VW Emission tests

[Deleted User 759]

Moved to off-topic chat.

[jackdaww]

so using adblue increases mpg by 20 !!! 20mpg improvement !!

this claim is outrageous.

if true it would make headline news .

i have never heard this anywhere .

[Deleted User 1571]

Compare the official consumption figures for 2014 Peugeot 308 'FRAP' cars with today's Blue[whatevertheycallit] cars and you will see a 20mpg difference with the same basic 1.6 diesel engine. While I have no doubt that the advertised 'combined' consumption is overly ambitious, as they all are, the relative frugality should stand. So if the old one averaged a real life 50mpg, the new Adblue version 'should' improve on that by 20mpg approximately to give 70mpg in normal driving.

Maybe Peugeot are not shouting about this loudly enough. And you have to remember that Adblue itself is an additional fluid and application system that has a cost per mile, albeit a fraction of the cost of fuel saved.

So how much had you actually heard about SCR exhaust after-treatment technology?

[DaveBerlin]

Here sre some comments which actually mentions Peugeot and comments on Nissan Old readings. But other manufacturers are also it seems in the same Boat as VW - Just some comments found while trying to find what the problem is - seems complex Dave

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/vw-scandal-nis ... ms-1521915

Sensors and electronic components in modern light-duty vehicles are capable of 'detecting' the start of an emissions test in the laboratory (e.g., based on acceleration sensors or not-driven/not-rotating wheels). Some vehicle functions may only be operational in the laboratory, if a predefined test mode is activated. Detecting emissions tests is problematic from the perspective of emissions legislation, because it may enable the use of defeat devices that activate, modulate, delay, or deactivate emissions control systems with the purpose of either enhancing the effectiveness of these systems during emissions testing or reducing the effectiveness of these systems under normal vehicle operation and use. While the use of defeat devices is generally prohibited, exceptions exist in cases where it is necessary to protect the engine against damage and to ensure safe vehicle operation (EC, 2007). These exceptions leave room for interpretation and provide scope, together with the currently applied test procedure, for tailoring the emissions performance.

EPA (United States Environmental Protection Agency) Notice of Violation
On 18 September 2015 the U.S. EPA served a Notice of Violation (NOV) on Volkswagen Group alleging that approximately 480,000 VW and Audi automobiles equipped with 2-litre TDI engines, and sold in the U.S. between 2009 and 2015, had an emissions-compliance "defeat device" installed. A Notice of Violation is a notification to the recipient that the EPA believes it has committed violations and is not a final determination of liability. Volkswagen's "defeat device" is specially written engine management unit firmware that detects "the position of the steering wheel, vehicle speed, the duration of the engine's operation, and barometric pressure" when positioned on a dynamometer using the FTP-75 test schedule. These criteria very closely match the EPA's required emissions testing protocol which allowed the vehicle to comply with emissions regulations by properly activating all emissions control during testing. The EPA's NOV alleged that under normal driving conditions, the software suppressed the emissions controls, allowing the engine to produce more torque and get better fuel economy, at the expense of emitting up to 40 times more nitrogen oxides than allowed by law.

Here is a schematic drawing of a VW System for information :

[Deleted User 1571]

People should keep this in perspective. Ignoring the deplorable VW cheating for a few minutes, one is hearing of most diesel engines emitting more pollutants in real life driving than in the official tests. Well, yes, they would. But does this matter? I contend that as long as they don't cheat in the test, that it really doesn't matter. What really matters is that the latest generation, say Euro6 engines, are proportionately more clean than the previous generation in line with expected improvements.

The actual figures are meaningless. I mean, what does 0.06gms/km really mean to anyone and particularly in relation to 'clean air'? Absolutely nothing! What matters is that all engines meet the same standard and that the latest standard results in the expected improvement in gaseous emissions compared to previous generations.

You have to remember that all previous generation of more polluting engines are still in use [in declining numbers] and we haven't dropped dead as a result of those. The cleaning of the aggregate of vehicle's exhaust gases is a longer term objective than any one generation of engine's specification. The air quality gets better due to an ever higher proportion of newer and cleaner engines in the national and international fleet of engines, with older dirtier engines in vehicles being gradually replaced [as older vehicles are scrapped] with cleaner ones. Over a ten year period the quality of air is thus improved greatly.

Its the cheating of the tests that is the only real issue here. The rest is jobs money for the boys and people wanting to be heard.

[Dan1701]

To be honest, on the subject of pollution there are other questions that need answering. Back when we had east and west Germany, the asthma prevalence in East Germany was a tiny fraction of that in West Germany, despite the near-Victorian levels of pollution in the West. As the countries reunified, the asthma rates skyrocketed in the East, until the two former Germanies were at parity.

Now, some of this is reporting bias, whereby the East German health authorities were simply ignoring a lot of disease, but some of it isn't. Allowing for reporting bias, asthma and allergy levels in East Germany really were a hell of a lot lower than in the West. This carries through into a lot of other things, and the root cause is immunological stress caused by our lifestyle being too clean. Our immune systems are set up such that they need a lot of target practice against non-self but essentially harmless bacteria in the environment.

If they don't get that, our immune systems get hyper-sensitive to all manner of pollutants and allergens, and respond full-on against non-dangerous things. This is why we're seeing such a lot of hype regarding nitrous oxide pollution; people are too sensitive to it.

We also have a partially broken environmental legislation system. The Americans do, too. To implement a new environmental regulation takes quite a time, and by the time one bit of legislation is in place, the legislators are two or even three hops ahead. Therefore they tend to be driving solely by the rear view mirror, if they are even taking account of past legislation at all. They don't know what effect one lot of legislation will have, because the effects may take a decade to implement.

Our legislators are in fact so dozy that they haven't even accounted for human nature to any great extent. The current epidemic of fly tipping is caused directly by landfill taxes; when it costs a lot to dispose of rubble, unscrupulous builders just dump it anywhere they can. Lead-acid car batteries used to be quite sought after by recyclers because the lead and the acid were valuable. They aren't any more; legislators piled on so much regulatory crap that they aren't worth the bother save by specialists.

[fat controller]

I think the other thing that seems to be being conveniently forgotten is just how far engine technologies have come in a relatively short space of time - and this alone demonstrates that there is scope and potential for massive improvements in the future.

When I started driving, 22+ years ago, if you had told me that I would be owning and driving a car roughly the size of a Land Rover, running a 1.5-litre diesel engine, yet it wasn't a complete slug and would happily buzz along giving over 50mpg in town, AND that the very same car would put the lights and wipers on automatically for me, have a wee screen showing maps and a voice warning me of traffic up ahead or guiding me to my destination, have digital climate control, cruise control, anti-collision braking......... I could go on...... well, suffice to say I would have told you that you were barmy. Back then, if a car had a good heater, a radio and a wee bit of poke, it was a good 'un.

Now, it is a reality - and what is more, that wee diesel engine propels me along daily and the exhaust emissions are crystal clear compared to even petrol engines back in the day, let alone diesels.

I work with diesel engined vehicles day in and day out - - I am one of a handful of managers who are responsible for running a large London bus garage, with a fleet of roughly 160 buses. I remember the very same garage when I was a driver, and the bulk of our fleet was MCW MetroBuses, Leyland Nationals, Leyland Lynxes etc - - on an autumn or winters morning, from around 4am when the run out started, the shed would turn into a vast smoke house; I jest not - many is the morning when I couldn't see more than a couple of bus lengths away due to the reek being put out by those old diesels. Now? Well, if there is as much as a haze of smoke from a bus, it is hauled over a pit as there is something not right with it. All of them are fitted with large DPF's as well as NOx traps, and each night every vehicle is topped up with AdBlue at the same time the diesel goes in. I can quite happily stand in among a number of vehicles now, all running, and can barely smell diesel fumes - - - less than 20 years ago, I was practically chewing the fumes.

Sadly, we have turned into a world where the default setting is 'offended' - everything is always the fault of someone else, and it is no longer the case where you simply don't like something and move on -- if you don't like something, the done thing now is to either kick up such a fuss that it noises up everyone else, or legislate and tax whatever is disliked into oblivion.

And whenever there is a discovery that something can be done differently or in a better way, it has to happen NOW.... very much the mentality of I want it all, and I want it now, no matter what.

Truthfully, all this nonsense currently going on is nothing more than yet another load of tosh to con us out of yet more of our hard earned money. Time and time again we are told what is the right thing to do, so we all go and do it, only to be told a few years later that we are all that is bad for doing it.

Go to work on an egg........ Oh, wait, don't do that they are all going to kill you with salmonella.
Don't eat natural fats, but have all of these chemicals instead........ Oh, actually, its not fats that is the problem but it is sugar
Scrap that old 3.2 lite straight six that is in perfect health as it is a gas guzzler killing the planet with too much CO2; we'll even give you cash toward buying an uber economical diesel......... Oh, erm, well actually its not the CO2 that is the problem, but N02 - you know, the stuff we give you to breathe in when in hospital, and call it laughing gas........

Utter boswelox the whole lot of it.

[AlleyCat]

Mostly i agree with you but nitrous oxide (laughing gas) and nitrogen dioxide are not the same thing.

One is N2O and the other is NO2 (2 nitrogens to an oxygen vs 1 Nitrogen to 2 oxygens).

[fat controller]

That is a fail in chemistry then

For some reason, stuff like this really grinds my gears - being almost dictated to as to what to eat, drink, drive etc, only for that self same advice to be rubbished a few years further down the line and usually after we have all paid through the nose to follow the advice in the first place; at least Dick Turpin wore a mask.

[AlleyCat]

That is a fail in chemistry then

For some reason, stuff like this really grinds my gears - being almost dictated to as to what to eat, drink, drive etc, only for that self same advice to be rubbished a few years further down the line and usually after we have all paid through the nose to follow the advice in the first place; at least Dick Turpin wore a mask.

I tend to ignore most of the "advice".
I'm always suspicious that someone is making a lot of money out of this sort of nonsense.

I never did work out how to get to work on an egg though

Edit:

As to the VW "gaming" the tests. The mistake they made was getting caught without a good response ready to go.
I suspect a load of other manufacturers (in loads of other industries) are doing just the same. to get a competitive "sales" edge.

Samsung are in the paper over the last few days for something similar - although i'm fairly sure this is a re-hash of something from a few years ago.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/ ... -real-life.