gotta meet those mpg standards somehow...

I find it odd that I'm seeing stories now on social media about how VW owners "feel betrayed" by Volkswagen.

Betrayed by the fact that the company boosted both the performance and fuel economy of the vehicle while still cheating its way through emissions testing.

Isn't that the exact thing which people willingly pay hundreds of dollars for to companies which sell ECU reflashing services?

Exactly.

Not a VW fan, but I would guess if I bought a new car, and then found out it didn't do something it was advertised to do (in this case, clean diesel emissions) , that would piss you off a little. Even if it's something that I never noticed, still the fact I was lied to would piss me off. This is the only reasoning I can see that would explain why VW owners affected would "feel betrayed", maybe they actually did care about emissions as a selling point, I suppose someone out there considers that important when shopping. That person isn't me.....

I think VW deserves full points for thinking outside the the box. It's kinda a "Kobayashi Maru" scenario. Given an unwinnable situatation ,they did what was necessary to win. I don't currently own a VW but have owned a several of their diesel cars in the past so I don't really have a dog in this fight . If I owned a current TDI car , the last thing I'd do , would be to take it to the dealer for whatever " fix" they eventually come up with . At least until it's proven not to cost HP and miles per gallon . Really with this kind of attitude they should be running a NASCAR team. It's not about what the rules say , it's what you think you can get away with. Cheers Fred

I'm just gonna take a wag here and posit that if I were shopping for a car, and "low emissions" was high on my checklist, "diesel" wouldn't be the first place that my mind jumped to.

No hate for diesels. Good torque, good economy. But if you're an emissions-weenie, you're gonna be looking at Tesla / Insight / Volt / etc.



I also find the recall hilarious.

Hilarious in a sad way, like when you trip over a dead clown on the subway platform, and there's a little honking sound.

(It happens more often than you'd think.)

The sad part is that now, as a VW owner, you have to completely avoid going to the dealership for any kind of service whatsoever, even if you're still under warranty.

This.

I mean, it was kind of short-sighted to assume they'd never get caught, but the fundamental concept is clever as hell. I can't recall any OEM ever having the balls to pull a stunt like this.




https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1443140412

I wonder if they were really " caught " or if a pissed off former employee ratted them out. It was a pretty clever solution, maybe not quite clever enough.

According to seemingly reliable sources, they were outed by an allegedly independent European firm (International Council on Clean Transportation) which was doing a study to demonstrate how current-gen US-spec diesel cars, from multiple manufacturers, tended to run much cleaner than the average European diesel fleet. They found that under real-world conditions, the VW vehicle in their test sample was behaving... unexpectedly. They then enlisted the aid of West Virginia University, which instrumented some VWs and drove them from San Diego to Seattle while datalogging everything that happened.




https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1443141294

FWIW VW was not the first company to employ this exact scheme of cheating on emissions tests. Cummins and Navistar both got caught back in 1998 running software to detect when they were being tested. VW didn’t even invent the technology can't give them credit for being innovative only for being a cheater.

The story I read is that some college engineering project was tracking the real-world emissions of a few vehicles, and the VW TDI's were the only ones that were over their official numbers. Apparently, VW had an algorithm that recognized typical official testing protocols, and adjusted accordingly. Presumably, it didn't occur to them that an extended real-world check would happen.

However, It is surprising that it wasn't an insider tipping somebody off, especially over a 7 year period.

Well, first to deploy it at the consumer level, at the very least.

I don't know anything about the Cummins situation, but wasn't Navistar's problem not that they were deliberately cheating the emissions test, but merely that the EGR system which they came up with in an effort to avoid the cost of implementing DEF turned out not to work especially well, and therefore basically fucked them squarely in the goat-hole?



Fun fact: DEF (Diesel Exhaust Fluid) is basically just synthetic cat piss diluted in water.

Given what I observe around here ,I'm much more concerned with what railway locomotives and an dorks with jacked up diesel trucks that chipped and returboed are spewing into the atmosphere . VW may have numbers on their side but there are certainly more conspicuous polluters out there. The ships coming and going from the harbour in Vancouver aren't what I'd call Green for that matter either. It's unlikely this situation will end neatly now that lawyers are involved and smell $$. It's like Shark Chow on the Great Barrier Reef. Good time to stand clear.

And in the true spirit of Miataturbo , cats have been worked into the thread by post 32. Not complaining , merely observing.

It's an extremely interesting question, and one that I have utterly no idea how to find data for. I'd be curious to see a comparison of total annual emissions (both particulate and greenhouse) for freight vs. power-generation vs. passenger cars and light trucks vs. lawncare and recreational vs. (etc.)

Here in NYC, the vast majority of our rail network is electrified, but trains on certain routes (Metro North to Poughkeepsie, NJTrans on several lines, and all of Amtrack outside the Penn tunnel) use GE Genesis diesels. They are not particularly clean-running.

Something tells me, however, that every containership and freight locomotive on earth would pale in comparison to a single large coal-electric plant in the US.

Or, put another way, going after a passenger-car company for being a few points over the NOx limit while nuclear plant construction is barely just crawling along is like pointing out a crooked picture on the Titanic while the Vogons are assembling in orbit.




The rollin' coal crowd make me sad.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1443145461

"Look, ma! No brains!"



I'm sure that Kevin Underhill is going to have a field day when the class-action suits start to be filed. "Plaintiffs allege that Volkswagen AG knowingly and maliciously engaged in a conspiracy to improve both engine performance and fuel economy, and seek to recover damages stemming from their non-loss." I'm watching his blog intently.

And for bonus points , electric car owners will still claim their cars are emission free while charging from those same coal fired plants but I digress.

[QUOTE=Joe Perez;1269575]

The rollin' coal crowd make me sad.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1443145461

[I]"Look, ma! No brains !

You've been to Kamloops ? or is that not just a local phenomenon ?

How did Obama pass those emissions standards while he was a law professor?

Tier 2 Diesel emissions standards were passed into law in 1999

I'd never even heard of Kamloops before just now.

But no, it's a very widespread phenomenon. We have it all over the US, especially in the south-eastern states where "redneck" is not considered to be an insult. I honestly have no idea why people think it's cool to spend money in order to modify their trucks to transform diesel fuel into smoke and antisocial behavior. Especially when forcibly having intercourse with their intoxicated cousins is both cheaper and can be made into a team sport.


EDIT: Wait... You're telling me that not all Canadians are polite and socially-conscious? My worldview is shattered.

Unfortunately, we have our share of idiots too. Nor is it isolated to diesel trucks ....locally there is even a "stanced" Miata 😫 . And No it's not mine !