[Gibbon1]

The flip side of the water heater test is, you could game the test the other way too. Making your water heater look worse than it is. Would you do that? No.

The difference between the water heater and VW is the water heater manufacturer is providing a representative sample. And VW was not. It'd also be dubious to say that the water heater company is acting in bad faith. Where VW's bad faith rose to the level of criminal. On the other hand Volvo appears to be acting in strictly good faith.

Bad faith for a crash test would be crafting a silver plate model for testing. Reminds me that's what my uncle said the power supply manufacturer he worked for did.