VW Expands “Goodwill Package” To Include 3-Liter Vehicles That Evade Emissions Standards

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Back in November, Volkswagen announced a “goodwill package” of cash and credit intended to placate some owners of supposed “clean diesel” cars that were rigged to cheat emissions tests. Now the company is expanding this offer to include owners of 3-liter diesel cars from VW, Audi, and Porsche.

Consumerist reader Rob brought the recent expansion of the goodwill package to our attention after his wife received the offer from VW in an email.

“In December, my wife went to [VW’s] website and signed up to be notified of any developments,” Rob, who owns a 2011 VW Touareg, writes in an email. “Yesterday, we got an offer in the email that sounds about the same as the one they made to owners of the [3-liter] diesels: $1000 split between dealer credit and a prepaid Visa loyalty card.”

Originally, the program – which offers the payments in two ways: a $500 Visa prepaid card to be used however the customer desires, and $500 in credits toward a VW purchase and three years of free roadside assistance – applied only to certain Jetta, Jetta Sportwagen, Beetle, Beetle Convertible, Audi A3, Golf, Golf Sportwagen, and Passat vehicles.

According to VW’s website, the company recently added goodwill package eligibility to the owners of the 2015-2016 VW Touareg, the 2014-2016 Porsche Cayenne, and the 2015-2016 Audi A6 Quattro, A7 Quattro, A8, A8L, and Q5.

The carmaker admitted in November that those vehicles also included a “sophisticated software algorithm” programmed to detect when the car is undergoing official emissions testing, and to only turn on full emissions control systems – the temperature conditioning mode – during that testing.

While Rob tells Consumerist he’s glad the additional vehicles were added to the goodwill package, he would have liked to have been offered a package that takes into account that the Touareg and others are larger vehicles than those first eligible under the goodwill package.

We reached out to VW about whether or not the company considered creating a goodwill package that reflects the cost of the additional vehicles. We’ll update this post when we hear back.

by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist