On January 6th 2017, the EPA approved a proposed emissions fix for Volkswagen’s third generation 2.0L TDI engine, covering all four cylinder diesel Audi and VW models from the 2015 model year. Canada followed with it own approval on January seventh.
Recently, Volkswagen received approval both in Canada and the United States to fix and sell new 2015 cars that were held in storage since the Dieselgate scandal erupted in September 2015. Inventory is shrinking fast as diesel fans are scooping up the remaining inventory.
TDI fans now have another reason to rejoice: on May 19th, the EPA has approved an emissions fix for the Gen-2 diesel four-cylinder engine, but only on vehicles paired with automatic transmissions at this moment. The second-generation engine was only found in the US-built VW Passat from 2012 through 2014. In this configuration, the emissions system is already equipped with a urea injection system, unlike the smaller Generation 1 cars (all other four-cylinder TDIs from 2009 through 2014). In the US, 84,390 vehicles are covered by this approved fix, with an unknown percentage of this fleet having been bought back by VW under the TDI Settlement.
In a press release dated from May 24th, the Canadian government declared it will approve the proposed fix as our country aligns its emissions standards with the US. Unlike the two-phase fix for 2015 models, this solution is a single-step repair that consists of a software update. About 10,000 Canadian-market vehicles are affected by this fix. Volkswagen will begin notifying customers directly starting in June of this year; customers do not need to take any action at this time and once available the emissions fix will be free of charge. No emissions modification has been approved yet for 2012-2014 Passat TDI models equipped with manual transmissions.
The TDI Settlement Claim portal has not been updated as of this writing to reflect the new option for Passat TDI owners.
