snagitseven

I think it's too early for hand wringing or jumping the shark just yet. While the news is disturbing, the full details are yet to be determined and will take some time to play out. In the meantime, it's best to wait and see what the final impact will be and how VAG will respond and handle the issue both with the govt's. and owners. The operation of any of our Audis is not affected and there will be time to understand how future values may or may not be affected across the brands and models.

TeamStream79

If internet message boards are for one thing, it's premature hand-wringing and semi-anonymous fear-mongering. In all seriousness though, I am surprised that there hasn't been more discussion about this. A lot of the responses sound like Audi/VAG apologists in denial about the grotesque error in judgment on the part of VAG management.

Braces

There's not much a TDI owner can do right now. The punishment to VW has not been fully decided. I'm sure a class action suit is in the works. The lawyers will make a ton of money and the affected owners will get beans. Just another corporate screw up. At least no one was hurt or killed.

jjsC6

While it truly was unbelievable what they did, the reality is that for most of us there will be little to no consequences. They are a huge company. There will be internal fallout and a lot of money involved. But I don't believe for a minute that resale value of non effected vehicles will suffer, nothing will change that effects our ownership experience.

A good comparison would be BP. Tons of money changed hands, there was a little Managment shakeup...all over the actions of a very few people. And in their case lives were actually lost as a result of those actions unlike this issue. But BP is doing just fine now. I've never heard a single person tell me they would not do business with BP after that.

I realize that gasoline is a consumable product where you don't have resale and service issues. But the point is that people forgive and forget very quickly.

fkaufman

It is a little too early to know how this will play out. But consider a few things:

1. VAG is a huge, well established and well financed company. They have been making well designed, reliable cars for decades and decades. The company will stay in business and those of us who bought and drove their vehicles will keep doing so.

2. It is still to be seen if VAG was/is the only company with this kind of manipulations, that the computerized systems make possible. I will not be surprised if investigations find other manufacturers with similar tricks implemented.

3. It is still to be seen if this was truly limited to the 2.0 engine or was it applied to some of the others. If the 3.0 was not manipulated the same way, than the A7 should weather this turmoil unscathed.

4. Consider the completely unfounded "Unintended acceleration" issue Audi went through in the 80s. It was somewhat different, but even though it was related to ALL models (not just a few well defined ones like this issue), VAG did shrug it off and came out even stronger at the end.

5. I would be curious to know, how many of the present owners of the affected 2.0 cars would have bought a different vehicle, had the literature stated the true emission values. I don't think too many.

snagitseven

Do an AW global search. There are more than a dozen threads going right now on the topic with more opinions than any other I've seen in some time.

fkaufman

Since this is the A7 forum and the A7-s never had (at least in North America) the 2.0 l Diesel engine, the issue has no major impact on us. There is a lot of discussion in those forums where the owners of 2.0 TDI cars congregate.

snagitseven

Actually there are multiple discussions on many AW forums, some with several threads, even those model forums with no 4 cyl TDI engines available.

This is perhaps the largest scandal in VAG history that could have wide ranging implications to one degree or another for all of us who own one of their cars, no matter what brand, model or engine type. For example, it's not yet clear that even 3.0TDI engines might be added to the list as investigations continue or how the potential fines and class action lawsuits will have on the financial impact on VAG as a corporation in the future.

As I wrote in a previous post, it's too early to worry just yet but there's no doubt there will be some effect to be felt to some degree for all of us when the smoke clears.

fkaufman

You are absolutely correct. Truth of the matter is, I am extremely happy with my A7 TDI and whatever the outcome of this scandal is, the car will remain the same. And having a lesser trade in value a few years down the line will have (fortunately) zero impact on my life.

Tman007

I see this as primarily a big corporate PR impact, but not a big impact for Audi owners. (Granted I don't have a TDI, so I'm a bit insulated.)

If I did have a TDI, this would be my stance as well. If I loved my TDI, I would still keep it. And if resale values are lower down the road, I could make the decision to keep it longer or buy a new TDI at presumably a lower price than it was previously.

For everyone concerned about residual values, there's another person that sees a buying opportunity. I've sold and bought real estate in both up markets and down markets, and it all balances out if you're buying and selling in the same market. Just don't sell in a low and buy in a high. E.g., don't go sell your TDI today and buy a Tesla...