Seoul, Oct 6 (IANS): German automaker Volkswagen saw its car sales decline in South Korea last month as reputation of the world's largest carmaker was dented on emission cheating scandal, an industry lobby group data showed on Tuesday.

The number of Volkswagen cars newly registered in the country was 2,901 units in September, down 7.8 percent from a month earlier, according to the Korea Automobile Importers and Distributors Association (KAIDA).

It was in a stark contrast to a 12 percent surge in the overall sales of foreign luxury vehicles here in September to 20,381 units compared with the previous month, reported Xinhua.

Volkswagen's Passat 2.0 TDI was the best-selling foreign car in the country in August with sales of 854 units, but its sales figure declined to 583 units in September due to the emissions deceiving incident.

Volkswagen was found to have fabricated software embedded in about 11 million diesel engines globally that is in operation when taking a pollution test to cheat on regulators.

Sales here of the German company's Golf 2.0 TDI reduced from 740 in August to 430 in September, and Audi's A6 35 TDI sales slumped from 795 to 661 in the same period.