VW in UK?

Why the aggression,

Apologies I just spotted this. I’m not being deliberately aggressive so apologies if my writing style comes across that way. I’m just asking you to prove your point which you were failing to do.

Kryton …. Even curtains have an enviromental impact ….

I suggest you sit butt naked in the middle of a grass field….but then that has enviromental impact also…

I struggle to see your point – bike as urban transport has significantly less enviromental impact than your car and even you cant deny that – from conceptual design to end of life recycling.

Its not about eliminating impact its called reduction…. Maybe your familiar with the termp ALARP ?

Kryton57 – Member
apologies if my writing style comes across that way. I’m just asking you to prove your point which you were failing to do
So you understand you can’t force that member to post the words and links you want them to, so perhaps you could stop asking now?

wobbliscott – Member

The issue is that VW cheated not necessarily the means by which they cheated. VW have used a defeat device to falsify their figures, other manufacturers are undoubtedly upto similar shinannigans but via different means. I remember something about BMW and where in the system they chose to measure emissions, so selectively choosing where they placed the sensor to get the best possible results.
In your example referring to BMW, that’s just refining their system performance 😐

All the manufactureres are competing with eachother on these figures, and none have ‘magic’ technology that others don’t have so it is highly likely they are all upto some form of fiddling.
Most OEMs aspire to attain certification at the lowest cost/investment Vs performance in any given test/measure of that vehicle.
History of the motor car demonstrates that those who over Engineer, seldom remain in business. So it then comes down to how each OEM approaches the challenge of meeting regs, in all areas of certification for sale in that market. Be that compliance with safety regs, emissions, lighting, etc, etc.

In anycase, despite the worse than advertised figures, the technologies incorporated into Diesel engines have been effective and have plateau’d the emissions amids a huge increase in the numbers of diesel cars, rather than reduced them as everyone was promised and expected. The biggest scandal here is how diesel was ever sold as a clean fuel in the first place. It was a perfect storm of oil companies looking to get rid of their stock piles of diesel fuel, car companies wanting to sell more cars, and governments despirately scrabbling around looking for ways to reduce CO2 emissions.
Not very convinced on the conspiracy front, but don’t take that to heart. However you touch on a good point. How dirty would petrol or diesel be these days had developed countries not introduced regs for emissions.

Poeple owning diesel cars will have to pay more for tax as cars are re-banded, the motor industry will have to compensate owners for that somehow, and we’ll all carry on and the next big push will be on petrol engined hybrid cars to replace all our filthy diesels and slighly less filthy petrol engine’d cars. Then the scandal will be about the significant environmental damage the mining of precious metals, manufacture and disposeal of batteries causes.
I feel we will be stuck with the current crop of diesel cars for some considerable time yet.
Also, I would have a problem with UK Gov if they attempted to turn to me and stiff me for re-banding. Firstly, they failed to devise a test to catch the type of system VW used. Secondly, Gov raised duty on diesel quite some years ago and has been riding that wave of increased duty ever since. Is that tacit approval?
“We won’t band diesel, we’ll just charge you more for it”….

I don’t feel Gov should punish me for their failure to devise a suitably robust test regime while they were also charging me more at the pump.

Edit:
While discussing this topic at work today, someone wondered if Petrol cars might have been subject to a similar strategy for regulatory compliance.

I struggle to see your point – bike as urban transport has significantly less enviromental impact than your car and even you cant deny that – from conceptual design to end of life recycling.

Its not about eliminating impact its called reductio

Yes, I got that, you didn’t spot the smiley then?

So you understand you can’t force that member to post the words and links you want them to, so perhaps you could stop asking now?

I have, but when said member states a fact so clearly to argue against some of my posts that I believe to be untrue, I have the right to ask to view the evidence so I can learn from said evidence myself. I don’t see the issue in requesting that, and at that point Edukator continued to denote NOX as a direct killer of people without producing any evidence to back it up – and therefore until he did/does it can only be considered “personal opinion” by the perhaps less learned.

theres just been a study trying to pin down deaths from air pollution
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v525/n7569/full/nature15371.html

also some info here
http://www.nature.com/news/the-science-behind-the-volkswagen-emissions-scandal-1.18426

In London, where more than 3,000 deaths a year are attributable to air pollution, diesel road traffic is responsible for 40% of NOx emissions. Across the European Union, some 20% of the urban population is estimated to live in areas where nitrogen-dioxide concentrations exceed air-quality standards.

and its not just VW, but they seem to be the worst!
http://www.transportenvironment.org/publications/dont-breathe-here-tackling-air-pollution-vehicles

On average new EU diesel cars produce emissions about five times higher than the allowed limit. The results are compiled in a new report, Don’t Breathe Here, in which T&E analyses the reasons for and solutions to air pollution caused by diesel machines and cars – the worst of which, an Audi, emitted 22 times the allowed EU limit.

our government and the london mayor in particular are well aware that Diesels have helped put us above legal pollution limits for some time now

theyve done nothing about it for decades, I cant see them hurrying to change

Kryton57 – Member

So you understand you can’t force that member to post the words and links you want them to, so perhaps you could stop asking now?

I have, but when said member states a fact so clearly to argue against some of my posts that I believe to be untrue, I have the right to ask to view the evidence so I can learn from said evidence myself. I don’t see the issue in requesting that.

Yah, so ask once darling and if you don’t get your answer, then please chill and possibly resist the urge to turn this into an argue-athon.

Please.
🙂

Is this the part when the thread turns into wordy wankathon and all but a few lose interest?

Yah, so ask once darling and if you don’t get your answer, then please chill and possibly resist the urge to turn this into an argue-athon.

As in your example here?

Is this the part when the thread turns into wordy wankathon and all but a few lose interest?

Yep. I’m out with the exception of watching how this go’s from a reading technical explanations perspective.

If its the case that VW have been making us breath in their wilful disregard for our health here too (ever sit in commuter traffic or cycle?) Then they should face gtoundbreaking fines. However I can see ‘we are working together to resolve this and ‘we want to avoid job losses’ spiel coming out?

Ps. Guys stop arguing.

Predictably VW have said that only a small number of people new about this and that obviously, everyone else was completely in the dark

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/sep/25/volkswagen-appoints-matthias-muller-chief-executive-porsche-vw

There’s a linky somewhere above to the opinion that diesels have been adapted to reduce PM10s, resulting in lots more, smaller, PMs. Was the exhaust filter thingy about trapping PM10s?

I assume one reason for cars having ‘pollen’ filters is to stop some of the diesel soot. Can anyone comment, please?

They’ve not been adapted, it’s just how they’ve progressed.

As technology has improved, the size of particles produced during combustion has reduced, and combined with particular filters means only very fine particles now pass out the exhaust. The issue there, is those particles are now so small human lungs can’t actually filter them and they can pass straight into your blood stream.

Upcoming euro standards will ultimately head towards zero emissions, but those are dependant on the technology being available and viable.

The problem is how do you go from something highly polluting, to something that does minimal polluting?
I had a chat with my neighbour about it a couple years ago, who is a professor in air pollution, and that was essentially his response.
When you think back to how all buildings in cities used to be stained black due to the soot, things have improved, however he highlighted various decisions that resulted in unintended/unexpected results.

The current problem with diesels is one of those. A few years ago, diesel’s were seen as the better option for the environment, due to their lower co2/CO/Hydrocarbons, so there was a move towards encouraging them over petrols. But then Nox became a known health problem, so that was reduced, which resulted in more PM, so then PM size limits have been reduced, which brings us to our current state, in that the smaller PM could potentially be a major health problem. Nobody has proved that it is or isn’t, but it’s not exactly something you can easily research and prove one way or the other.

I can remember about 15 years ago, a VW executive saying in the press that petrol engines would struggle to meet emission standards, and the future given the proposed emission levels was diesel. However technology advances in petrol’s have kept them alive.
Not long after that, the future was going to be hydrogen fuel cells which should of been in production a few years ago according to some manufacturers, however most research for those was scaled back not long after that, as in real life testing, they just didn’t work due to a mixture of various problems with estimates of another 10-15 years to refine the technology enough for it to be viable in production.
Off course we now have far better battery technology that is good for certain uses, however there is still an infrastructure problem preventing it from mass use.

Give it a few years, and today’s predictions will most likely of changed a great deal.

If its the case that VW have been making us breath in their wilful disregard for our health here too

Hang on – it isn’t the case that VW are especially dirty. It’s that they want to sell lots of them in the US. And they managed to cheat the US test. Most manufacturers don’t even sell in the U.S. because they cannot meet the standards. This is why Toyota gave up and invented their hybrid instead.

I expect that in real life most manufacturers diesels are similar in NOx terms. Unless they are owned by one of these smart-arses who delete their EGR, those ones will be way worse.

According to that study I posted last page Audi were the worst, so VAG , but they all cheat the EU tests

they knowingly put cars on the road that contributed toward deaths *

* to an greater extent than EU law deemed acceptable

Turns out Diesel is even more deadly than we previously thought

http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/15/9983/2015/acp-15-9983-2015.html

Comparing real-world urban composition with regulatory emissions inventories in the UK and US highlights a previously unaccounted for, but very significant, under-reporting of diesel-related hydrocarbons; an underestimation of a factor ~4 for C9 species rising to a factor of over 70 for C12 during winter.

I have bought a Skoda with the 2.0L Tdi engine. Now I am aware that the real world mpg is nowhere near the VW figures. I can accept that, what I can’t and won’t accept is the fact that the emmisions are way higher than they have told me. I don’t care if the car meets the crappy standards set by the EU I bought that car on the understanding that it was reasonably fuel efficient and cleanish for a diesel. If it turns out that it will need an extra urea tank adding so be it as long as I’m not paying for it. If they drop the power to meet the emmisions they can have the bloody thing back and I’ll have my deposit back unless they give me some sort of financial incentive to keep it, early days yet not just for VW it seems.

@inbred yes I think that’s a key decision point, how will the performance and indeed fuel economy be impacted by the required fix ?

Had this conversation tonight with a friend who has an Audi with an impacted engine, it’s a company car so any compensation will go the the company / lease company and his chances of seeing any of it seem minimal even though his driving experience is likely to be negatively impacted.

though his driving experience is likely to be negatively impacted.

My heart bleeds – not.

I have an idea. All cars have their performance limited to Euro test protocol levels. Less deaths from pollution and less deaths from cars that have performance levels entirely inappropriate for public roads. Win, win. Nobody needs 150-300bhp in a small car and the insurance premium tells you just how dangerous that extra power is in the hands of people with an average/median IQ of 100.

I don’t care if the car meets the crappy standards set by the EU

1) why are the standards crappy?

2) Why don’t you care?

Not read the whole thread, so I’m sorry if this has already been asked – does all this mean that cars that have been chipped/remapped probably have Nox levels above what they should have?

I suspect NOx is directly related to volume of fuel burnt so if you have a remap for ‘power’ and have a heavy right foot then emissions will go up as fuel consumption increases.

A lot of people seem to report better economy following a remap (due to more power at lower revs?) so perhaps they emit less NOx as a consequence?

‘Had this conversation tonight with a friend who has an Audi with an impacted engine, it’s a company car so any compensation will go the the company / lease company and his chances of seeing any of it seem minimal even though his driving experience is likely to be negatively impacted.’

Do you work in marketing?

I suspect NOx is directly related to volume of fuel burnt

No, it doesn’t come from the fuel. As you will know air is made mostly of a mix of nitrogen and oxygen. If you heat up air above 800C or something, then they react to form various oxides of nitrogen, known as NOx. Some are nasty, some are not. The problem with diesels is that the cylinder is full.of air with just a bit of fuel in it, and this air gets hot around the droplets of burning fuel, hence NOx.

In a petrol car the cylinder is full of a mix of petrol vapour and air, and the oxygen is completely used up by the burning petrol, if the mixture’s right, hence not much nox.

When you have your diesel remapped, I suspect they advance injection timing. This improves efficieny which increases power and economy because it increases cylinder temperature, but it also raises NOx.

EGR replaces some of the air in the cylinder with exhaust gas, which contains less oxygen of course and reduces NOx formation. Although it doesn’t reduce maximum.power because the engine turns off Egr at high throttle. A remap probably reduces egr too.

Writing the EGR out of the code is the first thing the remappers do.

To quote Quantum Tuning:

Removal of the EGR system by banking off the exhaust input and reprogramming of the engine managment ECU results in lowered engine temperatures, improved throttle response and economy and also can lengthen engine life by reducing oil contamination and carbon deposits.

Not sure how removing EGR lowers engine temperatures..? I thought it was there in the first place to lower engine temperatures.

Perhaps they mean lowering input charge temperatures?

You could argue that the EGR cooler raises coolant temperature, but you are correct in that the whole point of EGR is to reduce combustion temperatures.

2.1 million vw/audi vehicles affected by the emissions thing (so far).

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/aaa5e1c4689447dfadbf29f17151dc44/latest-environmental-group-warns-gasoline-cars

That’s going to be expensive to sort out whatever they do.

[edit] re-read – that’s 2.1 million Audi’s, not VW’s too…

I always thought the current CO2 based VED system was wrong.. My dads GTD is summit like 20 quid a year to tax whilst my old 2.0i Passat was well past the 200 quid mark (and not to mention slower than his car). I don’t know why this has taken so long to come out.. You can actually SEE the shite coming oot the back of diesels for christs sake! To quote someone from another thread, diesels belong in agricultural machinery and trucks and have no place under the bonnet of a car. I really hope this is start of the end for diesels in cars.

So from what I can tell it’s just the 2 litre engines that are affected, so hopefully my mk6 1.6 tdi golf is alright?

1.6 and 2.0 affected.

We need somebody to set up a “Enter your registration number to see if you’re affected” website.

(60 plate A6 with the “eco” 😆 2.0tdi engine owner here.)

1.6 and 2.0 affected.

Not all of them though.

According to the Guardian all of the Euro 5 diesel Golf 6:

Around 5m VW passenger cars are affected worldwide. Certain models such as the sixth-generation Volkswagen Golf, the seventh-generation Volkswagen Passat and the first-generation Volkswagen Tiguan are equipped exclusively with type EA 189 diesel engines that were found to be cheating emissions tests. All new cars that fulfill the EU6 norm are not affected, including the current Golf, Passat and Touran models.

According to the Guardian all of the Euro 5 diesel Golfs:

Hence not all are effected.

Erm, where would I find out which engine I have in mine? 😳

Erm, where would I find out which engine I have in mine?

Not sure but I think 60 plate will mean Euro 5. 😕

Ok, I’ll just go out and torch it now then.

Are they really going to detune everyone’s car? Or just re-certify them?

The Golf 6 went on sale in the UK in 2009 and VW fitted Golfs with the EA189 engine from 2008. I fail to see how Tom’s Golf could be fitted with anything other than an EA189. If it were another engine it wouldn’t be a 1.6.