The Volkswagen AG emissions scandal is likely to claim another victim.

Dealerships, which generally benefit from recalls that bring customers into their stores, stand to lose a lot more than they gain from the massive recall that has been triggered by the Volkswagen scandal.

Car recalls have become all too familiar to U.S. drivers with millions of vehicles affected in recent years for everything from minor hiccups to the deadly General Motors Co. GM, -1.86% ignition-switch recall. Car makers foot the bill for recalls—for consumers, the only cost is their time. For dealerships, they are an opportunity to get customers into their showrooms, where they can coax them into having that undercoating service, after all.

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But that is only the case for a typical safety recall, car specialists say. Volkswagen CH:VW US:VLKAY is going through a massive scandal, and its recall targets car owners who may not want their cars fixed, afraid of losing out on fuel economy and performance. The recall may leave U.S. dealers holding the bag in at least one way—they are left with a vast inventory of cars that they won’t be able to sell anytime soon.

Adding to the pain, Volkswagen hasn't told dealers and consumers how exactly it will fix the problem. Some are not even sure a fix exists for at least some the diesel engines involved in the recall. There are multiple generations of the diesel engine involved, with multiple country-specific variations. The company has said that a software update might be all it takes for some cars, but others may require new parts.

The company has launched a recall of nearly half a million diesel cars sold in the U.S. after it conceded it used software to foil emissions standards. Volkswagen has said the recall will start in January, after German and U.S. authorities review and approve the proposed fixes.

That’s the extent of what dealers know about the recall. The 650 VW dealerships in the U.S., including an unknown but likely small number that sells only VW cars, are hopeful and confident VW will fulfill its duties, said Jared Allen, a spokesman for the National Automobile Dealers Association.

Read more: Will Volkswagen’s scandal be the death of diesel?

Ordinarily, a safety recall is a net positive for the dealerships. Most people understand whatever caused the problem was an engineering mistake and not malicious, said Max Zanan, a car-dealership consultant with IDDS Group.

A customer coming in for a safety recall fix presents dealers with an opportunity: the chance for mechanics to notice unrelated problems, and to try to make a sale, Zanan said. Dealers usually make more money from service and parts than selling cars, he said.

That’s not the case with the VW scandal.

“In this case, the trust is broken,” he said. “Even if you tell me I need new tires, I may go somewhere else.”

VW has said it would take a $7.3 billion charge to pay for the repairs, and, in preparation for the onslaught of servicing as well as class-action lawsuits that are already popping up, said its investment plan of 86 billion euros ($97 billion) was under review.

To compound the problem, since fixing the cars will likely result in lower fuel economy and worse performance from the vehicles involved, some VW diesel owners may dodge the recall altogether.

A recent thread on VWVortex.com, a site for VW enthusiasts, asked how much of a performance and fuel-economy “penalty” would be acceptable to VW owners affected. Most of those informally polled choose the option that said “None—I won’t fix it even if there is only a 1% reduction.”

Elsewhere on the site, a few owners expressed the same sentiment, and owners of gas-powered VWs also worried the scandal will affect the resale value of their cars.

Earlier this week, Kelley Blue Book said the Beetles, Passats, Audi A3 and other VW vehicles involved in the scandal had lost 13% of their resale value from Sept. 1 to Oct. 2. Over time, that resale-value decline might become less pronounced, particularly as the cars involved get serviced, said Jack Nerad, an analyst with Kelley Blue Book. VW diesel cars were sold at a premium before the scandal since they were some of the few diesel cars available in the U.S.

Meanwhile, however, dealerships are stuck with cars they are not allowed to sell. The size of a dealership inventory mostly depends on the size of the market, he said. Dealers in major cities may have hundreds of cars parked in their lots.

“The typical dealership, even in small markets, has a fair amount of cars,” Nerad said. Inventory is one of the largest expenses in the car business, with dealers most often financing the cars rather than owning them outright, he said. That means dealers may be paying interest on cars they may never be able to sell.