3.0 litre VW owners pushing for final settlement in the U.S.

The VW emissions scandal has been a never-ending nightmare for the car manufacturer and also for vehicle owners alike. U.K. owners continue to be refused compensation whilst U.S. owners are pushing their settlements ahead.

Following on from their epic deceit that is more formally known as “Dieselgate”, Volkswagen (VW) has agreed to a settlement in relation to the 3.0 litre diesel vehicles in the U.S. that they claimed had low levels of nitrous oxide (NOx), when that actually transpired to be completely false.

Settlement

A whopping 69% of 3.0 litre diesel owners have registered to receive benefits afforded to them under a multi-billion dollar settlement. The settlement agreement stems from VW’s emissions cheating. The agreement has yet to be approved by a California Federal Court, but vehicle owners are urging the courts to finalise the deal as quickly as possible.

VW owners have been given a deadline of two years to register under the settlement benefit agreement. Once this deadline has passed, vehicle owners will no longer be entitled to receive the benefits. The settlement will compensate vehicle owners between $1.2 billion to $4 billion (£927 million to £3 billion). This is dependent on whether VW can repair some of the affected vehicles in time.

Support from multiple agencies

As long-standing petitioners for the affected vehicle owners, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the California Air Resources Board, and the California Attorney General, have all expressed their support for the settlement agreement.

There has been an “overwhelmingly positive” reaction to the settlement, which comes as no surprise. The website that was set up to provide details of the settlement has received huge traffic with some 260,000 unique visits since it launched. According to vehicle owners, more than 98% of the affected vehicles were searched on the website.

It’s evident that the affected 3.0 litre vehicle owners are, on the whole, happy with the agreement, as 61,000 (out of 88,500) owners have registered to receive the benefits from the settlement. Only 593 opted out of the settlement agreement and 32 objected. According to owners, the 32 objections failed to comply with the requirements of the settlement.

Non-supporters of the settlement felt that the allocation of the compensation was unfair. They argued that customers should receive equal amounts of compensation or that the FTC should allocate the compensation in a methodical way. The FTC notes that one of their responsibilities is to ensure that customers are fully compensated.

Once the California District Court approves the settlement, 61,000 class members are set to benefit from the deal. It’s believed that once this settlement has been finalised, it will draw a close to the remaining claims brought by consumers and resellers against VW in the U.S.

U.K. position

This might be the case in the U.S., but we are far from drawing a close to proceedings here in the U.K. There are thousands of affected vehicle owners here in the U.K. that are left without resolution and have joined our group of claimants. We remain confident we will be able to settle case, but it will take us fighting VW possibly all the way to a trial.