While most class action suites result in small payouts, largely due to the sheer number of plaintiffs, that's not always the case. And I don't think it would be the case here either, where there are only about potential 500,000 plaintiffs in what will be a cake-walk of a lawsuit. If the lawsuit successfully argues that customers deserve back the premium they paid for the diesel engine - say $2000 just for the sake of easy math - and 15% for the loss of value - say $2250 on an average pre-scandal resale value of $15,000 for a 2009-2015 TDI - that's $4250 per plaintiff. Let's just say $4000 per plaintiff to make it easy. That is "only" a $2 billion dollar settlement, a lot of money, sure, but hardly unheard of for a class action lawsuit - and an easy award given VW's resources and the nature of this case (admitted, near-criminal consumer fraud).
Now, let's assume that the lawyers end up taking 50% - a high estimate, but just for the sake of argument. That still leaves a cool billion for 500,000 TDI owners, or $2,000 per each. And I think this is still on the low end of what is possible.
Sure, this is assuming a lot, but does anyone here think that a class action lawsuit can't achieve a $2 billion dollar settlement in this case, which is basically a foregone conclusion? And does anything here not think that VW knows this, and is thus offering $500 in cash ($250 million) to save money? The extra $500 on cash to spend at the dealership is less than $250 million, as some will be spent on marked up parts.
So, take the cash if you want and be happy. But if it involves giving up any rights to a payout from a class action lawsuit, I for one am going to refuse it. But if it comes with no strings attached, it's probably just VW's way of mitigating the damages from the class action lawsuit. They see the writing on the wall here and are trying to keep this as inexpensive as possible, and have teams of lawyers and accountants figuring out how to do it.