Cars / Cars and Bikes

Porsche, Audi and VW expand sales freeze

On the heels of the Porsche Cayenne sales freeze, Volkswagen and Audi announced a new freeze in sales of diesel car models in the United States.

Nov 05, 2015 | By AFP Relaxnews

The outlook for Volkswagen Group and its brands continues to dim as Audi and Porsche joined Volkswagen in announcing sales freezes. Volkswagen and its Audi unit froze sales of diesel car models in the United States November 5 after fresh accusations on the use of software that cheats on emissions tests.

The move came after another Volkswagen unit, Porsche, halted sales of its Cayenne diesel sport utility vehicles following the new allegations from the Environmental Protection Agency. These moves appear unrelated to the Bentley recall announced earlier; Bentley is a Volkswagen unit.

The EPA said Monday that VW, Audi and Porsche cars with 3.0 liter diesel engines were equipped with illegal “defeat devices” which cover up excessive emissions of poisonous gases when the vehicles undergo pollution testing.

Prior to that the company had admitted only that its 2.0 liter diesel engines had defeat devices, and following the EPA’s announcement Volkswagen denied the larger engines were similarly equipped.

The new sales freeze covers diesel VW Touaregs, Audi A6, A7 and A8s, and Q5 and Q7s, all from the 2014-2016 model years.

“We are just being more proactive,” said Audi spokesman Bradley Sterz.

“The difference here is that we are not entirely clear on what data the agency used to come out with this notice of violation. We want to understand how the regulator made its conclusions.”

While we anticipate more bad news from Volkswagen, it is worth remembering that many of the models share platforms, across brands that also includes Lamborghini. It is unsurprising that problems with one platform will affect multiple models across multiple brands.


 
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