VW to Reportedly Buy Back 500,000 Cars and Pay $5,000

Volkswagen USA’s Chattanooga factory (Credit: Volkswagen )

Today (April 21, 2016) is the court-appointed cutoff date for Volkswagen to come up with a fix for its diesel engines that cheated emissions tests. As of the writing of this piece, we have yet to learn of any proposed fix, but a report indicates that VW has come up with a compensation plan for affected customers here in the U.S.

The report, which hails from Automotive News, claims that Volkswagen will offer to buy back or repair all affected 2009 or later models. The list would include models like the VW Jetta and Golf, and the Audi A3 and will total roughly 500,000 vehicles.

In terms of the buyback, VW will offer to purchase any of the aforementioned models at their value prior to the diesel scandal breaking in September 2015 and pay the owners a cash settlement. The latter number is not known at this point, but there is speculation that it’s around $5,000. Volkswagen then has the option to either destroy the purchased cars or repair them for resale. For buyers who opt for the no-cost repair, they will also get the yet-to-be-disclosed settlement amount.

There is no mention of a plan for the 80,000 3.0-liter TDI-powered vehicles, but I am certain there will be a plan similar to this one coming out in the near future.

Given Volkswagen needs to address all of this today, we should see the entire plan roll out in mere hours, so stay tuned.