You are mistaken on US regulation. They did not meet NOX emission limits in the US. Europe has stricter fuel regulation, less strict emission regulation so it was probably cool there. Every TDI model over there is usually tuned for better performance.

Oh well, my chariot of lies gets bought back in 2 days. Best investment ever in a car! Since I got my parents and 4 other friends to buy TDI's too when they saw the mileage I was getting, they are all ecstatic that the cars are getting bought back at well over market. Imma buy a Chevy Cruze Diesel once the standard hatchback gets released. Until then I'll find a pre-ban TDI or maybe some other beater to get me through the year.

Added bonus: They tried to cheat me out of repairing the cheater emission system that failed just outside of the federal emissions warranty at 60k miles. I told them if they could program it to cheat, they could program it to overheat the DPF and cause it to crack and fail. Got a free replacement from that :)

Added bonus #2: Since I also suggested my parents get one before the scandal broke, they tried to cheat them out of a AdBlue urea heater (piss tank heater) claiming it would not be repairable under federal emissions because it wasn't directly a part of the emissions. The company finally bowed to the massive number of complaints on tdiclub and related forums and covered that as well.

So... they screwed you and your family over three times, and you're a happy customer?

Don't get me wrong, the above was annoying. But they were forced to pay for it and I came out ahead. There's no doubt in my mind that my 2012 model still polluted less than my former 1998 model. There were many times before the scandal broke that I considered removal of the DPF component to further improve efficiency. This would not have affected the NOX output, but would have reduced weight, fuel consumption, and cosmetic appeal. I wasn't keen on having the car blow raw diesel into the exhaust to regenerate the filter every few hundred miles. Would have averaged 50mpg instead of mid-40's...

I put over 100k mi on the car and will have received approx $19k for it after the goodwill + buyback. Total cost of ownership for 4 years of about $6k excluding fuel which cost about half as much as a gasser (savings was anywhere between $3-6k). So yeah, pretty happy all things considered.

They were fined by the EPA it wasn't just a California thing. Other governments have also taken some actions:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal#G...

For instance, in Canada there is a buyback/rebate program.