I suspect it may but who would buy one? No one today because the 'stop sale' order is still in effect. Worse, the last CARB/EPA/VW meeting went badly. Now I'm not a fan of Consumer Reports normal MPG testing but their highway tests are OK. This is what they report: Consumer Reports Tests VW Diesel Fuel Economy and Performance In response to the scandal, Consumer Reports conducted new testing of 2015 and 2011 Volkswagen TDI diesel vehicles in this “cheat” mode to assess fuel economy and performance. We found a noticeable decline in fuel economy for both models. Our testing also showed reduced acceleration with the 2011 model, which is equipped with a lower-tech diesel filtration system. I suspect the 2015 model has something like the Golf with the SCR system but I'm not an expert in the diesel configurations. Bob Wilson
How was CR able to do a highway test with the cheat mode still active? I would think it would deactivate once the drive parameters went outside that of the test cycle or people would be accidently going into it while driving. Which should have been noticable if the cheating had no benefit to performance.
What they did was disconnect the rear wheel speed sensors. This fooled the car into thinking it was on a two-wheel dyno test. They also did some sort of pedal-switch dance which they may have learned from the EPA/CARB folks. Bob Wilson
I'm surprised the car was totally functional with the speed sensor unplugged. The one on the Ranger went bad*. It lost ABS, shifting became harsh, and it wouldn't shift out of second or third. Also lost the speedometer. *may not have actually broke. it's magnetic based, and an iron filing sticking too it could have given it the fits.
I searched the Guinness site and couldn't find anything about diesels. Guinness® – Beer Made of More™ | Guinness®
One other high mileage VW diesel (hybrid) just dawned on me; XL1 : Volkswagen UK I was blown away when I 1st saw this reveal a couple years ago. It'll never make it to the U.S. except for bragging to us how it gets over 200mpg .... We Drove The 261 MPG Volkswagen XL1 In Manhattan Because You Can't ... but I wonder if it too, had the cheat software. If so, there goes the taint on it's claim to highest mpg production hybrid too. I hope someone checks it out, even though production was around 250 units as of last year, IIRC. .