Interesting article.

http://m.autocar.co.uk/car-news/industry/france-plans-diesel-engine-cull-fight-over-pollution

Weird …I thought newer diesels put out less pollution than petrols

In mildly-related news, I’ve just got 550 miles from £53 of diesel, in an Insignia.

I’m becoming something of a Vauxhall/Opec stand-off fanboi.

As I’ve understood it, diesels produce less CO2, but unless they have a particulate filter, the small (<10micron) soot particles are more damaging than CO2 – to short term human health, if not longer term planet health.

Where does this put old diesels running on veg oil 😉

Well back in the days of the old 1.9dt peugeot/citroen engine it was a purely mechanical engine with the critical components (pump and injectors) made by the germans (bosch) so it is no wonder they were more popular than the electronically controlled petrol petrol engines let alone for their lower fuel consumption and less risk of blowing head gaskets!

But yes, lots of pressure to get rid of diesels these days. Some german cities have zones were you are not allowed to go if you have an older diesel due to soot.

Modern turbo petrol engines are getting very good mpg but I think it is a bit of “lets get sooty horrible diesels out of cities” combined with “lets make people buy new cars to help the economy”. Diesels are still more efficient which is also a factor but pretols are catching them up and if they can hit big heavy low mpg cars more then people will buy smaller, lighter petrol cars.

I think we are also seeing the move to electric vehicles. They won’t openly say it as it won’t go down well but it is a gradual shift and one day we will find that all you can buy is electric (which I can’t wait for) and IC cars will be pressed harder and harder to get rid of them.

A technician in a Lexus garage told my father that Lexus are going to stop selling diesels because it is becoming too problematic to conform to all of the emission constraints.

I can see the passenger car market becoming increasingly petrol lead in the coming years but not exclusively (at least not in the next five years).

Some of these new low capacity petrol turbo engines get similar mpg to my older diesel estate but without the soot and without the weight over the front axle from a heavy engine.

But my suspicion is they will not deliver the lazy low end torque of their diesel equivalents which imo is a nice way to drive if your main car use is chewing up A roads and motorways for work or with your family on board.

I do question whether these petrol engines are the right choice for larger cars that spend their lives chewing up motorway. With a number of larger cars hitting 60+mpg and lower co2 emissions than the petrol equivalents there is still a case there in my view but for town focused use petrol all the way.

I was hoping to hold out and make an electric car my next, couldn’t quite make it hopefully the next.

Some german cities have zones were you are not allowed to go if you have an older diesel due to soot.

They have restrictions based on emissions, not aimed particularly at restricting diesels, lots of older bigger engined petrol cars also fall foul.

They are pushing hard on this early on without ensuring the next gen of low displacement forced induction vehicles are actually up to the task for a cars life time….

It’s possible I suppose, they’d have to change the company car rules first though – to get a petrol with a similar Co2 level to an everyday 150-180bhp diesel you’re looking at something a with less power and half the torque which is okay in a little city car – but they’re not great in a family sized car.

I’d love to have a petrol next time for a change, but the petrol version of my car does 33mpg on the motorway instead of 55mpg and would double my fuel costs – its a bit faster though.

I have a diesel hire car at the moment and it has reminded me why I got rid of my last diesel car for a petrol. It is a noisey, uninspiring, smelly thing that is crap in the city. I was considering a 330d for my next car based on how nice my father in laws 530d is but it is going to take a very extended test drive for me to buy a diesel now. The sooner I can drive my car the better.

Have a little faith Trail Rat.

I test drove the 110 diesel and 115 TCE (1.2l variable valve timing turbo petrol) versions before buying. The TCE has enough torque, will run happily at very low revs, makes less noise and has a much wider useable rev range. 5.7l/100km (6 allowing for speedo error) in the first 18 months of use in a 1200kg. I don’t wish to get into petrolhead eulogies but have a look at torque and power curves before you dismiss these small turbo petrol engines.

I’d like to see hybrid cars with bigger batteries and smaller petrol engines of about 3Obhp. Enough to maintain the motorway speed limit without electric for long journeys and maintain a good charge at lower speeds around town.

Urrgh! Filthy horrible diesels.
LPG powers my wagon. One thousandth of the pollution of diesels with just a hint of arome de crepe suzette from the exhaust.
Converting a car yourself is a mugs game but there are plenty around, already done,for buttons!

Was it a dacia edukator ?

When i went to test drive dacias , the only one i came away thinking well that drove livably was the 1.5dci. The 1.2tce was short on legs noisy and generally out of its depth on a dual carridgeway at the speedlimit – it was your own praise of the tce that even got me into the drivers seat.

This was a logan mcv.

The bulk of my miles are at 70mph , i avoid town centre like the plague.

Lso they have not been out long enough and got to high enough miles yet to be proven for me to buy into it …. Equally i wouldnt buy into modern diesel tech either…. Id probably just play it safe with an na petrol of the 1.6 flavour in todays market till we get a track record.

The latest euro 6 cars are so complex to pass regulations I cannot see small diesel engines lasting for (still being produced) for the next 3/5 years… Big 2.0L stuff will still last in luxury stuff but petrol mpg has come on so much with 3 cylinder vvc turbo changed 150bhp and relatively simple technology and repair!!!
I still prefer the drive of a diesel but with now 3 separate exhaust filters (pre cat/PDF/add blue filter and the issues of injectors running at 2000 bar of pressure and customer having to top up add blue between services it’s becoming a huge PITA…

Love diesels, so much more grunt on the hills etc.

Some german cities have zones were you are not allowed to go if you have an older diesel due to soot.

Not just Germany…

https://www.tfl.gov.uk/modes/driving/low-emission-zone

Soot isn’t really the problem with diesels, it is NOx – London and many other UK cities are way over the European legislation pollution limits.

The tailpipe NOx limits are pretty low for both diesel and petrol engines, but the test cycle is not representative of a real drive cycle (which is why it is rare to get near the fuel economy figures).

A petrol, however it is driven has low level of NOx emissions. A diesel however produces huge amounts of NOx at higher loads – these regions are not tested.

Later in this decade more realistic drive cycles will be introduced, along with Urea/adblue based SCR systems on many diesels which reduce the NOx emitted from the tailpipe.

Truck/bus engines are tested in a different manner, which is why for Eu6 they all have SCR systems already.

There is an image on this page showing labatory vs real world tailpipe emissions for petrol/diesels against the different emissions standards.

http://www.theicct.org/blogs/staff/laboratory-versus-real-world-discrepancies-nox-emissions-eu

Was at the “petrol” station the other night and every vehicle in there (6) was filling up with diesel.

Dacia Lodgy, Trail Rat. At 70mph the 90bhp TCE in the Logan would be more than a match for the diesel in fourth but a little sluggish in fifth. I assume you didn’t change down. Thanks for giving it a try though – a case of not pleasing all the people all the time.

Only part of it was lack of poke. – id expected that but the biggest complaint was the noise at 70.

It made my berlingo seem quiet.

The noise must be Logan specific, my son who is now doing conduite accompagnée in our Lodgy cmplains the engine is too quiet so he can’t hear what it’s doing – he did his obligatory 20h in the latest diesel Clio which is a typical modern diesel in terms of noise.

It’s only in the last few years that diesel cars gave become so normalised, so it’s interesting that we may now see a swing the other way.

TBH I bought a 2 litre petrol 5 years ago and have spent plenty of time cursing the 30mpg vs modern diesels. Am undecided on whether to stay petrol or go diesel when I buy another car.

It’s becoming more difficult and therefore expensive to make a diesel comply with emission regulations which may well be their downfall in small cars. They’ll always make sense in larger vehicles as diesels are more efficient under load – most of the fuel savings in newer cars is due to improvement in light-load fuel usage.

Other than the colour of the pump I can’t imagine the change will make much difference to most people who claim to like how a diesel drives – most new turbo petrols are pretty turbo diesel-esque in their power delivery; lots of shove low down but a wheezing top end which makes them dull as anything to drive.

I thought newer diesels put out less pollution than petrols

Less CO2, much more of everything else. Particuarly NOx. However, forced by Euro6 and the American standards, the most recent ones now have selective catalytic reduction to cut down the NOx.

I’d like to see hybrid cars with bigger batteries and smaller petrol engines of about 3Obhp. Enough to maintain the motorway speed limit without electric for long journeys and maintain a good charge at lower speeds around town.

That’ll be the Vauxhall Ampera or BMW i3 then.

I love diesels but only of the old school mechanical sort like the one in my Defender, newer high pressure electronic controlled ones like the TDCI in my Transit I dont love as much, DMF’s, EGR, high pressure fuel systems that require 2 stroke oil to (hopefully) get decent life out of them have killed them for me.

I read about this earlier. Seems pretty implausible, there has been a huge shift towards diesel especially on the continent where the fuel is cheaper than petrol.

I would take an Ampera in a heartbeat if it wasn’t a Vauxhall.

Petrol-electric is the way to go for the time being, just needs more manufacturers on board.

Just had to get rid of my diesel trafic, had nothing but bother with the dpf, ended up doing unnecessary longer runs to try and keep it clear, made a mockery of trying to get better mpg, driving a petrol now mpg is worse but I only need to drive it when I want to!

Diesels for small cars will be rarer as diesels get more expensive to make and more petrol/hybrids are coming along (although these are more complex/expensive than diesels), where the battery gives better low down torque. However for bigger cars diesels will stay around for a while since plenty are already Euro6 compliant and give better MPG/torque than petrols for big cars on M-ways.

Lexus is a bad example of phasing out diesels. They already buy in diesels from other manufacturers and hybrids is there thing. If say BWM phase out diesels that would be a better indication (they aren’t).

I think the big shift will be with the compression ignition petrols that are currently in development and not far from the market. Clever stuff with variable compression ratio so they switch between a diesel and otto cycle depending on load IIRC… Petrol is a cleaner fuel to burn, so it comes down to getting the energy out of it more efficiently.

These new engines won’t behave or sound anything like a naturally aspirated spark ignition engine btw.

Pretty much the only difference between a modern diesel engine and a modern gasoline one, is that one has spark plugs, and the other doesn’t!

Both are now turbo’d, both can operate unthrottled, both have direct injection, Compression ratios have climbed for petrols and fallen for diesels, all have variable everything!

The only significant difference is that the diesel can run lean (unlike the conventional gasoline engine that must maintain lambda 1 operation in order for the 3 way catalyst to work). EU6 diesels with DPF’s have similar tailpipe soot / particulate emissions close to that of the direct injected gasoline engine (and both are higher than for port injected gasoline engines). In real terms however, all passenger cars are hugely “cleaner” than ever before. And yet, commercial vehicle emissions (HGV, Busses etc) are laughably far behind.

Also in real terms, our air is cleaner than it has ever been. Our city centres have better air quality than they have ever had, despite traffic volumes increases hugely. Unfortunately, what has happened is that more monitors stations, with better resolution and logging capability have highlighted that under certain weather conditions, some smalls areas can have an air quality that exceeds the EU mandated value (a value many times lower than it has ever been before!).

Funnily enough, our governments find it easy to introduce legislation that only costs the end user money, rather than them…………….

it’s interesting to read what people with obviously more technical knowledge have to say but, for the type of driving I do, I love my big lumbering oil burner. A 3.0l intercooled lump. It’ll sit at 70 (ish) all day long, often not even downshifting (5 speed auto) to overtake. You always feel you have torque to spare and there’s no noticeable difference in economy driving with 5 adults and luggage in the back.

The other car I drove regularly, a 1.6 petrol corrola, feels like you’re kill it, it down shifts at the sight of an incline or speed increase and generally feels like it’s always working hard.

RIP diesels.

Spoke to a guy a few months back who had just taken a job at Honda in Tokyo. 70% of their powertrain R&D € is already electric.

Head of BMW tech recently said if the car was invented now you wouldn’t dream of using combustion engines.

It isn’t just diesels that are going to be phased out!

Can’t say that I’ll be sad if that is the case.

I’ve had a diesel company car for almost four years and can’t wait to see the back of it. It’s awful; noisey, smelly on start up, fuel economy isn’t great, rubbish power band, fuel pumps always covered in fuel etc. Even though I do 20k plus per year I’m going back to petrol…probably sone VAG with the 1.4 TFSi engine which seems pretty good. I know I won’t get the claimed fuel economy but the cheaper fuel should at least partially offset it.

Big engined diesels like the six pot BM’s are pretty good but arent on my company car list, so I’m stuck with nasty little four pot dervs.

I do wonder how people drive diesels when they complain about narrow power bands and noise. I find petrols have a narrow power band and are noisy – I keep having to downshift to make the car move in my Dad’s Focus, and the engine drone at motorway speeds is really annoying.

Never go above 2krpm in a diesel.

Anyway – I love new engine tech discussions 🙂

Pretty much the only difference between a modern diesel engine and a modern gasoline one, is that one has spark plugs, and the other doesn’t!

Plus the fuel calorific content…!

more petrol/hybrids are coming along (although these are more complex/expensive than diesels)

They aren’t really. The Toyota system (also used in other manufacturers) has no clutch or gearbox, just a handful of fixed gears and two electric motors. Electric motors and inverters are very well established tech, and when you consider the complex box of gears and bearings you’ve done away with, it’s a lot simpler. It’s a brilliant concept.

The Honda system has a conventional gearbox and engine, but with a thin disc shaped motor sandwiched where the flywheel goes – very simple indeed.

I have read about more complex systems though (BMW? GM?) that have clutches and whatnot to engage electric motors.

Petrol-electric is the way to go for the time being, just needs more manufacturers on board.

In the US they have had much tighter rules on NOx for years – VW weren’t allowed to sell their TDIs there from 1997 until quite recently. VW had to develop catalytic reduction to compete for the high MPG market segment. That’s why Toyota have such a headstart with the Prius. We aren’t overly impressed here because we have diesels, but there buying a Prius meant halving your fuel bill.

There, you can get Ford hybrids, and quite a few GM ones too I think.

Also – here, the new Passat has no petrol engine options, only a hybrid. I don’t know how it works.

Must admit I thought I was lucky when we bought our oil burner as we just nipped in before DPF. Seems to have been quite a sweet spot for maintenance vs power/driveability. It’s mainly done motorway & out-of-town miles, at which it is great – quite and does the far side of 50mpg unless you’re over 80mph. I don’t know if I’d make the same choice now, with the added maintenance costs of the latest standards.

However I’d never buy a diesel for trips round town. Too heavy, take too long to get warm, DPF cycles mandate messing around with a motorway jaunt every few weeks… small petrol still looks like the best choice so far for that use.

The big thing with electrics, is battery life. If that can be improved a bit I’d be perfectly happy with an electric flyweight to do a daily city commute.

diesels when they complain about narrow power bands and noise

No idea where that comes from – it really hasn’t been my experience with our estate. Power band on ours is 2k to 3.5k (ish) – plenty wide enough. And fairly typical for anything recent.

The variable vane turbos that started appearing, what, 10 years ago? Made a huge difference to the width of that band. Plus they massively reduced the turbo lag, which made earlier diesels so godawful to drive.