One incentive to buy diesel cars that is seldom mentioned. We live perhaps three miles from town. The vast majority of trips our every day gas drivers do involve this trip.

Because the cold injection gas volume is so much higher on a gas engine this trip and the return if the car is left to cool down in town long enough is made with an extremely rich gas mixture. Not only bad in general for the engines but high cost in comparison to a diesel engine.

In the old days we figures a trip to town and back in our diesels cost maybe a quarter. Where with our gas cars perhaps two dollars. Making enough of those short trips per day with a family of two daily driven gas cars gets pricy in comparison.

At one time it was pretty easy to disable the cold enrichment system on a gas engine as soon as you got up to speed and they would take it well usually. Todays engine control systems may be impossible to enable a system like this unless included from the manufacturer. I personally thought it should be on all gas production and a person could use it if desired.

Us older guys that only had cars available with manual chokes at one time. We used to shut them off as fast as we could. Why otherwise burn all the additional gas required?.

Certainly the cars back then got only perhaps 20 miles per gallon on the highway at best. Yet on all the short trips until the engines really warmed up we may have gotten much better fuel milage than the wonders of today in gas cars.

Plus too high a percentage of that fuel is getting in the oil and wasted in being reburnt off in a crude fashion when you get the engine hot enough.

I know on weeks we go virtually nowhere we burn around eighty dollars of gas a week in two cars. I do not want to calculate how low our average fuel milage is in those weeks. I just know it is pathetic. Eighty dollars a week is about twenty American gallons of gas here at this time.

Americans really do not have cheap gas in my opinion. The unseen costs of actually having it cheap are pretty high and growing. The population actually has had to bear the costs of wars over it. Hopefully saner minds will prevail at some point. Even 9/11 and all the home security costs inflicted since on the population may not have occurred.

If the government wanted to go after BMW and MB they would have already. The VW nox problem was detected by the EPA more than a year ago. The EPA gave VW that time to implement a fix and they failed. VW finally came clean about their emissions defeat device this sept.

Some people seem to be trying to paint the picture as the big bad EPA going poor little innocent VW and someone else could be next. Nothing could be further from the truth. By their own admission VW intentionally broke the law and then lyed about it. VAG has no one to blame but themselves.

What's happening now in the US is just a precursor to the collosal ****storm they'll face in Europe where they sell many times more TDIs.

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CENSORED due to not family friendly words

Euro cars did not have them, only NA spec ones. I specified the v8's and the m103 which were all gas engines. The diesels did not have smog pumps.

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2004 F150 4.6L -My Daily
2007 Volvo XC70 -Wife's Daily
1998 Ford F150 -Rear ended
1989 J-spec 420SEL -passed onto its new keeper
1982 BMW 733i -fixed and traded for the 420SEL
2003 Volvo V70 5 Speed -scrapped
1997 E290 Turbo Diesel Wagon -traded for above
1992 BMW 525i -traded in
1990 Silver 300TE -hated the M103
1985 Grey 380SE Diesel Conversion, 2.47 rear end, ABS -Sold, really should have kept this one
1979 Silver 300D "The Silver Slug" -Sold

Comparing the VW premeditated fraud with the GM negligence and corporate coverup is a non-starter. Not suggesting the VW actions are better or worse, just a completely different situation.

I personally think that the Encyclopedia of Auto Industry Ethics is a very thin comic book. GM execs tried to cover up a defect, because no one pays corporate bonuses to whistleblowers who impact share prices. Quite to the contrary, honesty tends to be the quickest form of career suicide. And of course, the capitalist apologists and dividend whores among us would have it no other way.

OTOH, VW intentionally programmed their vehicles' computers to only produce the advertised emissions if the vehicle was being driven on a testing cycle. Once the car was on the road in normal conditions, the "real" program kicked in.

This was premeditated fraud... though one could argue not that much worse than the fraudulent fuel economy figures most automakers have been marketing their cars on, for the last 10? 20? years.

VW is supposed to come up with some kind of recall within a year. Well they already had a year to come up with something, and haven't. I fear that the fix isn't going to be pretty. I would wager VW owners are going to find their famously peppy TDi models will be lumps, once the computers are reprogrammed. The only way I can see to cut emissions is to cut fuel, which means less power.

People have obviously forgotten this has happened before, with highway tractors. IIRC all the major manufacturers paid huge fines something like 8 years ago, for falsifying emissions figures on a massive, industry-wide scale.

Back to VW: According to the report I heard tonight, this investigation began with academics in Europe, who became suspicious of the claims of manufacturers of how clean their diesels had become over the last decade... yet urban pollution levels are worse than ever.

They were the first to uncover the lie... which they passed on to the US government.

What I am wondering, is where this ends. Was VW was the only one found to be fudging the figures? Diesel sales are massive in Europe. I find it hard to believe only VAG was the only bad actor.

Who next? FIAT-Chrysler? Ford? I wonder.

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Mac
2002 e320 4matic estate│1985 300d│1980 300td
Previous: 1979 & 1982 & 1983 300sd │ 1982 240d

“Let's take a drive into the middle of nowhere with a packet of Marlboro lights and talk about our lives.” ― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

A bit more trap info:

Technically all Diesel exhaust stream pollution control systems are "aftertreatment systems" as they are not technically catalysts. The NoX brick has to be regenerated as it holds the NoX on the surface of the brick and otherwise will eventually plug. There are two "in use" technologies in use in the USA, one using urea and one using additional fuel. The chemistry differs but the result is the same. BTW - I'm named (WAY in the back) on the patent for the additional fuel method.

I say "in use in the USA" as there's another system requiring that the vehicle be returned to a service center and have the NoX brick cleaned there (I don't know what that technology looks like). The EPA decided aginst this as here in the States we can't even get people to bring their cars in for an oil change never mind an emissions service.

As of when I retired, VW chose the added fuel method for their lower HP engines and urea for their higher HP engines. I don't know their reasoning for this.

Dan

It's my understanding that the Cruze diesel is an Opel engine. I test-drove one last year and was pretty impressed. However, GM has tacked on a huge price premium for the diesel option.
And though not enough Cruze diesels have been sold for Consumer Reports to rate them, they have consistently rated the gas Cruze near the bottom for reliability, which doesn't bode well for the diesels.

Happy Motoring, Mark

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DrDKW

I expect some kind of "them not us" statement soon if not already from D-B, BMW, and the other non-VWgroup diesel manufacturers. They will be eager to avoid being tarred with VW's brush; whether they will be successful is another matter.

VW scandal: Germany

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CENSORED due to not family friendly words

The ICCT seems to be an NGO engaged in air quality advocacy. Ironically, this began as an attempt to validate clean diesel as a viable alternative to traditional technologies. Here's one of the first reports they produced, from which it's pretty clear that this is an industry wide issue and may not stop with VW:

Real-world exhaust emissions from modern diesel cars | International Council on Clean Transportation

I heard it started with a West Virginia academic study with the interest of promoting "clean diesel technology" in the United States. That's when they found the discrepancy and the investigation was opened.

Anyways VAG stock is -38% in 2 days (as of now).


Sent from an abacus

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TC
Current stable:
- 2004 Mazda RALLYWANKEL
- 2007 Saturn sky redline
- 2004 Explorer...under surgery.

Past: 135i, GTI, 300E, 300SD, 300SD, Stealth

You can bet GM and Ford execs are laughing their brains out over this. (Unless of course they have their own dark closets that only await some light.)

I do echo the sentiment of being angry over what this may do to the image of diesel. It has taken sooooo long for us to come this far, in terms of wider market acceptance. Now VAG has just done what GM did to diesel in the 1970s/80s... but to the power of 5. Such great technology, and every time it tries to emerge some stupid/greedy/crooked auto execs stick a fork in it.

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Mac
2002 e320 4matic estate│1985 300d│1980 300td
Previous: 1979 & 1982 & 1983 300sd │ 1982 240d

“Let's take a drive into the middle of nowhere with a packet of Marlboro lights and talk about our lives.” ― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

Barry, the trust issue becomes muddier by the month as more new models are announced that are made here or there, or made by one manufacturer for another (such as the new Mazda model made by Toyota, or is that vice versa, I forget).

Many manufacturers, VAG being right at the top, have been riding on undeserved reps and clever marketing for years or decades. Subaru is a major deadbeat in this department. Nissan also, for their models made over the last 5-10 years.

Mercedes should hang its head in shame for the first incarnation of the Smart. Utter crap and pitiful service and parts support. No wonder they sold it here in Canada but let a private firm take on importing it to the USA for that generation.

I could go on. Best bet for those of us in the older-car world is to latch onto one model that shows decent promise and has good owner forum support and hang on. I may go the Volvo XC70 route next year, the 2004-up build years are acceptable and though they are troublesome cars, there is fantastic forum and private DIY site support.

It's either that or a 2007-ish Chev Impala. Not as good as a Camry but I could never bring myself to drive a Toyota. Local taxi drivers report they get 600-800,000 kms on the Impalas and more than 1 million kms off the Camrys before they are retired. (Both assume one engine change during their service life.)

Aside: the driver who had the longest-lived Camry, 1.2 m kms, actually bought the car for his personal use after it was retired (bylaw mandates taxis be retired at 8 yrs of age).

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Mac
2002 e320 4matic estate│1985 300d│1980 300td
Previous: 1979 & 1982 & 1983 300sd │ 1982 240d

“Let's take a drive into the middle of nowhere with a packet of Marlboro lights and talk about our lives.” ― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

I was thinking that too, good call

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Never be ashamed to ask for help.

1985 300D
1987 300SDL
1970 Jaguar E-Type OTS
2002 Dodge Intrepid (Traded In)
2011 Ford Crown Victoria

The European NGO couldn't afford to buy a smog machine that can travel in the car to make tests in normal highway driving conditions so they approached the American college for collaboration, as the college had the appropriate machine, or at least access to one.

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"Buster" in the '95

Our all-Diesel family
1996 E300D (W210) . .343,000 miles Wife's car
2005 E320 CDI . . 148,000 miles My car
Santa Rosa population 177,300 (2026 projected)
Total. . . . . . . . . . . . 668,300
"Oh lord won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz."
-- Janis Joplin, October 1, 1970

There are 2 accurate portable emissions measurement systems, one of which is the Semtec. My SIL is an expert on that device and has a consultancy setting up and running the machine for various customers.

The issue with the portable systems is that there are too many variables in the "real world" to run repeatable testing. Remember, emissions standards around the world are run on a dyno in a controlled environment for this reason.

I have no clue if the European NP mentioned wanted on-road emissions values or not but other then for research or development purposes any data thus generated is of limited value. Assuming that the tests are run at 68'-86*F (20-30*c) on flat pavement on a repeatable test cycle with no corners or wind, they might have some use. Either way, they won't hold up in a court of law though they might be helpful in pointing a finger at certain cars that need more study.

None of this is easy or simple.

Dan