Why are the VW, Audi, Porsche, SEAT and Skoda emissions problems worse than you think?
As you can’t help but know, the US Environmental Protection Agency is alleging that “VW developed and installed a defeat device in certain VW, Audi and Porsche light duty diesel vehicles equipped with 2.0-litre engines in cars made between 2009 and 2015 and 3.0-litre engines for model years 2014 through 2016 that increases emissions of nitrogen oxide up to nine times EPA’s standard”.
Damian Scattini at lawyers Maurice Blackburn says if you own one of these cars “you have been left with a car that isn’t what you agreed to purchase, a car that has now lost significant resale value, a car that will likely become more expensive to run as a result of the recall alterations, and a car that is damaging the environment”. Oh, that all?
Lawyer Maurice Blackburn is running a class action on behalf of 8000 local VW owners.
Lawyer Maurice Blackburn is running a class action on behalf of 8000 local VW owners.
Damo has got a class action of 8000 local owners going to try to bring truth, justice and the Australian way to the issue. If you own one of these cars, keep driving it. It’s safe as long as you don’t put your mouth over the exhaust pipe; and join the class action at mauriceblackburn.com.au/volkswagen.
But the real problem is not that VW allegedly tricked the testers with technology. No, the real problem is the particles. The stuff that comes out the exhaust pipe of your family diesel is “a complex mixture of gases and fine particles”. The particles are super small so can go deep into your lungs and can cause lung and bladder cancer, both of which are not all that good for you.
The California EPA has been hot on this since 1998 and in fact stopped the big truck manufacturers using a similar technology to the one now used by VW. This story has a long way to run.
Talking of stories and other neat segues: a new book, And On That Bombshell: Inside the Madness and Genius of Top Gear by the series’ former script editor Richard Porter, lays out the history of what became the world’s most watched (350 million viewers) reality TV show.
Perry was there near the beginning, there when they came up with the idea of the non-talking black-suited racing driver, and there when they decided to call him the Gimp after the leather-clad servant in Pulp Fiction who shoved a ball in Bruce Willis’s mouth and, together with his master Zed, was going to, well this is a family newspaper, have his way with Bruce and Ving Rhames.
The folks at the top of the BBC didn’t think that was all that good an idea. So Jeremy decided to call the tame racing driver The Stig after what he called new boys at his old school. Of course the first Stig was the unluckiest driver in F1, Perry McCarthy.
Some say he tried to assault Bruce Willis. All we know is he’s called…The Gimp?
Talking of other stories: next month Bonhams is selling the two-millionth Land Rover built. Now this is probably not as special (or costly) as the fifth Ferrari built but the special build by an all-star cast of guests including Bear Grylls will guarantee a decent resale. Of course Land Rovers or Defenders are not my favourite cars but for a certain kind of Sunrise presenter or adventurer they have a fatal, if flawed, attraction. I am of an age where I remember the old cockies’ expression: “Use a Land Rover to go into the outback and use a Toyota to come back.” Today you might use a Mazda BT 50 as well.
