Volkswagen customers 'lawyer up' for dodgy diesels

VW is facing billions in fines from governments in Australia, the US and Europe. Now a law firm claims customers are entitled to compensation for buying a car with a dodgy diesel engine.

Volkswagen will "almost certainly" be the subject of a class action law suit in Australia, following confirmation of the recall of more than 90,000 cars with dodgy diesel engines, a leading law firm has claimed.

And almost 700 disgruntled owners have already expressed an interest in taking action.

Maurice Blackburn class actions principal Damian Scattini says the recall announcement does not address the "compensation concerns" for the 90,000-plus owners of diesel Volkswagen, Audi and Skoda cars made between 2008 and 2015 with software that cheats emissions tests.

A class action is now most likely

"Today's announcement reveals that the scope of people affected in Australia is much larger than was first thought, and in our view a class action is now most likely," said Mr Scattini.

The class action specialist said announcing the recall was "a first step" but "there is still no information about how Volkswagen Australia intends to compensate people for what will potentially be thousands of dollars of losses (in value) for these vehicles, or for the time they'll have to spend without access to their vehicles during the recall."

Reports out of Europe indicate that the recalls will start there in January and may take until the end of 2016 to complete. VW and Audi Australia are yet to announce when their recalls will start.

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As this article was published, Volkswagen and Audi executives in Europe were due to meet with German authorities to explain what technical solutions were being suggested to fix the 11 million cars globally.

Some cars may require mechanical changes, while others may need a relatively simple reprogramming of the diesel engine's computer.

"It beggars belief that VW got itself into this situation in the first place but it adds insult to injury for the company not to address the issue of compensation to vehicle owners," said Mr Scattini.

We urge anyone affected by this recall to register their interest ... as soon as possible

The law firm says it already has close to 700 people Volkswagen and Audi owners in Australia register their interest in a potential class action.

"The class actions mechanism is the best chance people have of holding companies that have caused mass wrongdoing to account, and we urge anyone affected by this recall to register their interest ... as soon as possible," said Mr Scattini.

Maurice Blackburn says it is Australia's leading class action law firm, and the only one to secure class action recoveries in excess of $100 million.

On Wednesday the Volkswagen Group confirmed more than 90,000 cars across the VW, Audi and Skoda brands in Australia would be recalled because they were equipped with diesel engines designed to cheat emissions tests.