skiahh

C'mon, guys, really? On average this is a pretty smart bunch; I can't believe the thread is heading in this direction and that there is even a passing belief that an unapproved and unauthorized (by the vehicle owner) is being applied to vehicles with no further notification when picked up.

Let me be clear: IT'S NOT!

Why can I say that with 99.9999999% certainty?

1. The fix is NOT APPROVED yet, so applying it would just compound Porsche's problems should the fix ultimately fail. And, Porsche installing an unapproved fix "in the wild" would just make the EPA and CARB that much more pissed and a final solution that much more difficult.

2. These are not Porsche owned cars and, while some fixes can be mandated by the gubment, YOU STILL HAVE TO BE TOLD what was done to your vehicle. So far, I haven't heard anyone say their service folks told them a fix was applied.

3. As for driving the MPG claims, I suspect those are like adding synthetic oil for the first time or other minor changes. You "feel" you got a slight bump in performance, and voila... there it is. In this case, we're all skeptical about a fix not reducing MPG and now you think some mysterious fix was applied, so you see your mileage decrease. Maybe it did for some other reason, but not this mythical diesel fix.

This group is better than that... if you want to dive into conspiracy theories, head on over to http://www.abovetopsecret.com/

visitador

Conspiracy or not, we know that VW previously applied fixes to the 2.0 engines without telling the owners the real reason. So it is reasonable to be suspicious.

I was reading today the news of the lawsuit brought by New York and other states. Fingers are pointing to the time Audi started to develop the 3.0 engine in 2009. It claims that the defeat software was disguised as acoustic software. If so, maybe the 3.0 engine is the test base of all the cheating.

Searcher356

From my earlier quote, pasted below - These cars are not Customer Cars, so perhaps it is as I posted: that Porsche or VW is taking cars and applying remedies as demonstration units. That would accelerate the timeline from having to wait for a settlement before the engineers go to work.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Searcher356
Last week I dropped off our '15 CD for oil change and miscellaneous. I expected a CD loaner as usual, from the Dealer's fleet of Sale-Stopped CDs.
Instead I got a gas Cayenne.
Service Department said that Porsche had just picked up all their unsold CD's and hauled them off to apply "the Fix."
They didn't know what that might be, or if they would ever see the cars again.

The point being, in case anybody missed it, is that Porsche seems to be taking action on the 3.0 cars, maybe in a stepwise fashion, prior to an "agreement" or "settlement."

Maybe they actually have a fix and are working to demonstrate it to CARB.

Mark Dreyer

My Touareg TDI is getting 20% worse fuel economy since having it into the dealer several times to fix an exhaust leak. I thought they did something to the ECU, but they swear they didn't touch it. Reading your experience makes me thing something fishy is going on. I'm barely getting 22 mpg on the highway and previously was around 30.

tmack2012

Check it out

http://www.leftlanenews.com/vw-aband...-us-92333.html

Beantown Kman

^^Not very encouraging

gnat

Not surprising either.

Other than the die hard diesel owners (who typically don't replace their cars often) there is going to be a stigma around diesel cars for a long time that will reduce sales. Why spend the money to bring something to a market that isn't going to want enough of it to recoup the costs involved?

Even the other diesel offerings (BMW and Merc being the big ones) have seen an impact to their sales due to this fiasco.

The US market just finally got interested in diesel again after 30 years or so of "ewww diesel is evil!". This mess hurt the demand and the ever tightening regulations will make it cost prohibitive for companies to bring them over for the niche market like Merc and VW did for so long.

skiahh

That's a shame. Wonder if that'll buoy CD prices in the longer term?

On another note, those who predicted the demise of VW/VAG because of this may have been a tad off the mark: http://www.adweek.com/agencyspy/volk...eats-up/113312

mdrobc1213

Their demise may be off the mark or maybe suspended if they keep doing stuff like this. Not great cause of their long-term business plan one would think.

http://www.motortrend.com/news/vw-di...BAD7692AD4C62A

Needsdecaf

Agreed

We just had our car in a month ago. 40k service. Car drives exactly the same and is getting exactly the same MPG.

Come on guys. VAG isn't going to screw around applying a fix before it is approved. Not with this much of a spotlight.

Mark Dreyer

Intellectually I understand that "correlation is not causation" so a visit to the dealer does not definitively prove they did something. It's just hard not to think that given that I was used to one mpg level for the first 98k miles of ownership since new, and now am getting 20% lower mileage ever since the Toaureg got out of the dealer service department several months ago.

gnat

I think there are two different issues here.

The first is if the dealer could have done something to Mark's T-Reg that would impact the MPG. The answer to that is yes. If they applied a firmware update to any of a number of modules it could impact overall performance. I have seen this myself when they updated my transmission firmware.

The second is that if they could have applied a "dieselgate" fix without his knowledge and for all the reasons already given I completely agree that the answer is no.

So I'd give it a fair to good chance that they did something that had a negative impact on the MPG, but zero chance that whatever they did had anything to do with the scandal or it's TBD fix.

Mark Dreyer

That makes sense. Hopefully my Indy mechanic can do a reverse flash. My 120k service is coming up soon.

skiahh

And if this is the case, it would be documented on the service completed form so you can ask what it impacts, how it might affect performance and mpg.

gnat

They'll know what package they loaded, but other than the highlights they won't know the details of what the change does or what side effects it may cause.

For example in my case all they new is that the transmission flash was that it "improved the shifting pattern". They had no explanation as to what exactly that meant and just hoped it addressed my issue (it didn't).

I have also seen cases (anti-mod BMW dealers) where they would flash your ECU without asking and without noting it on the ticket, even when the vehicle is out of warranty.

My rule of thumb is that if you don't want your car screwed with, don't take it to a dealer. At the end of the day they care more about what the manufacturer wants rather than what you want.