Officials approve fix for diesels

DETROIT - Federal and state officials said Monday they have approved a fix for 38,000 Volkswagen, Audi and Porsche sport utility vehicles with diesel engines that were cheating on emissions tests.

The approval brings German automaker Volkswagen AG closer to resolving a costly and embarrassing scandal that began two years ago, when the company admitted that more than 550,000 vehicles in the U.S. were designed to cheat on emissions tests. The vehicles have software that turns on emissions controls during testing but turns them off in everyday driving.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the California Air Resources Board had to approve the fix under a $1.2 billion settlement approved by a federal judge this spring. The most recent fix applies to 3-liter diesels in 2013-2016 models of the Volkswagen Touareg and Porsche Cayenne and the 2015 Audi Q7.

Volkswagen will contact owners about the fix. Dealers will update the software in all of the vehicles and modify hardware in some of them for free. Owners also will receive compensation of between $7,039 and $16,114.

Here what you need to know about the Volkswagen fix:

The 3-liter diesels are among the last of the vehicles Volkswagen must repair in the U.S.

Last year, the company agreed to a nearly $15 billion settlement that required it to buy back or fix 475,000 2liter diesel cars in the U.S.

Volkswagen must still get approval for a 3-liter diesel fix in some versions of the Audi A6, A7 and A8 sedans and the Q5 SUV.

It has already paid out more than $23 billion in U.S. fines and settlement costs and last month, it announced a $3 billion charge for buying back and retrofitting the 2-liter diesels.

Volkswagen could have been on the hook for as much as $4 billion in vehicle buyback costs if the most recent fix hadn’t been approved by the EPA and California.

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