Now Audi recalls thousands of its cars over harmful emission levels

Thousands of Audi luxury cars sold in Britain are to be recalled amid the continuing scandal over ‘fake’ emission results.

Owners of the German car giant’s top end estate, saloon and SUV models will be asked to return them so the engines can be fitted with new software to reduce the amount of pollutants they emit.

The move is part of an attempt by Audi to avoid its cars being caught up in proposed bans of diesel cars from German cities, following the scandal over Volkswagen falsifying its emission results.

Earlier this week Mercedes-Benz announced that almost every one of its cars sold in Britain will have to have their diesel engines adjusted to reduce pollution levels.

The move will affect three million cars across Europe and hundreds of thousands in the UK and cost the firm around £195 million.

Now Audi has issued a similar ‘voluntary recall’ of up to 850,000 cars fitted with six-cylinder and eight-cylinder diesel engines, mainly sold in Europe.

Also included in the recall are Porsche and VW vehicles fitted with the same type of V6/V8 TDI, EU5/EU6 engines.

Audi said it was unable to say at this stage how many of the engines were fitted to vehicles sold in Britain, but it is thought to run into thousands.

The firm’s announcement came just days after the government in the German state of Baden-Württemberg agreed to abandon plans to restrict diesel engines if older cars could be adjusted to produce fewer pollutants.

Audi spokesman Udo Rügheimer said: “Audi intends to reduce overall emissions, especially in urban areas. We are convinced that this program will counteract possible bans on vehicles with diesel engines.

“We aim to maintain the future viability of diesel engines for our customers and to make a contribution towards improving air quality.”

Work to adjust the engines takes around an hour and will be carried out free of charge for customers.

But Audi UK said it did not yet know when its customers would be contacted to take their cars to an approved dealer or garage for the adjustments to be made.

At the same time Audi, which is part of the Volkswagen Group, is facing legal action alongside VW, Seat and Skoda from more than 35,000 British motorists affected by the 2015 emissions scandal.

This followed Volkswagen’s admission that it equipped vehicles with illegal software that meant they passed emissions tests, only to exceed limits in everyday driving.

Mr Rügheimer said the recall was not directly related to the scandal, but acknowledged that the fallout had severely damaged the reputation of diesel cars, leading to growing calls for them to be banned.

“The public perception is that diesel is bad, so for this reason we are trying to go further than the existing emission limits and improve emissions in real driving conditions beyond the current legal requirements,” he said.