Volkswagen UK has revealed that it sees no reason to issue a recall for its seven-speed dual shift DSG gearbox equipped cars, saying that the problems that have led to recalls in other parts of the world for cars fitted with the same part are a result of specific climatic and driving conditions.
This week VW, Audi and Skoda issued a recall in Australia and New Zealand for cars fitted with the gearbox, codenamed DQ200, as a result of a fault with its mechatronic system. That added to recalls already issued in China, Japan, Singapore and Malaysia, and followed 100 complaints from VW owners in Australia relating to an apparent power loss.
However, although the Australian-specification VW's use the same DQ200 gearbox as UK cars, a spokesman explained: "It is a problem that relates only to temperate countries with a high incidence of stop and start driving. It requires a set of circumstances - humidity, temperature, dust and congested driving conditions - that we simply don't see in the UK.
"We have robust systems in place to monitor potential problems and, although we have around 48,000 cars on the road equipped with DG200 gearboxes, we haven't seen any failures that we can attribute to this problem."
