Volkswagen USA Refuses To Buy Back Totally Stripped Diesel Golf From Opportunistic Owner

You might have seen the ongoing saga of one American man who completely stripped his Volkswagen Golf diesel before attempting to sell it back to VW under the country’s buy-back arrangement. Well, it seems he’s dropped the ball big time.

Joe Mayer, a car salesman from Cincinnati, stripped his 2010 Golf TDI down to its bare bones, removing the doors, tailgate and even the airbags, claiming that nothing in the buy-back arrangement legally requires the car to be fully intact.

But USA Today is reporting that Judge Charles Breyer has sided with Volkswagen after an approach from VW’s lawyer, and it looks like owners of cars that have been stripped for parts will be turned away. Since Breyer has been presiding over the whole Dieselgate affair since the beginning, his legal opinion is likely to be where the buck stops.

Mayer had previously believed that since the documents only specify that the car be ‘operable’, parts salvage was technically not disallowed, but since we’re British we’d have to admit that stripping the car for parts before sending it back seems a bit too cheeky.

His intention was to make extra money out of the deal by selling the parts, obviously, but it’s unclear whether he’s going to have to reinstall everything before Volkswagen will pay him for the car.

Mayer won’t be happy to hear the views of the lawyer for the Federal Trade Commission, either, who said that the organisation was “absolutely against bad-faith behaviour by consumers.”

They say America is the land of opportunity, but Mayer might have tried to take one opportunity too many.

Source: Jalopnik