German carmaker Volkswagen will initiate the process of recalling its diesel cars in India in September. The company had announced a recall of 3.23 lakh cars in the country in December last year and was expected to start the process in July.
Now the company is waiting for the approval from the Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI) and is expected to begin the recall this month, ET Auto reported. This recall includes the diesel cars that come fitted with the EA 189 engines under the brands Volkswagen, Audi and Skoda, which have been under criticism for poor emission control.
The recall includes 1.9 lakh cars from Volkswagen, 88,700 cars from Skoda and 36,500 cars from Audi sold in India, which were manufactured from 2008 to December 2015. The engines — 1.2-litre, 1.5-litre, 1.6-litre and 2.0-litre — power many popular models, such as the VW Polo, Vento, Jetta, Passat, Skoda Fabia, Rapid, Yeti, Superb, Laura, Octavia and Audi A3, Q3, A4, Q5. It was said earlier that the process of recalling would last for about 10 months.
The exercise is part of the global recall of Volkswagen. It all began in September last year when Volkswagen admitted that it had fitted a "cheat device" in some of its diesel models sold in the United States to pass government emissions tests. But actually, the models emit much higher amounts of nitrogen oxide while being driven on the road. The scandal has affected 11 million cars globally.
