Telegraph Article, 29/7/17

[Custard]

An article in todays Telegraph talks about German car makers facing an existential threat over diesel.

It said, "The German transport minister ordered the compulsory recall of 22,000 Porsche diesel cars on Thursday, after it emerged their engines had software fitted to cheat emissions tests."

This seems to be fast breaking news as Daimler apparently last week admitted being part of a cartel of the big five German makers operating to preserve the role of diesel engines in the face of the growing electric vehicle competition.

Another quote was,

“We feel deceived by Audi,” Uwe Hück, the chairman of the works council at Porsche, told Bild in an extraordinary outburst. “Over and over again they assured us that the engines were in order, even in writing. I can not bear all these lies anymore! I can’t say any more, or I’m going to lose it. I’m really going to lose it.”

As the new owner of a two week old Macan Diesel this is not the sort of thing I want to be reading!

[Paul]

How is it affecting you?

[Col Lamb]

Welcome.

Porsche have previously issued service bulletins or something similar to OPCs advising to update software on SDs so it is not news at all, it has been around for well over a year now that updated software would be issued.

As the USA does not have any diesel Macans and few diesel Cayennes the update has been low key, had there been more diesels in the USA there most certainly would be more uproar.

That said, we all know of the VW dieselgate saga affecting cars within the group and as the SD engine is an Audi sourced unit it really should be expected that things are rotten in Leipzig and some form of cheat software most likely exists in all VW group vehicles and I am not talking purely diesel.

[Custard]

I'm not sure it is old news Col, the Telegraph is behind a paywall so I can't link to it, but the thrust of the article is that this is a fresh wave of revelations that began to break last week.

Within the last few days German carmakers have announced new recalls on nearly 4m German cars. Apparently the German press is all over it and talking in fairly apocalyptical terms, Bild had a headline last week saying "The Beginning Of The End Of Our Car Industry".

Paul asked how it affects me? I hope not in the slightest. But as a cash buyer I'm on the hook for any depreciation, and as someone who regularly drives into London and Southampton (two cities considering diesel pollution curbs) I was banking on Porsche's Adblue and latest generation emissions rating granting me free and easy access. The subtext of the Telegraph article was, don't be so sure.

[Col Lamb]

It is old news, we all knew about the software upgrade being required last year.

[Col Lamb]

It is old news, we all knew about the software upgrade being required last year.

Certainly probably before you placed the order for your SD many of us were in the process of getting rid of our SDs.

I had one but changed to a Turbo in September last year knowing that the anti diesel issue would gather momentum.

Certainly within the last year the advice we have been giving on this forum has been to only go the SD route if you have a higher mileage and a driving journey style that avoids the DPF blockage issue that many SDs suffer from.

Meanwhile, enjoy your SD, it is still a great car and even if you become penalised with conjestion charges it is certainly easy to park outside the zone in London and use public transport. I thought that London was only free for EVs and reduced rates for Hybrids.

[Custard]

Here are a few articles from July 27th that aren't paywall protected,

Financial Times

https://www.ft.com/content/bc8dbf3c-72d ... f383b09ff9

Bloomberg

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... r-software

Autocar

https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/indu ... s-software

[Macandriver]

Saw this coming when I placed my deposit and joined a 12 month waiting list for a petrol model in October 2015. That said, the diesel is still a good car that has the same driving/handling characteristics as the petrol variant. Enjoy the car and don't worry; the UK government have already shown their views by not making the software changes compulsory.

[gasgas]

the real difference is now the german government have banned the porsche diesel engine, untill last week it was just the auto press making noises.

could be a case of mis representation of true facts, but needs a legal egal to advise.

[Dandock]

Is not one significant element of this story to do with the involvement of the German (local/national?) government in the incorporation or maybe the works council(s) of some of the companies. I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong but I understood that such a relationship applied to Porsche. Clearly if this is so the story has much wider implications.