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Comment by rygarfo | Hacker News Reader

What about the owners of VW cars that aren't affected by the consumption fraud. I would imagine the value of their cars will, regardless of the diesel engine, decrease with the saturation of people selling their cars or trying to return them. Is it possible for non-affected owners to be compensated as well for loss in market value as a result of the company's actions? Concerned Jetta owner here asking smarter people.

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It'll be some firmware upgrade, the emissions will be fine but fuel economy will suffer by some minor amount. Then everyone will move on to the next tragedy.

I don't really see a massive run on people trying to sell or return their car. I'm sure a few will to try to make a point, or perhaps to try to get a new car out of the deal.

That's my prediction for the record!

Most people seem to be saying that it will be a simple software update to fix this issue, and everything will be fine other than some loss of power and fuel economy.

Isn't it possible that running these engines at the EPA recommended levels just isn't possible? That if they were to run like this 100% of the time, reliability, mpg, or power would be greatly reduced for various reasons?

There is a reason they took this huge risk to put in the cheat (but maybe management didn't think it was a big deal). It seems like there is too much risk involved in cheating for just minor fuel economy and power gains.

I suppose none of us in the peanut gallery know for sure. Knowing that they battle for 1 mile per gallon on their fuel economy ratings, my guess is that it's a minor effect for a car owner, but a major effect on VW's marketing.

I read elsewhere that their technique for cleaning the exhaust can gunk up the filter more quickly too, so it might also change the maintenance schedule. Which, again, may not really be a huge issue for a car owner, but could impact VW.

I hope not, that would be insane. If a car is not worth its price when you buy it, don't buy it.

IIRC, that's not how car prices work. A new car on a lot is worth far more than a used car with exactly 0 miles driven on it.

I hear a lot that a car loses 10-50% of its value the moment it leaves the dealership, but I am somehow skeptical. If it is true I would love to buy a new used car right outside of, hell, even 50 miles after the dealership at half the price.

I think the truth is that it is so rare for a car to be sold at 0 miles that we don't really have a price point on it. It is effectively an illiquid good, so the pricing is just a meaningless number, because no one would sell their car at this fictitious price. Like how no one will bought 37 Signals for 100 billion dollars. [1]

[1] https://signalvnoise.com/posts/1941-press-release-37signals-...

It's rare but it's not completely nonexistent. Sometimes the dealership will take possession of a recently sold car, perhaps because they offered some sort of guarantee on it. Once the car has been sold it can't be sold again as "new" even in a case like this, so it will be sold as used with almost no miles on it. Almost nobody is going to buy a car and then immediately turn around and sell it at a huge discount, but that's not the only way cars get sold.

Here are a few listings to check out, as proof they exist:

http://www.cars.com/vehicledetail/detail/648714782/overview/

http://www.cars.com/vehicledetail/detail/647726128/overview/

http://www.cars.com/vehicledetail/detail/645336026/overview/

I can't be arsed to do the comparison to see how much value they've actually lost compared to new, but the data is there to prove or disprove the claim.

Customers did not know the cars violated regulations when they made the buying decision. VW knew all along and deliberately defrauded the customer.

VW screwed up so badly.

"Worth" includes an estimate of the future money one might get from a sale or trade-in. That estimate is of course fuzzy.

The estimate of worth, and estimate of fuzziness, assumes that VW wasn't deliberately hiding crucial information from the market.

"its price" is also fuzzy, because total cost of ownership includes gas (affected) and maintenance (affected).

Isn't that factored into the worth, not the price? I thought "the price" was more quantifiable as the specific amount spent to get the car.

Would like to know this as well. I have a gasoline Golf and I'm concerned its depreciation has accelerated.

You could sell it now, and couch the sale in terms of having an unaffected, EPA compliant, car. If depreciation is your primary concern, then you can sell now and buy something with lower potential depreciation.

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