NEW DELHI: Volkswagen Group will roll out its massive recall programme in India from July over the global diesel emissions scandal that was originally discovered in the US in September last year.
The German auto major had said in December last year that it will call back as many as 3.24 lakh cars from Volkswagen, Audi and Skoda brands.
It will begin the exercise with the recall of 1.9 lakh cars in the Volkswagen brand by fixing a software. Also called in will be 88,700 cars from Skoda and 36,500 cars from Audi across various models.
Most of the major models sold by the Volkswagen group will be covered in the recall exercise as the spiked machines carry 1.2-litre, 1.5-litre, 1.6-litre and 2-litre diesel engines. The engines are derivatives of the EA189 diesel engine family where the cheating software was installed globally to buck tough emission norms and achieve higher efficiencies.
Giving details, a source within the group said that Polo, Vento, Jetta and Passat are among the vehicles from the Volkswagen stable that will be impacted. For Audi, the models where the recall will be announced included the A4 and A6 sedans and the Q3 and Q5 SUVs. For Skoda, the affected models include Fabia compact and Rapid, Laura and Superb sedans and the Yeti SUV.
"Starting from the second half of 2016, Volkswagen will recall 1.90 lakh cars and continue till ten months," Volkswagen India head of marketing Kamal Basu said.
"Since recall was done in the US to fix the emission software, the company decided to do the same in India too to keep updated with the changes made outside," he said, though without giving details about the models covered in this round.
Sources in the group told TOI that Skoda and Audi recall will also begin around the same time.
Communication will be sent to customers regarding the exercise which the Volkswagen official claims is "purely voluntary in nature".
The company had been found to be using a cheating device in the US to mask higher emissions, which gradually erupted into a global scandal. In India, a government agency had found various models of the group spewing higher levels of pollutants than the lab results.
A spokeswoman for the Volkswagen brand did not take calls over the matter.
The German auto major had admitted to the use of a defeat device in 11 million diesel engine cars sold in the US, Europe and other global markets that allowed manipulation of emissions tests by changing the performance of the vehicles to improve results.