A South Windsor man has waited months to turn in his 2014 Volkswagen Jetta TDI but reached out to NBC Connecticut Responds when the claims process became frustrating.
Norman Cofalka leased the Jetta in February 2014 with the intent of buying it when the lease was up.
"I work in aerospace. We're looking at clean emissions, quieter engines. And this was an engineering marvel, that it was portrayed to be," he said.
However, Cofalka was disappointed to learn that was not actually the case in 2016 when Volkswagen admitted that about 475,000 vehicles with 2-liter four-cylinder diesel engines were equipped with software to cheat emissions tests.
In October last year, a federal judge approved a nearly $15 billion settlement, giving VW owners the option of selling their diesel vehicles back to the automaker or having them repaired.
Cofalka chose to terminate his lease early.
He stopped driving the Jetta in October and bought a new vehicle, believing the claims process would be fairly quick. He continued to make his monthly lease payments on the Volkswagen, as required under the terms of the settlement.
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Cofalka received a formal settlement offer letter at the end of November. He had it notarized and faxed it back to Volkswagen the next day but received no further updates.
Cofalka called Volkswagen in January for an update and learned his paperwork never made it into the system.
Once he resubmitted it, an agent directed him to go to the online claims portal to make an appointment to turn his vehicle over to Volkswagen. The earliest available date was Feb. 23, 2017, right when Cofalka’s lease is set to end.
"I was told that I the lease could be terminated early. And in essence, even though they've said that, they're stretching it out so I'm paying the full lease amount," he said.
NBC Connecticut Responds reached out to VW on Cofalka’s behalf. The company did not directly address his situation, but provided the following statement:
“Overall, we are encouraged by the customer response to the 2.0L TDI settlement program and the exceptional participation rate so far. As of January 14th, Volkswagen had extended more than 266,000 offers to affected customers and by the end of January, we expect to have processed approximately 96,000 buybacks and lease terminations. This program is unprecedented in terms of its size and scope and we have hired, approximately 900, contract employees to help accommodate demand. We know that there have been some issues along the way and our teams have been working tirelessly to make necessary adjustments and continually improve the process.”
A member of Volkswagen’s customer care team reached out to Cofalka directly to address his concerns.
Unfortunately, Cofalka will not be able to hand over the vehicle before February 23.
"All my possessions have been removed from the vehicle. I have the keys ready. I'm ready to drop this off today. That's all I want to do," he said.
