VW has announced it will not pay compensation to the owners of diesel cars carrying ‘cheat’ software, despite VW US offering a $1000 goodwill package.

VOLKSWAGEN OWNERS in Europe, and likely here in Australia, will not receive financial compensation for buying a diesel car with ‘cheat’ software. And that’s a different approach to the US, where Volkswagen US announced last week it would provide a goodwill package ($1000) to owners in the US and Canada.

Volkswagen Group said it would tailor a number of packages to ensure that owners of affected diesel cars are recalled to have a ‘fix’ applied to make the engines compliant with type approval regulations.

The compensation will only be paid to US and Canadian buyers, Volkswagen said, because diesel costs more than in Europe where buyers receive tax benefits and more than half of all new cars sold are diesel. In the US, diesel is billed as a niche technology and that the affected cars were claimed to be ‘clean diesel’.

Volkswagen is also claiming that because it’s on the cusp of a fix, European owners will be less inconvenienced by the recall. It said that VW US is at a less advanced stage. That said, the giant automaker believes it will have a global solution sorted out by the end of this month (November) or the middle of December at the latest.

Opinion: Here in Australia, and I write this as the owner of an affected Skoda Octavia, there has been almost zero communication despite a letter arriving last week apologising for the unfortunate situation. So, which way will VW Group Australia go, towards the US and offer compensation to owners, or the way of Europe and simply pay for the recall work? I’m leaning towards the latter and for no other reason than that’s what was hinted in the letter I received.

But, is that good enough? And I mean, what affect will all this have on the value of my car? If the value drops even $1000 because of this then surely compensation should be paid. Or will the class actions be able to push for deception by Volkswagen, as Volkswagen US has admitted to and will thus compensate owners. If the prediction of a solution by the end of the month is true, we won’t have long to wait to find out.

And let’s not forget, Volkswagen said: