U.S. Court Orders Buy-Back Option for VW Cheater V-6 Diesels

A California federal court has ordered Volkswagen AG and regulatory agencies to prepare a plan to buy back vehicles equipped with illegal V-6 diesels if VW can’t find a way to fix them.

The company insists it can successfully repair the 85,000 affected vehicles, which are fitted with devices that cheat emission standards. But to date regulators have rejected several proposed repair schemes. In July the California Air Resource Board called the company’s most recent plan “incomplete” and “substantially deficient.”

In the meantime, owners continue to drive the high-polluting V-6 diesels. Those engines were not covered by VW’s $15.3 billion settlement two months ago to fix or buy back 475,000 of the company's rigged 4-cylinder diesels.

U.S. District Court Judge Charles Breyer calls the impasse over the V-6 diesels “intolerable.” He has given the two sides until Oct. 24 to come up with a contingency plan to buy back the larger engines if repairs prove impossible.

Analysts note that the buyback price for those models—many of them Audi and Porsche crossovers—would be considerably higher than the costs involved with the 2-liter-engine program.