German court rejects VW customer claim to cancel contract



BERLIN: -- A court in Germany has rejected a Volkswagen customer’s attempt to cancel his VW contract after the company’s emissions scandal.

The German carmaker admitted in September that it had fitted illegal emissions cheating software on about eleven million VW cars worldwide.

The court said the dealer was not to blame.

The customer said he will appeal the court’s decision.

“This decision is based on an isolated case which concerns this particular case of this particular plaintiff with this particular car,” said District Court spokesman Michael Rehaag. “It must be stressed that the defendant party is not Volkswagen but a car dealership. The car dealership is a dealer and to this day, we have absolutely no indication that dealers were aware of these manipulations.”

US law firm Hausfield said it would pursue claims from European customers affected by VW’s wrongdoing, a day after a three billion euro lawsuit from institutional investors became public.


-- (c) Copyright Euronews 2016-03-17

It is indeed a quagmire. My brother had a VW Jetta TDI that he was finally able to trade in on a new car. Dealership after dealership told him they wouldn't take the car for trade-in. When he did finally get a dealer to accept, the trade-in value was thousands less due to this scandal.

What is a consumer supposed to do? I recently took our Jetta in (lol same color and year as brothers) for an emission test. The service center and I had a laugh at having to pay for a fraudulent test so it could get new tags. We have chosen to keep the car since it gets around 45 miles to the gallon, pulls like a beast climbing the mountains to ski areas and has less than 50k miles on it. No value in trade.

Yes we are aware of the pollution but realistically, if we sold it, someone else would be driving it and doing the polluting. I am hoping that VW makes a GREAT effort to do a trade-in for a new VW that is fair instead of shafting us that thought we were getting a environmentally friendly car.

11 million cars is a lot to be absorbed by the company. Hope they don't go bankrupt.

Edited March 16, 201610 yr by bgrassboy

It is indeed a quagmire. My brother had a VW Jetta TDI that he was finally able to trade in on a new car. Dealership after dealership told him they wouldn't take the car for trade-in. When he did finally get a dealer to accept, the trade-in value was thousands less due to this scandal.

What is a consumer supposed to do? I recently took our Jetta in (lol same color and year as brothers) for an emission test. The service center and I had a laugh at having to pay for a fraudulent test so it could get new tags. We have chosen to keep the car since it gets around 45 miles to the gallon, pulls like a beast climbing the mountains to ski areas and has less than 50k miles on it. No value in trade.

Yes we are aware of the pollution but realistically, if we sold it, someone else would be driving it and doing the polluting. I am hoping that VW makes a GREAT effort to do a trade-in for a new VW that is fair instead of shafting us that thought we were getting a environmentally friendly car.

11 million cars is a lot to be absorbed by the company. Hope they don't go bankrupt.

I highly doubt VW diesel cars pollute any worse than any other diesel vehicle on the road. The only difference is the others are trucks and exempt from meeting the same tough standard. I would like to see all vehicles emissions/mileage standards conducted by real independent testing agencies in real world tests. The car companies should pay a fee to a government agency ant the gov't should pay the independent testing facility. The car manufactures and testing facilities should have no contact and cars should be bought off the dealer lot.

Based on how they fare, they should be taxed. So, no issues. You want a Porsche/ Ferrari, no worries, you pay a high tax, a truck, same, same, a smart car/ electric (Tesla) maybe no tax. The government sets the target numbers and the car manufactures produce the cars and based on emissions/mileage the customer pays the tax.

In this case my sympathy is with the dealer.

Unless it can be proven the dealer was a willing participant in VW's illegal scam he cannot be held accountable.