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VW investigating Golf water leak discovered by car magazine

Volkswagen is in a spat with German magazine Auto Bild over claims that its new, seventh-generation Golf may already need a recall. The German weekly reports that new Golfs can leak water into front-passenger footwells due to a faulty drainage tube in their air conditioning systems.
And while the fix itself doesn't sound too terrible, because Volkswagen bases so many cars off the same platform as the Golf, Auto Bild is claiming that 300,000 models could be affected, including the Audi A3 and Seat Leon. That's a very bold claim. For its part, VW is vehemently denying that number, according to Reuters, saying it's aware of the problem and claiming only 46 Golfs need fixing. In addition, it denies that any Audi or Seat models are affected by the issue.
Either way, regardless of how pervasive this leak issue is, North American buyers should rest easy knowing that the problems ought to get fixed by the time the Mk VII Golf finaly reaches our dealerships.

Audi prepping a flex-fuel A3 for Latin America

Volkswagen's Audi division hasn't fared well from its parent company's diesel-emissions scandal, especially in the US and Europe. In South America, though, Audi is set to unveil its first vehicle of the flex-fuel variety, according to Nseavoice. Perhaps the German automaker can earn some good karma down in the Southern Hemisphere. The model is the 2016 Audi A3, which is made in Audi's Brazil factory. The engine is a 1.4-liter variety, and it will be able to run on either conventional gasoline or ethanol, or a blend of both. The decision makes sense because ethanol is plentiful in Brazil since the government has long pushed for it and there's plenty of sugar-cane feedstock to produce the stuff. Audi can use all of the positive news it can get, especially in the wake of VW's diesel-emissions scandal. As many as 11 million VW and Audi diesels may have been fitted with software that cheats emissions-testing systems. One result from the scandal's proverbial shrapnel is that the Audi A3 TDI diesel was stripped of its 2010 Green Car of the Year Award by Green Car Journal. The decision marks the first time in the award's history that a winner was stripped of the honor. VW has a long history offering flex-fuel vehicles in Brazil. In 2003, the German automaker was the first to debut a flex-fuel engine, and within two years, VW's Brazil factories were making 300,000 flex-fuel vehicles annually. Other companies have since jumped into Brazil's flex-fuel fray, including Nissan and Honda.

Porsche CEO Oliver Blume will be installed as head of the VW brand

Volkswagen Chief Executive Herbert Diess is planning to promote Porsche CEO Oliver Blume to take over as the head of the VW brand, according to a report from Auto Motor und Sport. Citing company sources, the German site said Bernhard Maier, who currently sits at the head of VW's Skoda brand, will lead Porsche in Blume's place. A shuffle at VW isn't surprising. The last thing Volkswagen needs as it transitions away from its long-running "clean diesel" TDI fiasco and into a clean electric ID future is negative press surrounding its burgeoning electrified lineup. Unfortunately, the ID.3 launch has been marred by software issues, with Manager magazine citing company engineers saying "the basic architecture was developed too hastily." Because of that underlying issue, various modules "often do not understand each other" and suffer dropouts. The brand-new eighth-generation Golf launch was also troubled and pushed back due to software problems. And more recently, Volkswagen was forced to pull an advertisement after admitting it was racist and insulting. That marketing misstep, according to the report, will lead to the firing of Chief Marketing Officer Jochen Sengpiehl. Related Video: