VW admits to complaints about dieselgate software fix

Volkswagen's former UK managing director Paul Willis has told parliament’s Transport Select Committee that the company had received complaints from 28,617 owners following a software update designed to disable a an emissions cheat device.

The complaints focus on performance and economy drops since the rollout of a fix following the Dieselgate emissions cheat device scandal.

Willis insisted that the number of complaints was very small in relation to the number of cars that have had the fix applied . VW had dismissed the vast majority of the claims, although around 100 remained active.

He said: “It is important to bear in mind that the technical measures have been implemented in nearly 7.5 million vehicles across Europe and over 870,000 vehicles in the UK.

“The vast majority of customers have been satisfied and have reported no problems with the technical measures whatsoever.”

The dieselgate scandal erupted in 2015 when American testers found that certain engines featured a software device which detected when a car was undergoing laboratory testing and switched to an engine management mode that reduced NOx emissions.

The software fix applies to the VW Group’s EA189 diesel engine in 1.2-litre, 1.6-litre and 2.0-litre form built from 2007 to 2015.