A motoring expert believes the Volkswagen scandal will affect all its New Zealand cars manufactured in the past six years.
Nearly 40 diesel SUVs and vans are in quarantine, after it was found they were fitted with a device aimed at cheating pollution tests. But more may have been affected.
"Our best guess estimate at the moment is it could be up to 3000 cars in New Zealand that have this engine that could be affected, and once we've got those exact numbers we will be going back to our customers and letting them know," says Volkswagen New Zealand general manager Tom Ruddenklau.
Clive Matthew-Wilson from car review website Dog and Lemon says VW will be in damage-control mode.
"This is the law of karma - as you sow, so shall you reap. I mean, there is no easy way out of this. It's going to have to happen over a period of time and people are going to be very unhappy with the way their vehicles come back after they've been retuned."
One car writer says Volkswagen won't be the only car company that's been cheating. Eleven million diesel cars and more than 2 million Audis have been found with the faulty engines so far.
RadioLIVE / 3 News