VW sales down in UK but so are all the other big brands - why has it not been more affected by the emissions scandal?

New registrations of VW's tumbled in October. It's tempting to see the SMMT's figures as evidence that the emissions scandal has finally damaged sales, that customers are shunning the brand. It isn't, they aren't.

Almost all of the big car manufacturers saw registrations plunge. Ford by 8%, Nissan by 12%, Vauxhall by 16%.

Last month VW and its Seat and Skoda brands were more obviously caught up in a wider slowdown. Although sales of Audis (also part of VW group) accelerated.

As the head of SMMT, Mike Hawes puts it, demand for new cars generally "has begun to level off" although only after three and a half years of remarkable and unprecedented growth. The SMMT thinks we're still on for a record year.

Why the steep fall in October? September is always a bumper month, so to speak, with new registration plates released. It's like Christmas for retailers with some dealers doing 25% of their business in a single month.

This year the new "65" plate came out, dealers gave it a big push with carefully designed campaigns, momentum in October slowed. A lull is inevitable at some point. Is this one deeper and more widespread than normal as a result of the VW scandal? The SMMT says it's too soon to say, which rather suggests it's not sure.

"It could have been a lot worse" a source at VW tells me. "UK sales are pretty robust". VW's Golf and Polo models moved up the best-seller list.

Over many decades has VW built up a formidable reputation - it was a brand you could trust. The company continues to belch out bad news but internally there appears to be a confidence that there's still plenty of customer goodwill left in the tank.

We'll see. VW's admission, six weeks ago, that it overstated the emissions performance of its cars hasn't been fatal but this week the company also admitted it overstated fuel economy. That may cause more of a stink.