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Volkswagen is confronted with a monumental challenge. The company has admitted that 11 million of its cars used illegal software to cheat emissions standards. Now, many owners are demanding that the offending cars be fixed. That's easier said than done, and Volkswagen has already tried — and failed — twice. Here's the issue, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency: Cars with Volkswagen's 2-liter TDI turbo-diesel four-cylinder engines include software that detects when the car is undergoing emissions testing and turns on a suite of pollution-control systems. But as soon as the test ends, the controls switch off, leaving the...

Had a funny thought this morning...that is all.

Volkswagen Emissions Fix May Not Last Long Thanks to Aftermarket Tuners http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2015/09/volkswagen-emissions-fix-may-not-last-long/

FRANKFURT — Martin Winterkorn resigned as chief executive of Volkswagen Wednesday, taking responsibility for an emissions cheating scandal that has gravely damaged the carmaker’s reputation and may spread to the German economy. “As C.E.O. I accept responsibility for the irregularities that have been found in diesel engines,” Mr. Winterkorn, who had headed the company since 2007, said in a statement. But he continued to insist he personally committed no misconduct. “I am not aware of any wrong doing on my part.”

BERLIN— Volkswagen AG Chief Executive Martin Winterkorn resigned Wednesday in the wake of a developing emissions scandal that has stunned the auto industry and slashed the car maker’s market value. “Volkswagen needs a fresh start—also in terms of personnel,” Mr. Winterkorn said. “I am clearing the way for this fresh start with my resignation.” Mr. Winterkorn said that he accepted responsibility for the irregularities found in diesel engines and has asked the supervisory board to agree to his stepping down. He said, however, that he wasn't aware of any wrongdoing on his part.

Corruption: One carmaker's mistake killed nearly 200. Another might have evaded federal emissions laws while a third failed to issue a recall. Which one committed the biggest sin, according to the government? Here's a hint: It's not the automaker known as Government Motors. GM, more officially known as General Motors, will pay a $900 million fine in a settlement reached last week with the Justice Department. The automaker admits it hid an ignition-switch problem that has been linked to 174 deaths.

The Obama administration on Friday directed Volkswagen to recall nearly a half-million cars, saying the automaker illegally installed software in its diesel-power cars to evade standards for reducing smog. The Environmental Protection Agency accused the German automaker of using software to detect when the car is undergoing its periodic state emissions testing. Only during such tests are the cars’ full emissions control systems turned on. During normal driving situations, the controls are turned off, allowing the cars to spew as much as 40 times as much pollution as allowed under the Clean Air Act, the E.P.A. said. “We expected better...

Germany’s VW AG has a mixed situation in the US – on one hand its luxury stablemate Audi is thriving and posting record sales each month, while on the other hand the mass-market brand is suffering. The company is a powerhouse in Europe, where it’s the largest automaker and thanks to China has also achieved the status of the second biggest carmaker in the world. Among the issues lie the fact that in the US the mass-market car brand VW has been sliding while the rest of the market is going up and the fact that Audi is indeed posting...

People perusing Craiglist are typically looking for love or searching for bargains. This ad one of our readers stumbled upon certainly appears to offer the latter. It features a 1979 Volkswagen Bus — the kind of vehicle that generations of free spirits have transformed into hippie vans — selling for the incredibly low price of $35. Really. That's what it says. And even if you get bad vibes by the vehicle being located in Crook (it's a town in Logan County), perhaps the owner's flexibility will reassure you. After all, he isn't insisting on cash: He's willing to trade. But...

The Chattanooga plant’s February secret-ballot vote to remain non-union was seen as a major triumph for the right-to-work community. But Volkswagen has since been under intense pressure from the company’s highly influential German union IG-METAL to figure out how to void the election result.

What do you do when a union vote doesn’t go your way? Well, if you are the United Auto Workers union, you ask for a “re-do”. The UAW has asked the National Labor Relations Board to reconsider their failed attempt to unionize Volkswagen workers in Chattanooga, because… Well because they think it was unfair that anti-union voices were allowed to make their case on TV, highway billboards, and newspaper columns. In other words: the UAW feels they were unfairly outgunned by free-speech. According to the Wall Street Journal: The UAW has filed an election objection with the labor board alleging...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Friday marks the end of the two-week period within which U.S. Sen. Bob Corker promised Volkswagen would announce another line at its factory in Tennessee if workers there rejected representation by the United Auto Workers union. So far there's little sign of any pending announcement.

The United Auto Workers (UAW) filed a legal challenge late Friday with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to the certification of the organizing vote it lost last Friday at Volkswagen's auto plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The challenge was submitted just hours before the seven day post-election filing deadline expired. On Tuesday, attorney Joseph Farelli, a nationally recognized labor law expert, told Breitbart News the UAW would have little chance of success if it filed a challenge to NLRB certification of the election. "I don't think the NLRB is willing to break new ground and state the conduct of a...

The United Auto Workers said on Friday it filed an appeal with the government over "interference by politicians and outside special interest groups" in an election last week in Tennessee where Volkswagen workers rejected the union. The union said in a statement that its appeal to the U.S. National Labor Relations Board details "a coordinated and widely publicized coercive campaign conducted by politicians and outside organizations to deprive Volkswagen workers of their federally protected right to join a union."

Labor: Union bosses have contended for some time that a secret ballot isn't needed to unionize a workplace. All that's needed, they said, was employees' signatures on cards. But Chattanooga proved them wrong. For months the United Auto Workers have said a majority of workers at the Volkswagen plant in Tennessee had signed cards expressing their interest in unionizing. Why bother with a secret ballot when the workers had already spoken through the "card check" approval process? Before a much-anticipated and widely followed union-representation vote held last week, the AP reported that Gary Casteel, Tennessee-based regional director for the UAW,...

Workers at Volkswagen’s sedan factory in Chattanooga, Tenn., soundly rejected a bid by the United Automobile Workers (UAW) to subsume them. In this the workers were considerably wiser than VW management, which took an officially neutral stance on the unionization effort but is in general kindly disposed to efforts to transplant the “workers’ council” model, with which it has enjoyed success at home, from Germany to its American operations. German automakers maintain a largely cooperative relationship with IG Metall, the main autoworkers’ union. But the UAW is a very different sort of beast, a fact not lost on the Chattanooga...

Having destroyed Detroit, the United Auto Workers union is desperate to infect foreign auto manufacturing plants in the South. It finally managed to force a vote on unionization in Chattanooga and the UAW hit a pot hole. Volkswagen workers in Chattanooga, Tenn., have rejected the United Auto Workers, shooting down the union’s hopes of securing a foothold at a foreign-owned auto plant in the South. The vote was 712 to 626, said the UAW, which blamed the loss on “politicians and outside special interest groups.” The vote, announced late Friday night after three days of balloting, is a devastating...

Workers at a Volkswagen factory in Tennessee have voted against union representation in a devastating defeat for the United Auto Workers union's effort to make inroads in the South. The 712-626 vote released late Friday was surprising for many labor experts and union supporters who expected a UAW win because Volkswagen tacitly endorsed the union and even allowed organizers into the Chattanooga factory to make sales pitches. "This is like an alternate universe where everything is turned upside down," Cliff Hammond, a labor lawyer at in Detroit, told The Wall Street Journal, noting that companies usually fight union drives. "This...

CHATTANOOGA, Tennessee (Reuters) - In a stinging defeat that could accelerate the decades-long decline of the United Auto Workers, Volkswagen AG workers voted against union representation at a Chattanooga, Tennessee plant, which had been seen as organized labor's best chance to expand in the U.S. South. The loss, 712 to 626, capped a sprint finish to a long race and was particularly surprising for UAW supporters, because Volkswagen had allowed the union access to the factory and officially stayed neutral on the vote, while other manufacturers have been hostile to organized labor.

P resident Barack Obama on Friday waded into a high-stakes union vote at Volkswagen AG's plant in Tennessee, accusing Republican politicians who oppose unionization of being more concerned about German shareholders than U.S. workers. Obama's interjection in the war of words on Friday, albeit behind closed doors, underscored how much is stake in the three-day vote by VW's 1,550 hourly workers. The vote is due to end at 8:30 p.m. ET and the results could be announced soon after that. Obama said everyone was in favor of the UAW representing Volkswagen except for local politicians who "are more concerned about...