EPA thuggery vs diesel engines

AZ CRD · **Posted:** Fri Sep 18, 2015 11:13 pm

http://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-volkswagen-probe-20150918-story.html

No doubt under the influence and at the behest of US automakers' lobbyists and insiders who rotate through the EPA like foxes in the henhouse, VW diesel engines are under attack threatening all light diesel passenger car applications.

And you thought government regulation was a problem of government and not of big business. :roll:

If you think the tree hugging environmentalists are behind this you're seriously deluded. It's Ford and GM.

"The world’s largest automaker has admitted selling 482,000 such diesels since 2009, California and U.S. regulators announced Friday. The scandal could cost the company billions of dollars in fines and lawsuit judgments and threatens to stunt the development of all diesel vehicles."

Maybe we can garner votes in Iowa advocating corn ethanol which requires more energy and expels more CO2 than it's equivalent fossil fuel by pandering to Big Ag so that American automakers can plaster deceptive "flex fuel", "ecoboost" and green leaved emblems on their bumpers. What a crock.

flash7210 · **Posted:** Sat Sep 19, 2015 8:08 am

Quote:

Luke Tonachel, director clean vehicles and fuels project at Natural Resources Defense Council, was puzzled as to why VW would have to cheat.

“Other vehicle manufacturers don’t appear to be doing the same thing, but still get good performance from diesel vehicles,” Tonachel said.

What other diesel vehicles is this guy talking about?
Surely he is not talking about PowerStroke, Duramax, and cummins engines that are not held to the same standards as the TDI engine used in passenger cars.
Good performance?
Apparently this guy is completely unaware of the problems that EGR and DPF have caused for those trucks.
Just ask any 2014-2015 PowerStroke owner about how the "certified clean idle" label has hurt their performance, causing the CEL to come on and forcing the engine into limp mode.
Ford has issued a recall for this problem.

JBDeVega · **Posted:** Sat Sep 19, 2015 8:45 am

Hes correct, this is politics at its worst. Its no secret that the EPA veiws diesels as "dirty" when the reality is they are cleaner then gasoline may ever be. the whole dirty diesel concept is pushed by the major auto manufactures but i cant help but beleieve that even they are being swayed by the oil company's. while gasoline engine are cheaper to make i believe the different in cost from a gasoline engine and a diesel engines cost isnt the determining factor in the major auto makers decision. I really do believe that he major auto manufactures and oil company's do talk to each other to ensure profitable business for each other. thats something thats hard to proves but only in concept.

Mike92104 · **Posted:** Sat Sep 19, 2015 5:35 pm

Maybe it's time to pick up a cheap diesel VW? I wouldn't mind a Jetta wagon.

Draco · **Posted:** Sat Sep 19, 2015 7:14 pm

Mike92104 wrote:

Maybe it's time to pick up a cheap diesel VW? I wouldn't mind a Jetta wagon.

The problem with this is is the mandatory recall is going to require ECU firmware (software) changes that will almost certainly lower MPG, torque and/or power. If you live somewhere where emissions testing is required, my bet is it will be impossible to get registered without the recall change.

thermorex · **Posted:** Sat Sep 19, 2015 9:06 pm

As I agree that pollution is bad, for our health not for global warming scam, I don't like either smelling unburnt fuel, or black coal, but I have to say that this Def technology looks at least more polluting than the properly tuned diesels from 80s. You guys saw the smoke that a cleaning cycle makes? And smell that Crap?

thefunk · **Posted:** Sun Sep 20, 2015 10:17 pm

DEF fluid is the best thing they ever invented for cleaning up diesels. We run about 25 tractors up to 600 hp that use DEF. It lets the engine engineers design an engine and not worry about anything but power and efficiency and then the after-treatment engineers worry about cleaning up the emissions, with nothing but liquid urea. We are getting staggering efficiency and power out of our tractors. I can't imagine why anyone would be against it, other than the nuisance of pouring in fluid every few thousand miles.

I wonder how many people at VW will lose their jobs over this one. Staggeringly incompetent.

papaindigo · **Posted:** Mon Sep 21, 2015 8:29 am

Not to mention, regardless of what one thinks of EPA, knowingly unlawful stupidity but what the heck at least VW's action did not directly kill people like GMs ignition key "issue".

flash7210 · **Posted:** Mon Sep 21, 2015 10:53 am

VW stopped selling TDI cars for about a year and a half before 2009 so they could have it ready to meet the newer emissions standards.
I guess the new "programming" was the fastest and cheapest way of bringing those cars back to the US market.
For many here in the US, the only reason to buy a VW is to have the high MPG TDI engine.
If the new emissions compliant TDI cars could not perform to the standards of the folks buying and driving them, they stood to loose a lot of sales.

BTW, Ford makes a 185hp 2.0L diesel that they put in the european Focus.
It can get over 40 MPG.
It will never be for sale in the US. Anyone care to guess why? :roll:

Rixram · **Posted:** Mon Sep 21, 2015 12:39 pm

Congress passed the laws that the EPA is charged with enforcing.

VW make the decision to cheat to meet the requirements in the laws.

Meanwhile, other manufacturers have been able to meet the requirements outlined without cheating.

I've no sympathy for VW for this. Prosecute to the fullest extent of the law.

NOTE: I had been on the hunt for an Audi diesel, too. Not now.

flash7210 · **Posted:** Mon Sep 21, 2015 1:20 pm

I don't think it's fair to condemn VW for this without a comparison against other diesel passenger cars.
The EPA says that the tested VW TDI vehicle produced 40% more NOx than what's it's supposed to. Well, what was that amount as tested versus the allowable limit?
And how does that compare to a Mercedes BlueTEC or BMW diesel?

Rixram · **Posted:** Mon Sep 21, 2015 1:30 pm

flash7210 wrote:

I don't think it's fair to condemn VW for this without a comparison against other diesel passenger cars.
The EPA says that the tested VW TDI vehicle produced 40% more NOx than what's it's supposed to. Well, what was that amount as tested versus the allowable limit?
And how does that compare to a Mercedes BlueTEC or BMW diesel?

I don't know the specifics on this, but if they are in compliance with the numbers, then this wouldn't be news. This wouldn't be anything at all.

I'm taking "supposed to" to mean exceeding the legal limits by 40%.

flash7210 · **Posted:** Mon Sep 21, 2015 2:05 pm

Rixram wrote:

flash7210 wrote:

I don't think it's fair to condemn VW for this without a comparison against other diesel passenger cars.
The EPA says that the tested VW TDI vehicle produced 40% more NOx than what's it's supposed to. Well, what was that amount as tested versus the allowable limit?
And how does that compare to a Mercedes BlueTEC or BMW diesel?

I don't know the specifics on this, but if they are in compliance with the numbers, then this wouldn't be news. This wouldn't be anything at all.

I'm taking "supposed to" to mean exceeding the legal limits by 40%.

What I'm saying is, they should do a side by side emissions test of a VW Passat 2.0L diesel and Mercedes GLK 2.2L diesel. Both engines are about the same displacement and vehicles are about the same weight.
How bad are the emissions coming from the VW vs. the Mercedes? Or are they the same?

geordi · **Posted:** Mon Sep 21, 2015 2:12 pm

Several problems here Rixram...

The EPA has been very long on accusations of "UP TO" 40% more emissions of NOx than allowed... But VERY short on specifics, which suggests that the numbers they are not saying total up to miniscule amounts. Don't forget, we are talking about a vehicle that as-configured doesn't cover the back of itself in soot or produce visible smoke... So it already is pretty clean.

The EPA is tasked by Congress to CREATE AND ENFORCE emissions standards, that is the end of Congress' involvement. All of the rulemaking and thresholds that the EPA is complaining about someone exceeding... The EPA created themselves, usually with the close involvement of the anti-everything idiots of the California Air Resources Board who are anti-diesel and also of the firm belief that the other 99% of this country has the exact same topography as the LA valley - wind pushing off an ocean into cliffs and holding any pollution under said wind in a bowl of filth.

Shockingly... Most of the country doesn't have that issue, so why should the rest of us be subject to the idiot whims of the CARB? Because it is easy for the EPA to just say "oh, those limits are lower than ours, lets adopt that!" and go back to playing on Facebook during the workday.

The EPA's regulations and enforcement are not unlike Budweiser deciding that the new standard for a can of beer is 11.5 ounces, and going after all the bottlers who are making a 12 ounce can... Because that is "exceeding the limits by "up to" 330% because of that ONE PLACE that sells Fosters in a 40 ounce can. Meanwhile, everyone else with the 12 ounce can is only .04 percent over that arbitrary limit... But the numbers matter.

Saying a giant percentage is more shock-value than saying that the car is limited to (fake numbers) 1.000 milligrams per 1000 miles, but it is producing 1.4 milligrams per 1000 miles. That is a 40% increase, sure... But while the number might be made up in this example, we ARE talking about milligrams in all seriousness. This is as much an "environmental disaster" as spilling my drink causes a flood.

They want headlines, and they have gotten them. Boo on VW for caving so quickly and saying they will pull these vehicles from sale, and also from even doing this in the first place in the computer. They have now given Ford and GM exactly what they have wanted for years: A giant reason to continue telling people that we don't want small efficient vehicles, and that diesel can't ever be made "clean"

The fact that the EPA keeps moving the goal posts every time it IS made cleaner, seems to be ignored. F them. I only wish I had the money right now to pick up one of these vehicles before VW has a chance to neuter it - prices are bound to plummet, and the mileage is stunning compared to my 03 TDI.

geordi · **Posted:** Mon Sep 21, 2015 2:52 pm

This is an ENORMOUS thread about this whole mess:

http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=448053

But it would seem that this was all started not by the EPA, but by a nosy group that (reportedly) has a history of being anti-diesel. Looks like we found the scumbags.

http://washpost.bloomberg.com/Story?docId=1376-NUXWZM6JTSE901-44SIDIDMH3F3206LJABAVM0V73

SFHLibertyCRD · **Posted:** Mon Sep 21, 2015 5:56 pm

flash7210 wrote:

I don't think it's fair to condemn VW for this without a comparison against other diesel passenger cars.
The EPA says that the tested VW TDI vehicle produced 40% more NOx than what's it's supposed to. Well, what was that amount as tested versus the allowable limit?
And how does that compare to a Mercedes BlueTEC or BMW diesel?

To clear up a few misconceptions.

It was not 40% more it was up to 40X (FORTY TIMES) more than the standard (I've seen 15-35x quoted in a few places).

BMW X5 diesels were put under the same testing regimen together with the VWs and passed just fine.

Here is a helpful overview of how it went down: http://washpost.bloomberg.com/Story?doc ... JABAVM0V73

Regardless of your opinion of EPA, VW itself has admitted to the cheat software, so there isn't much to argue about here as far as legality. Yes diesels are much more efficient than gas, lower carbon, etc. which is neutered a bit by emissions hardware and software, but the reality is that they do emit more NOx, a real pollutant that contributes to smog / air quality issues.

The question is why did VW take such a huge risk and do this? Simply to keep the engines running in a way that keeps customers happy?

SFHLibertyCRD · **Posted:** Mon Sep 21, 2015 6:01 pm

Also, presumably the group that started the testing did not expect to find this result. At least if you take what they say at face value:

Quote:

Mock, European managing director of a little-known clean- air group, suggested replicating the tests in the U.S. The U.S. has higher emissions standards than the rest of the world and a history of enforcing them, so Mock and his American counterpart, John German, were sure the U.S. versions of the vehicles would pass the emissions tests, German said. That way, they reasoned, they could show Europeans it was possible for diesel cars to run clean.

“We had no cause for suspicion,” German, U.S. co-lead of the International Council on Clean Transportation, said in an interview. “We thought the vehicles would be clean.”

From the WaPo / bloomberg article cited above.

SFHLibertyCRD · **Posted:** Mon Sep 21, 2015 6:06 pm

Frankly as primarily a TDI guy (the Liberty is my wife's), this sucks. Granted mine is a 2002 and is not affected, but this is a huge blow to the reputation and future of passenger diesels which are a blast to drive. I hope they get it sorted out without too much fallout.

Rixram · **Posted:** Mon Sep 21, 2015 6:20 pm

SFHLibertyCRD wrote:

Frankly as primarily a TDI guy (the Liberty is my wife's), this sucks. Granted mine is a 2002 and is not affected, but this is a huge blow to the reputation and future of passenger diesels which are a blast to drive. I hope they get it sorted out without too much fallout.

I absolutely concur, and hope they minimize the fallout.

thermorex · **Posted:** Mon Sep 21, 2015 9:50 pm

I know one thing for sure: this cleaning Def cycle, when it starts, it stinks and definitely can't be healthy to inhale it. I witnessed numerous times an F 350 ford going through this. Smells like moth balls and chlorine. And it's a thick white smoke. Plus about 7 mpg versus about 12-14 previous non Def version. So, taking this in consideration, making the extra fuel that's consumed, I'd say it's not better at all... You get less nox, but pollute more from making more fuel. And using more resources. Similar with those tree hugger trendy environmentalists driving prius packed with batteries that pollute a lot to have them made.

I don't really know what's worse, honestly, but I think is a bit of a hypocrisy to accuse one side and say the other is perfect. We need a Nicola Tesla concept electric motor, lol..

EPA thuggery vs diesel engines

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