(Bloomberg) -- Volkswagen brand sales in the U.S. fell 7.8 percent in September for an 11th straight monthly decline.
The brand's deliveries dropped to 24,112 light vehicles, Volkswagen said in a statement Monday. The average of three analyst estimates was for an 8 percent decline. VW said its Tiguan sport utility vehicle had its best month ever with a 0.5 percent increase to 2,988. Golf and Beetle sales fell 13 percent, and Passat deliveries dropped 12 percent, while Jetta sales rose 6.8 percent.
The sales decline adds to the fallout from the scandal. Volkswagen agreed to pay an industry-record $16.5 billion in civil litigation fines in the U.S. after admitting last year that its diesel cars were outfitted with a “defeat device” that allowed filtered exhaust only when cars were being tested. The carmaker is also on the hook for outstanding civil claims from several states and as much as $9.2 billion in investor lawsuits in Germany.
In the immediate aftermath of the revelation of the cheating, which allowed vehicles to spew as much as 40 times the legal amount of emissions, VW poured on the discounts and the brand's deliveries rose 0.6 percent in September last year and 0.2 percent the following month. They have declined in each month since then. Diesel models accounted for more than 20 percent of the VW brand's U.S. volume before sales of the vehicles were halted.
To contact the reporter on this story: Jamie Butters in Southfield, Michigan, at jbutters@bloomberg.net. To contact the editors responsible for this story: Kevin Miller at kmiller@bloomberg.net, John Lear
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