A federal judge this week has granted preliminary approval to Volkswagen’s plan to pay at least US$1.22bn to fix or buy back nearly 80,000 polluting three-litre diesel vehicles in the United States.

US District Judge Charles Breyer in San Francisco also agreed at a court hearing to grant preliminary approval to Robert Bosch’s separate settlement to pay $327.5m to US diesel Volkswagen owners, Reuters reported.

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But, the news agency noted, VW could be forced to pay up to $4.04bn if regulators do not approve fixes for all three-litre luxury Porsche, Audi and Volkswagen diesel vehicles in the settlement. Breyer will hold an 11 May hearing on whether to grant final approval.

Volkswagen has now agreed to spend up to $25bn in the United States to address claims from owners, environmental regulators, US states and dealers and to make buyback offers.

The automaker is set to plead guilty on 24 February in Detroit to three felony counts under a plea agreement to resolve US charges it installed secret software in vehicles to allow them to emit pollution up to 40 times the legal limit, Reuters added.

It previously agreed to spend up to $10.03bn to buy back up to 475,000 polluting two-litre vehicles that have software that allowed them to evade emissions rules in testing. The three-litre vehicles have an undeclared auxiliary emissions system that allowed the vehicles to emit up to nine times allowable limits.

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Volkswagen said this week it had received claims from 360,000 current and former two-litre owners and has made settlement offers to more than 300,000.

Reuters noted VW nonetheless still faces claims from investors, suits from some US states and some owners who have opted out of the class-actions settlement, along with pending investigations by the US Securities and Exchange Commission and German prosecutors.