The South Korean Government has announced it will fine Nissan and has ordered the recall of more than 800 new Nissan Qashqais sold in Korea after it claims tests revealed the presence of an emissions defeat device.

THE SOUTH KOREAN Government tested 20 different vehicles in the wake of the Volkswagen diesel gate affair and claims that the recently launched Nissan Qashqai contains a defeat device that turns off its emissions management gear under regular driving temperatures. The Japanese car maker has denied the allegation.

The claim comes a little more than a week after Nissan blew the whistle on Mitsubishi manipulating fuel consumption figures, but this claim, if true, is more serious than Mitsubishi’s error. The South Korean ministry for the environment said it would issue Nissan with a USD$279,920 fine and order the recall of the 814 Qashqais so far sold in South Korea… it is also looking into this car’s predecessor which ran a Euro 5 compliant diesel engine (the new car runs a Euro 6 engine).

“Nissan has not and does not employ illegal defeat or cheat devices in any of the cars that we make,” the carmaker said in a statement. “Following stringent testing and using similar standards to the Korean tests, EU authorities have concluded that Nissan vehicles they tested used no illegal defeat device.”

Nissan now has 100 days to dispute the charges.