The Breakdown: getting your head around the Volkswagen scandal

6 October, 2015

We’d all love to be able to pick up the newspaper every morning and have a leisurely read with a cup of coffee and our bowl of weetbix, and of course we’d love to explore some of those headline stories in a bit more depth — but who’s got that much free time? Here at The Motorhood, we do the time-consuming hard yards and delve deeper into the goings on around the world to bring you the essential pieces of information from the big news stories so you can be informed and contribute towards the chats during smoko or around the watercooler.

The big topic that’s been a focal point since September is the Volkswagen emission cheating debacle — and we get back to basics so you can absorb the essential details.

What’s the deal?

Well, back in early September 2015, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) presented Volkswagen with a Notice of Violation, alleging that the company included software in their diesel vehicles (in models from 2009–’15) that would allow the vehicles to pass the test that the EPA has in place to ensure vehicles are abiding by the emission standards.

Volkswagon have admitted to this, saying that there are 11 million vehicles worldwide that have the software, dubbed the ‘defeat device’, incorporated into the vehicle.

How does the ‘defeat device’ work?

It’s not something that can just be turned off as the EPA says that it “is embedded into the software code that runs the engine control computer”. It’s a program that recognizes if the car is being driven under test conditions and will perform in a way that will pass the EPA emissions test requirements.

Could this affect me?

According to Volkswagen New Zealand’s website, six per cent of the 75,000 Volkswagen vehicles on New Zealand roads are affected by the software — it’s been confirmed by Volkswagen AG in Germany that a total of 4639 vehicles in New Zealand are affected.

The specific models included in this are the four-cylinder TDI diesel Volkswagens including:

2009–’15 Tiguan 2.0 TDI (1411 vehicles)
2009–’15 Passat B7(1357 vehicles) — this excludes the new Passat B8 launched in May 2015
2009–’13 Golf 1.6 TDI and 2.0 TDI (680 vehicles) — this excludes the new Golf 7 launched in February 2013
2011–’15 Caddy 1.6 TDI (312 vehicles)
2011 Polo 1.6 TDI (2 vehicles)
2013 Sharan 2.0 TDI (2 vehicles)
2011 Touran 2.0 TDI (1 vehicle)
2011–’12 Amarok 2.0 TDI 90kW and 120kW (874 vehicles) — excludes current Amarok 132kW TDI.

If you think that your car may be affected, you can check to see for yourself on Volkswagen’s website where there is now an area to enter your vehicle identification number (VIN). The website can be found here.

How did it happen?

The Wall Street Journal said that there are two Volkswagen engineers that are being investigated closely — Ulrich Hackenberg and Wolfgang Hatz. They were among the engineers suspended when the investigation came to light. It is suggested that the engineers discovered they were unable to produce the clean diesel engine for the US market and created the software to mask the emissions when undergoing tests.

What’s happening next?

The German Volkswagen team are currently exploring technical solutions and will be presenting their action plan to correct the emission output before the end of October 2015.

Racing Mazdas

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Both Rod Millen and Ron Kendall were rotary racing kings, emanating from the North Shore of Auckland, where I grew up. And the ultimate rotary techno guru was Bill Shiells, who developed the engine into a rocket ship while working out of Gulf Mazda in Takapuna from 1969, and later in his own business, Rotorsport. He began to extract some phenomenal horsepower from the enigmatic rotary engine. Bill was one of the first to race the Mazda RX-2 Coupe in 1971 and achieved immediate success, causing others to sit up and take notice, particularly the North Shore’s racing elite. They included Robbie Francevic, Rod Millen, Ron Kendall, John Woolf, John Le Feuvre, and Rex Findlay.

Range Rover CSK — the original SUV

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The Range Rover, thanks to Charles Spencer King, went into production in 1970 boasting an iconic shape that would last until 1996. The vehicle that would create the SUV moniker came about because Rover decided it was time to add a bigger four-wheel-drive vehicle, one with a 100-inch wheelbase, to the model range. Land Rover made a 109-inch wheelbase model but the standard vehicle had a 88-inch wheelbase.
The new model would be more suitable for road use than the existing Land Rover, which was considered to be predominantly for rural use. To make sure it could cope on any road it came standard with the Rover 3.5-litre V8 engine. The body design was originally sketched by King and went into production with only a few minor touch-ups by the Rover styling team.
According to King, “The idea was to combine the comfort and on-road ability of a Rover saloon with the off-road ability of a Land Rover. Nobody was doing it.”