VW recalls 26,000,000 cars worldwide for technical issues

Volkswagen ordered a worldwide recall of 2.6 million vehicles over technical problems. The setback comes at a critical time as the German giant tries to expand in the booming Chinese market and is the biggest recall in the company's history.

In the UK, some 30,000 of the 8 lakh Tiguan SUV models recalled are affected, as well as 30,000 other models beset by a range of relatively minor faults.

Volkswagen acted over concerns that the affected Tiguan cars have faulty fuses in their lighting circuits and 2.39 lakh Amarok pick-up trucks may have leaking engine fuel lines. Another 1.6 million cars and vans may have problems caused by the use of synthetic oil in their gear boxes, including 6.40 lakh vehicles made for the China market between 2009 and 2013.

The blow comes at a time when Volkswagen wants to double its manufacturing capacity in China to four million cars a year by 2018. Volkswagen issued a statement saying "In isolated cases, a fuse may trip in the Tiguan resulting in the failure of one of the two vehicle light circuits. Replacing the fuse with one with a tougher surface coating only takes a few minutes."

The affected Tiguans were built between 2008 and 2011 and the company said an electrical fuse failure may cause lighting failures on several different circuits.

Volkswagen has issued a global voluntary recall for all cars fitted with the seven-speed drives after it found that using them in hot and humid areas, such as in China and South-East Asia, made them susceptible to electrical faults in stop-start traffic.