The Volkswagen Group halts sales in Spain of its rigged engines

The Volkswagen Group announced first thing this morning the temporary suspension of sales of the group’s models fitted with the rigged engines.

We are of course talking about the emissions scandal that has been doing enormous damage to the brand internationally for only a few days now.

It was a measure that, sooner or later, had to come. It is a logical step for a large company, which in this way gets ahead of what the Spanish Ministry of Industry was going to ask Volkswagen to do. The issue appears to have a clearly historic impact, with a truly massive reach.

The Volkswagen Group has therefore announced that it is immediately and temporarily halting the marketing of all remaining units of any brand in the group fitted with the “cheating engines”. We say “remaining” because since 1 September 2014 the Euro VI regulation has been in force, so engines with rigged software are no longer permitted to be sold.

However, brands are allowed to dispose of units already manufactured up to that date and held in stock, a volume that today is not very large. Although the exact figures are not known, around 4,000 units are reported, which will now be analysed to verify how they function and determine whether they can be sold or not.

These units correspond to four brands in the group, specifically Volkswagen, Audi, Seat and Skoda, each with their specific models. This action has been set out in an internal circular sent to all dealerships in the country, emphasising the temporary nature of the measure in view of any doubts customers approaching dealerships of the affected brands may have.