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Nearly all new diesel cars exceed official pollution limits

theguardian.com

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Re: Nearly all new diesel cars exceed official pollution limits

#121

Post by Grishnakh »

gherkin0 wrote: post #116
makomk wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure that owners can refill the tank by themselves, but manufacturers are required to have a big enough tank that it can be done by the dealer as part of the regular servicing schedule. The tank itself not so much a US thing as it is a modern diesel car thing; it's part of the emissions control system on I think most new diesels.

My dad has a US Volkswagen diesel. He's told me he can refill the urea tank, but he can't reset the computer to tell it the tank was filled, so there's very little point for him to actually refill it. His car will stop working unless he brings it into the dealer, one way or the other.

See, this is a great example of how our regulators have failed miserably. This kind of practice should be outright banned. There should not be anything on a car that requires you to take it to a dealer to reset; any competent mechanic should be able to do any service on the car, and not need a special dealer-only computer system to make the car recognize the service.

Re: Nearly all new diesel cars exceed official pollution limits

#122

Post by vonmoltke »

gherkin0 wrote: post #116
makomk wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure that owners can refill the tank by themselves, but manufacturers are required to have a big enough tank that it can be done by the dealer as part of the regular servicing schedule. The tank itself not so much a US thing as it is a modern diesel car thing; it's part of the emissions control system on I think most new diesels.

My dad has a US Volkswagen diesel. He's told me he can refill the urea tank, but he can't reset the computer to tell it the tank was filled, so there's very little point for him to actually refill it. His car will stop working unless he brings it into the dealer, one way or the other.

My car recognizes when I refill the tank. Not sure what is going on with your dad's car.

Re: Nearly all new diesel cars exceed official pollution limits

#123

Post by Grishnakh »

criddell wrote: post #115
guscost wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't heard anything about the latest agreement, other than that it will involve a buyback offer, unspecified fixes, and/or compensation. You don't have a source do you? There's been a lot of speculation all along, will they retrofit DEF systems, will the cars just get super unreliable because the systems can't handle prolonged legal operation, etc.

No, I don't have a source I can point you to. I was talking to a Audi mechanic last weekend. He told me that 2015 cars were pretty much unaffected and will likely only get a firmware tweak. 2013-2014 cars need to hold 1/2 gallon more exhaust fluid and apparently that's doable (and also new firmware). Older cars are a bigger problem and will likely get a combination of fixes but in the end, they are going to be louder…

>He told me that 2015 cars were pretty much unaffected and will likely only get a firmware tweak

And what exactly will this firmware tweak do? If it decreases performance or fuel economy, then that isn't acceptable. The customer bought the car because it advertised X horsepower and Y mpg; if the firmware tweak changes that, then that's false advertising and the company needs to refund their money in full.

Re: Nearly all new diesel cars exceed official pollution limits

#124

Post by criddell »

Grishnakh wrote: post #123
criddell wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I don't have a source I can point you to. I was talking to a Audi mechanic last weekend. He told me that 2015 cars were pretty much unaffected and will likely only get a firmware tweak. 2013-2014 cars need to hold 1/2 gallon more exhaust fluid and apparently that's doable (and also new firmware). Older cars are a bigger problem and will likely get a combination of fixes but in the end, they are going to be louder…

>He told me that 2015 cars were pretty much unaffected and will likely only get a firmware tweak And what exactly will this firmware tweak do? If it decreases performance or fuel economy, then that isn't acceptable. The customer bought the car because it advertised X horsepower and Y mpg; if the firmware tweak changes that, then that's false advertising and the company needs to refund their money in full.

VW is offering some compensation too. There are also a bunch of big lawsuits chugging along. If you aren't happy with the settlement VW is offering, join one of the lawsuits. Those are pretty much your only options.

Re: Nearly all new diesel cars exceed official pollution limits

#125

Post by guscost »

makomk wrote: post #37
teh_klev wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in particular insisting that they couldn't require the diesel exhaust fluid tank to be topped up by the end user Not being rude, but I'm having trouble parsing that part of your comment. Do you mean that the US authorities won't let diesel car owners re-fill the diesel exhaust fluid tank by themselves, i.e. the re-fill must be performed by a dealer? Also is the DEF tank just a US thing? I'd never heard it before (U…

I'm pretty sure that owners can refill the tank by themselves, but manufacturers are required to have a big enough tank that it can be done by the dealer as part of the regular servicing schedule. The tank itself not so much a US thing as it is a modern diesel car thing; it's part of the emissions control system on I think most new diesels.

After looking into this the only thing I can find is a reference to 4,000 mile capacity[0], way less than a TDI service interval. Maybe they mistuned it just so customers wouldn't have to pour a bottle of stuff into the tank, which would have been an awful idea. Or maybe the catalyst they used isn't sufficient to meet US NOx standards with the optimum fuel-air ratio, I guess we will have to wait and see.

[0]https://www3.epa.gov/otaq/documents/nonroad/420f14017.pdf

Re: Nearly all new diesel cars exceed official pollution limits

#126

Post by Grishnakh »

criddell wrote: post #124
Grishnakh wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>He told me that 2015 cars were pretty much unaffected and will likely only get a firmware tweak And what exactly will this firmware tweak do? If it decreases performance or fuel economy, then that isn't acceptable. The customer bought the car because it advertised X horsepower and Y mpg; if the firmware tweak changes that, then that's false advertising and the company needs to refund their money in full.

VW is offering some compensation too. There are also a bunch of big lawsuits chugging along. If you aren't happy with the settlement VW is offering, join one of the lawsuits. Those are pretty much your only options.

Luckily, I don't own a VW, I'm just pointing out how this is a scam. If I were a VW customer, I'd be really pissed. I'm really glad I passed on VWs and bought a Mazda instead.

What's really stupid is that it sounds like they should be able to get the advertised power and economy with the required low emissions simply by using more DEF. I'm assuming the DEF liquid isn't too expensive here, but if they just made it so you needed to refill it every 1000 miles, that should solve the problem. Heck, why can't they just make it available at gas stations too?

Having this idiotic notion that only dealers should be able to refill the stuff, and that it needs to be done at 10k intervals, is what's making it impossible.

Why not require that cars must be able to carry enough fuel to drive 10,000 miles while they're at it? It makes as much sense.

Re: Nearly all new diesel cars exceed official pollution limits

#127

Post by Grishnakh »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #72
guscost wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, I hadn't heard this. What a counterproductive, idiotic piece of regulation.

It's not an idiotic regulation. If you fit a tiny reservoir that needs to be topped up every week then most customers wouldn't bother, and the car would be spewing extra toxins. So you have to make it large enough that normal servicing will ensure it is filled.

It's very simple: make the car so that if the tank hits empty, the car doesn't run any more.

If you think that's a problem, then please explain why this isn't also a problem for the gas tank. I don't know of any cars which will continue to drive (but spewing extra toxins) when the gas or diesel tank is empty.

Customers don't seem to have much of a problem topping up their diesel tank every week or two....

Re: Nearly all new diesel cars exceed official pollution limits

#128

Post by Marazan »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #84
Marazan wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are not required by law to be amorral profit machines. Directors have to take into consideration company image and general well being in making decisions. They don't have to take into consideration profit.

They are not required by law per se, but this is what evolutionary pressures (i.e. competition) demand of them. We won't have companies acting morally until we start expecting it from them - seriously enough that it starts to affect the profit calculation.

Whilst people continue to state the falsehood that corporations must legally pursue profit ahead of al other considerations I will continue to correct them.

It is a common falsehood that is used to both justify outrageous corporation behaviour and to belittle those who criticise company actions as being ignorant of the law.

Re: Nearly all new diesel cars exceed official pollution limits

#129

Post by teh_klev »

gherkin0 wrote: post #116
makomk wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure that owners can refill the tank by themselves, but manufacturers are required to have a big enough tank that it can be done by the dealer as part of the regular servicing schedule. The tank itself not so much a US thing as it is a modern diesel car thing; it's part of the emissions control system on I think most new diesels.

My dad has a US Volkswagen diesel. He's told me he can refill the urea tank, but he can't reset the computer to tell it the tank was filled, so there's very little point for him to actually refill it. His car will stop working unless he brings it into the dealer, one way or the other.

Has he tried getting an OBDII reader (they're really cheap) and resetting the fill status himself?

Re: Nearly all new diesel cars exceed official pollution limits

#130

Post by rurban »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #89
verytrivial wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The manufactures were required to "pass" the tests. They did. The tests were not fit for purpose. Fix the tests or GIVE UP. You will NEVER get the manufactures to act as moral entities -- they are amoral. They are profit machines and are required by law to be that way. The comparison to aircraft manufacturing only works if you are arguing aircraft manufactures and industry bodies design and implement similarly stupid…

You think that this: http://media.treehugger.com/assets/images/2015/09/vw-stock-s... is coercing a corporation to be an amoral entity? No, VW thought they could get away with cheating, and they were found out, with disastrous consequences to their bottom line. The obvious market serving behavior would have been to avoid cheating. When VW cheated they were serving neither the public nor their shareholders, they were j…

First of all, they didn't caught VW cheating, they caught Audi cheating, amongst others. VW was using those Audi engines. The press just jumped on VW, because they were the biggest and can take the biggest hit.

Second, the cheaters, and all of them were cheating as already presented at the CCC congress some months ago, used all the same Bosch ECU, which had the cheating option built-in with a misleading variable name, which did the detection of the test cycle. And any engine manifacturer can enable or disable this mode. Passing the test means the legally they are all fine. Because the european and non-US emission law just honors passing this test cycle. In the US it's different.

Third, historically everybody was cheating with those NOx tests. The US companies starting with that, the Asians got caught, now everybody got caught, with the new VW and Audi A5 engines actually having the least emissions of all, together with Skoda Superb and BMW 3.

Limiting the damage done to VW was a good marketing trick, and you are still falling for it.

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