Stripped-down VW vehicles may not be accepted for buybacks

Following the, some may say, ingenious idea of stripping his Volkswagen (VW) Golf to the bare bones, Joe Mayer’s precedent may be short lived. U.S. District Court Judge Charles Breyer has advised VW owners to return their vehicles for buyback with all original car parts in them.

In mid-December, Mr Mayer was due an appointment for the buyback of his Golf TDI, but was notified that his appointment had been postponed. The dealership representative proceeded to tell him that returning the vehicle in that condition, which had missing doors, seats, car bonnet etc…, “wasn’t in the spirit of the buyback”.

The TDI owner had stripped his car to the bare bones, leaving an “operable” vehicle that technically met the requirements of the recall.

Postponed appointment

There were blurred lines as to whether VW would accept Mr Mayer’s stripped-back vehicle. According to the buyback settlement requirements, the vehicles “must be operable, meaning that it can be driven on its own engine power”. The VW Group have arguably made a silly error of leaving the buyback requirement rather wide; consequently allowing room for interpretation, as we have already seen.

According to Mr Mayer, he wanted to test how far he could push the boundaries of the word “operable”, and Jalopnik reports that Mr Mayer is even willing to put the vehicle back together before he goes to the buyback appointment.

Let’s hope that is the case, as both VW attorneys and Judge Breyer aren’t best pleased with the idea of people doing this apparently…

Judge Breyer’s thoughts

At a court hearing on 22 December, a VW attorney noted that the actions of the vehicle owners “goes too far”. Judge Breyer was in agreement with this by saying:

“…clearly the purpose of the agreement by VW was to accept these cars in the condition that they were in as they were being driven on the road, and not to strip the cars.”

Judge Breyer appears to mean business, saying he’d consider further action!

Potential consequences

One can only theorise what Judge Breyer meant…

If VW owners hand vehicles back in the stripped-down states, the court may show some favour to the VW Group by giving them the power to reject buybacks of the vehicles until they’re reinstated. A second line of thought could be that the VW Group could reject buybacks altogether as stated above where a vehicle “wasn’t in the spirit of the buyback”.

There hasn’t been any further set guidance on what will happen if a vehicle is returned to VW in a stripped-down state, but I can guess it won’t be good news.

Word of advice for U.K. affected owners

If VW offers a buyback settlement with their U.K. customers, we strongly advise owners not to strip down vehicles, or alter them at all. The attorney for the U.S. Federal Trade Commission said that VW couldn’t reject buybacks based on “the vehicle’s superficial condition”, which indicates that wear and tear is acceptable, but not a strip down.

Sharing is caring!

South Korea bans sales of ten Nissan, BMW, and Porsche models

U.S. VW £54 million settlement for remaining 15,000 3.0 litre vehicles