Volkswagen Ireland says emission scandal solution will not affect value of cars

The head of Volkswagen in Ireland says no customer's car should be devalued as a result of the emissions scandal.

The company says it is writing to all Volkswagen customers this week to outline options to address the emissions problems with their cars.

It says the solution will be free to all customers, and around half of all cars can be fixed without any extra hardware.

Lars Himmer, the managing director of the Volkswagen Group in Ireland, says the solutions will not reduce the value of affected cars.

Mr Himmer said: "The solution should not have an impact on CO2 and should not impact mpg or the performance of the car and therefore there should be no difference in the car's residual value.

"It's very early days, we are tracking residual values, we will look at it. Fundamentally, we will take full responsibility, but we also need to base it on facts and see that we actually fix these cars."

Volkswagen has stopped sales in the European Union of the remaining new cars that contain the diesel engine fitted with the software that was used to cheat on US emissions tests.

The company confirmed a report in the weekly Automobilwoche that it has halted sales of as-yet unregistered cars with the EA 189 engine that are still with dealers, or in storage.

It said the measure affects a “very limited”, though unspecified, number of vehicles.

More recent models with engines in the “euro 6” emissions category are not affected by the scandal.

Switzerland, which is not a member of the EU but has close trading ties with the bloc, last month banned sales of new VW cars with the affected engine.