Compensation claims for diesel car buyers (manufacturers' false emissions figures)

[WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll]

I've notice these adverts start popping up on telly more and more just recently. It looks like a similar scenario to the PPI scandal, but I just don't actually get what they're seeking compensation for.

The PPI thing was obvious: people had historically been misled into paying a lot of their own money in exchange for a frequently worthless product and/or one which they had never knowingly or explicitly agreed to buy.

However, I'm really struggling to work out why individual car owners would morally be entitled to compensation for having bought cars that were more polluting than the manufacturers claimed. Yes, of course the manufacturers were very wrong to do this, and I fully understand their being heavily fined for their deceit on a governmental level; but how many people who bought their cars actually cared or took any notice about the claimed emissions - and would have refused to buy that particular car if they had known the truth?

In fact, I may be misunderstanding here, but if car owners were paying tax (and possibly congestion/similar charges) based on the claimed (lower) emission levels rather than the actual (significantly higher) levels, won't they already have financially benefited on a personal level?

If they successfully claim from the car makers, should they pass all/some of any compensation they're awarded straight back to the government, to reflect the true amount of emissions-based tax that they should have been paying? What have the motorists personally lost - which is generally the purpose of compensation: to make good your loss.

Am I missing something? Is there actually a genuine moral reason to pursue these claims or is it just one (or maybe more) company(ies) exploiting a legal loophole and people's greed in order to cash in on all of the commission that they stand to make from it, just because they technically can?

I am not making this shit up... another fuel injector blew on our car Thursday about 5pm (!!)

AA fixed it. £350. (sigh)

So that's 4 in last 3 yrs. DH is getting them fixed so we have spares.

I’ve just had a recall letter for this issue for my 2016 Astra so Vauxhall are affected. I’m furious.

Yes, I can get a free fix but the Vauxhall forums are full of tales of woe about car problems after, plus loss of power and worse mpg. Secondhand value likely to be affected because of this.

I’m not going to have the fix done, I don’t want worse power and worse mpg. I better not have a garage apply a fix without telling me! Luckily I don’t think my village mechanic does software updates!

So yes, I probably will join the class action, my car now won’t be as sellable.

We haven't got a claim in, but we were convinced to buy a diesel due to the "evidence" at the time they were least polluting. We sold it for a pittance far earlier than we would otherwise have done, because we have to travel through a new 'Clean Air Zone' that would charge it every time we drove through.
So if you are asking if we lost money because of the lies, then yes, we did.

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll

Genuine question: do you think that most people who choose electric cars are doing so out of environmental concerns or mainly because of the (for the time being) far cheaper running costs?

Everybody I know with one has only ever seemed to stress how much cheaper they are to run than paying for petrol or diesel, but none have been raving about how much more eco-friendly they are. Maybe I just know the wrong sorts of people!!

DH and I both drive electric cars and part of our motivation is environmental but we don’t especially tell anyone else this because we would sound like smug judgy twats.

Adult DS just got an electric car, 99% for cheap running costs.

We’re swapping our diesel for an electric. Both times due to environmental factors although the running costs on an electric are fantastic so that’s a massive bonus.

Thanks for all of your comments, everybody - seems like there were a lot of factors that I hadn't realised.

It's just a shame that it doesn't seem easy/possible to claim yourself, without using one of these companies that will take a colossal amount of your compo straight from you - assuming they're planning along the lines of 30% plus (which is plus VAT, of course), like with the PPI crew, which seems very excessive to me.

Environmental considerations aside, I do think that the huge money saving benefits of electric cars will be relatively short-lived, though. The government has already shown its hand that it is determined not to lose the vast amount of tax that it gets from drivers, which currently comes in the form of petrol and diesel duty (with VAT added on top of that). I also think the new switch to E10 is a coy trick, too, as it means that people supposedly use less actual petrol per litre - but will then need to buy more litres with the reduced efficiency.

Once electric becomes the norm/only kind of vehicle, the costs are still going to rocket either way - whether in the costs of the electricity itself, taxes or both. New regulations have already been brought in recently that are going to hike home energy costs massively, so it seems relatively easy for them to do it at a stroke.

I'm not necessarily saying that it's wrong to switch to electric cars, but I think it's deceitful to be pushing the financial saving aspect as a big incentive, when that will change significantly before very long.

It’s an interesting question.

I had a conversation with exH about this fairly recently. He made all the car specification choices when we were together (I insisted on size/practicality stuff to ensure that it was a good fit for my everyday needs, but the rest of it he dealt with).

He says now that he bought diesel cars because of environmental reasons - utter bollocks. He initially switched due to fuel prices being lower, and then carried on buying diesel because of running costs. I wonder whether he has his name down with any of the class action suits.

I looked into this for my last diesel car and I'm not going to bother.

For PPI you just did a check and there was no risk.

With these diesel claims if the court awards against the class action, you will may liable for part of the costs, if these go on for several years these costs can become substantial amounts.

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll

Thanks for all of your comments, everybody - seems like there were a lot of factors that I hadn't realised.

It's just a shame that it doesn't seem easy/possible to claim yourself, without using one of these companies that will take a colossal amount of your compo straight from you - assuming they're planning along the lines of 30% plus (which is plus VAT, of course), like with the PPI crew, which seems very excessive to me.

That’s not a fair comparison though. The diesel car cases are class action lawsuits which are going to set legal precedent. There was huge political pressure behind the PPI scandal from parliament and the FSA before the British Banking Association had its attempts to block the new rules denied by the courts. I don’t think there will be the same public support for the diesel owners (and I was one).