On Thursday, VW announced that it would look into quality issues in more than 2.6 million cars worldwide, prompting one of the biggest recalls in the company's history.

Volkswagen specifically mentioned 800,000 affected Tiguan cars built between early 2008 and mid-2011, with 150,000 units being recalled in Germany alone. The Wolfsburg-based automaker announced that it would replace a faulty fuse that could cause the lights to partially go out.

VW announced that the current recall also covered 239,000 Amarok vehicles with faulty fuel lines. In addition, the company offered an oil change for some 1.6 million cars in which the use of synthetic instead of mineral oil was found to be a potential source of technical problems.

China in focus

On Thursday, the Chinese government's product quality agency announced that VW would recall about 640,000 vehicles partially made in the country.

Affected models include Sciroccos, Golf wagons and sport convertibles in what is VW's second recall in China this year, after the firm fixed gearboxes in 384,000 cars in March.

China is one of VW's most important markets. In 2013 alone, the automaker has sold more than 2 million units in the country, marking a sales jump of about 18 percent year-on-year.

hg/mkg (dpa, AP, GLP)