Around 7,000 Porsche Cayennes have to go back to the workshop in the emissions scandal. The reason for the mandatory recall by the Kraftfahrt-Bundesamt (KBA) is an impermissible defeat device that the authority has determined and that must be removed.
Under the code ALA9, Porsche is now recalling around 7,000 Cayenne models from 2015 to 2017 worldwide. Around half of the vehicles are registered in Germany, as the KBA published on September 2, 2020. The DME control unit should be reprogrammed to remove the inadmissible cut-off device.
The recall is a problem for the owners of the Porsche concerned. Since this is a mandatory recall by the KBA, you have to comply. Otherwise, you run the risk of the vehicle being revoked. However, it is uncertain what consequences an update will have on the engine, for example on its performance, wear and tear or consumption.
For Porsche, this is not the first recall in the emissions scandal. In the meantime, the car manufacturer has had to recall almost its entire diesel fleet, from the Cayenne to the Macan to the Panamera. The fact that the diesel engines used with the impermissible shut-off device were developed and built by the sister company Audi does not release Porsche from liability. “Porsche put the vehicles with the illegal defeat device on the market and has to stand up for it. Affected Porsche drivers therefore have a good chance of enforcing compensation, ”says lawyer Andreas Schwering.
In the meantime, numerous courts have already ruled that the Porsche buyers concerned have been deliberately and immorally harmed by the use of an inadmissible defeat device and are entitled to compensation. This case law is underpinned by the view of the ECJ Advocate General Eleanor Sharpston. At the end of April, she made it clear that she considers defeat devices to be generally inadmissible if they lead to increased emissions in real road use.
The Supreme Court ruled in May that VW had made itself liable for damages in the emissions scandal. Although the judgment relates to the smaller EA 189 diesel engine with a displacement of up to 2 liters, vehicles with larger engines can also be used. The Karlsruhe Regional Court recently made this clear with a Porsche Macan (Az .: 5 O 21/20). Here, too, the KBA found an impermissible defeat device. The result is that here too the buyers were deliberately damaged in an immoral manner and are entitled to compensation.
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