Questions around Dieselgate and the MY13 Passat Alltrack?

[brashquido]

Hi All,

After looking through Audi Q7's, Ford Territories, VW Touareg's and Subaru Outbacks, the wife and I had finally made the decision that a MY13/MY13.5 VW Alltrack was best suited to our needs and budget in a package we liked. Mentioned this to a mate last night who said I best checkout where VW Australia stood in regards to the emissions strife they have found themselves in. I had completely forgotten about this so did a bit of googling and have only seemed to have confused the issue for me further. I have read reports claiming there is no fix yet, to the fix will effectively detuned the engine or that the emissions from the effected motors is only an issue in those areas with super tight emissions controls (such as California).

I then found the following link which is supposedly VW Australia's response to the emissions issue;

Volkswagen Australia Diesel Emissions News & Information

I checked the VINs on the Alltracks I have been looking at and have confirmed that they are effected by the NOx emissions issue. The section called "understanding the fix" appears to be claiming that aside from disabling the defeat mode in the cars software, these engines were already compliant with Euro5 standards before (which I understand is the standard Australia has used since 2013).

I guess my questions are;

1. If the "fix" for this is just to disabled the defeat mode, then are effected cars compliant with Australian emission standards without any this fix being applied?

2. If so, then why isn't this plastered all over every press release from VW Australia? After reading through the VW Australia website linked above I am not 100% clear if the effected VW Alltracks I am looking at are breeching Australian emission controls in their current state. It has me looking at other options, even though VW is the one we want.

3. If not, and all effected cars are not emissions compliant in Australia, then is there any merit to the claims that the "fix" from VW will require a detuning of the engine causing worse performance and fuel economy?

Thanks a lot for any advice you can give.

[Transporter]

Welcome to the forum. You have all your questions answered in the General section.