Volkswagen Australia confirmed on Tuesday night that it will recall nearly 26,000 of its units across the Golf, Jetta, Polo, Passat and Caddy models manufactured between June 2008 and September 2011.

The move is being enforced following customers' uproar on safety issues particularly on the vehicles' direct-shift gearbox (DSG). The DSG is the automatic transmission in the more recent versions of Volkswagen.

Over the past weeks, hundreds of Volkswagen drivers have approached the media entity Fairfax to protest their faulty DSG transmissions, which causes sudden deceleration while driving. Some car owners have also reported wiggling in the vehicles.

It is not clear, however, if all other safety issues related to the DSG will be addressed. The safety recall is focusing on a specific version of the DSG which is the seven-speed DQ200.

Volkswagen Australia has already committed to get in touch with the affected customers, and offered to examine and replace the DSG's mechatronics unit for no cost to the car owner.

The recall will cover some 25,928 vehicles within the specifications.

Melissa Ryan case

The safety recall comes in the wake of rabid public reaction over results of the coroner's inquest into Melissa Ryan's death. It will be recalled that Ms. Ryan died in 2011 while driving her 2008 Volkswagen Golf. Her car was struck from behind by an oncoming truck. Both Ms. Ryan's family and the truck driver claimed that her car just dramatically decelerated without any warning or obvious reason.

Ms. Ryan was driving a diesel manual, while most of those who complained to Fairfax Media are owners of automatic vehicles with DSG transmission, or a known defect involving diesel injectors.

The problem with diesel injectors is that when one of these fails, the car will just immediately shut down, including the power steering. This happens most often while driving.

DIT has to explain

The recall follows earlier recalls made by Volkswagen in Japan, Singapore and China where safety issues were also raised on the vehicles' DSG transmission.

Earlier, Australia car owners were already getting frustrated and angered by the non-decision of Volkswagen to recall its units despite enforcing such move in other countries.

As early as 2009, these DSG-related issues were resolved in the United States.

The Department of Infrastructure and Transport, which endorses safety recalls to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, now has some serious explaining to do as to why it refused to pressure Volkswagen to recall when the other countries had already done so.

Some car owners are also questioning the DIT why it did nothing to address the diesel injector problem. Faced with the same issue, the DIT's counterpart in England - the Vehicle and Operator Service Agency - compelled Volkswagen to get in touch with customers and reimbursed to them thousands of dollars for the repair of faulty injectors.

According to reports, Volkswagen Australia has known about the injectors as early as 2011 about the same time the British inquiry commenced. However, only a "mild" campaign was launched in Australia to address the problem.

Car owners sneer at the fact that they had to initiate bringing the vehicles for a service and had to bleed thousands of dollars just to have the problem fixed.