Renault to recall 15,000 cars for faulty diesel engines

A week after the police raid which took place at Renault's headquarters, the Renault Technical Centre in Lardy and the Technocentre in Guyancourt, France, the French carmaker has announced that it will recall and fix 15,000 cars after tests revealed high levels of emissions in some of its models. Renault has revealed that the affected engine is the 108bhp dCi engine found in the Captur. It is being recalled "to address an error in the engine's calibration unit", with no further engines affected. In India, the same engine is also found in the Duster and Lodgy models.

The carmaker was quick to add: "Renault Group vehicles are not equipped with fraudulent software or systems designed to bypass the emission control system", and that the recall was a "known issue that was corrected on production vehicles from September 4, 2015."

It is understood that the filtration system of certain models did not work above certain temperatures or below 17deg C. The group also denies early reports that stated around 7,00,000 cars would be subject to a software update in relation to the ongoing emissions scandal.

Several computers belonging to company directors are said to have been seized. The CGT Renault union suggested that the raids “are linked to the consequences of the Volkswagen rigged-engines affair”, and confirmed that the raids had targeted engine control units. The manufacturer revealed that prior to the raids, the UTAC (the French homologation authority) had already been testing Renault vehicles, with four of 25 models being examined before the new year. It said that the testing enabled "the French public authorities to initiate productive discussions with Renault's engineering team".

These latest police raids are said to be part of "additional on-site and material investigations, in order to definitively confirm the first findings resulting from the analysis of the independent technical commission".

Despite such scrutiny, the carmaker is confident its cars will pass the tests without issue. It currently has the support of the French Agency for Energy and Climate (DGEC) and states that these on-going tests provide it with an opportunity to improve the Renault Emissions Plan.

Renault was one of the vehicle manufacturers to welcome more stringent test procedures in the wake of the emissions scandal which broke last September.

Shares in the French car maker fell sharply this morning as the first reports of the raids surfaced, with stock prices dropping by as much as 20%.

Volkswagen has been subjected to the most scrutiny under the emissions scandal, but it's known that authorities are looking into other vehicle manufacturers. German officials from the KBA(Kraftfahrt-Bundesamt (KBA) - Federal Motor Transport Authority) said late last year that they would be investigating 23 different marques.