's really very little a company can do to be penalized.

In reply to T.J.:

It's not legal to roll coal. But it's up to the states to regulate that. It's not legal for companies to sell stuff across state lines that allow that to happen, too. They all run a risk of being caught up into that.

As for old cars- the laws says that if a car was legal to sell when it was sold- it will always be that way. Some states do require that the cars be maintained to a much higher standards than others. To the point were cars do end up being taken off the road.

And I don't understand why you think the standards are rules and not laws. They are laws, and every OEM has to meet them, else they face known penalties- which can be both financial and civil penalties. Congress gave the EPA that power to set those standards with laws that back them up. All the OEM's have agreed to that, too. EPA and CARB, as well- every OEM is included in new emissions laws.

The rate that cars are taken off the road is pretty well known- of the ~300M cars on the road, a very small percentage of those are from the 70's or earlier, and the percentage gets higher and higher the newer the car. So as time goes on, the air quality gets better and better.

I also don't understand the thinking that nobody was harmed in this. There are plenty of studies out there that track both environmental as well as personal health effects from the gasses that cars produce. Increase it, and there's a predictable impact on life spans and health issues that tracks quite well. All of which has an impact on your healthcare costs.

But if you don't want to believe that, that's fine. VW does, and is paying the penalty for cheating that specific system. Takata is still figuring out their penalty for their issues.

And as far as health goes, yes it's very hard to point to one person and one Volkswagen and show causation. I could quote studies nonstop about the effects of tailpipe emissions on things like Lung Cancer rates, asthma exacerbation and deaths, and on and on. I work in this field, and I see the effects firsthand. I don't think there are many people out there that would dispute that the Clean Air Act and ensuing EPA regulations have made the air better since the 1970s. The point is continual improvement over time in air quality.

If we allowed VW to circumvent the rules governing pollutants, where would that stop?