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Volkswagen Messes Up Once Again, Sells Thousands Of Pre-Production Vehicles

As brilliant as the Volkswagen Group is for its synergies and all-encompassing versatiliy, the Dieselgate scandal set the tone for the past handful of years at the Wolfsburg-based automaker. After that costly PR disaster, the Germans are in hot waters again for selling in the ballpark of 6,700 unapproved vehicles to retail customers in Europe and the United States.
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The wrongdoing's interval ranges between 2006 and 2018, and just to bring the point home, pre-production vehicles are supposed to be crushed at the end of the development period. Handelsblatt reports these cars and crossovers were manufactured “before the launch of series production,” but Volkswagen chose to sell them “as new or second-hand vehicles.”

Without homologation from the motor transport authorities, the Volkswagen Group has once again ignored the letter of the law, taking the hard-earned cash from customers who have been deliberately tricked by the German automaker and the dealership network.

Volkswagen has “no knowledge of any accidents” according to Handelsblatt, which is an insult to those customers considering the audit team pointed out the issue to the higher-ups more than two years ago. Volkswagen relayed the information to the Federal Motor Transport Authority of Germany in September 2018, which goes to show that someone has been keeping quiet despite knowing the consequences that would succeed.

Der Spiegel has additional information on the matter, claiming that the audit came up with a population of up to 17,000 vehicles. Up to this point, Volkswagen confirmed the 6,700 mentioned beforehand for recall.

So how will the Wolfsburg-based automaker take responsibility for this mess-up? Over in Germany, the authorities are preparing fines in the thousands of euros per each vehicle. Other European countries and the United States will more or less mirror this procedure, but only time will tell how much Volkswagen will have to pony up for this hubris.

Even though the German media didn’t mention which models are affected, it is understood that other brands within the group aren’t affected. Last, but certainly not least, Volkswagen hasn’t publicized the recall on its official channels or media websites.
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About the author: Mircea Panait
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After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well.
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