VW Emission tests

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Dan1701
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Post by Dan1701 »

AlleyCat wrote: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).
Actually there are quite a few different compounds of nitrogen and oxygen. The commonest is nitrogen dioxide, a brownish gas that smells fairly awful. Nitrogen monoxide is colourless (if I remember rightly) and oxidises to the dioxide in air; this is a common biological signalling compound, involved heavily with blood pressure.

Laughing gas is two nitrogens, one oxygen. It isn't all that likely to be found in car exhausts.

The "nitrous boost gas" you're most likely to find would be medical Entonox, which is a 50/50 mixture of oxygen and laughing gas. The two components naturally separate out into two different layers in storage, so cylinders of Entonox in vehicles are always stored lying flat, as opposed to stood upright, so the motion of the vehicle can give a mixing effect. This is needed in medical applications, as the idea is to administer an anaesthetic together with enhanced oxygen to the patient.

About the only other weird nitrous application I know of is, of all things, fuel for Russian submarine torpedoes. These use hydrazine as the fuel, and concentrated nitric acid as the oxidiser. When the components only mix in the engine they work great; but even the tiniest leak of either or both components can be catastrophic; it was a leaking torpedo fuel system that sank the Kursk sub.

Fortunately, hydrazine is not involved with cars at all, and neither is nitric acid. Which is nice, because both compounds are bloody scary to work with.

AlleyCat
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Post by AlleyCat »

I thought the first bit was what i said (with some nice extra details i'll grant you).

Happened to know the bit about Entonox as my old man worked for BOC for 30 years :)
I used to have cards that told you what the colours of all the cylinders, how and why they were stored and and some of their primary applications.
The company also used to let kids on the dock / in the wagons (before health and safety) so i got to see a lot of how the stuff was stored/ refilled / tested.
Small side story:- They had to shut the Mersey Tunnel when he transported fluorine gas cylinders through it. He'd never been so unpopular :)

The bit about Russia using hydrazine for torpedoes is both interesting and somewhat frightening in equal measure and makes what happened to the Kursk unsurprising.
I'm not sure "rocket fuel" is something i'd pick to use in a tin can under water.

Last time i was anywhere near Nitric Acid was at university about 20 years ago. I seem to recall It was used to demonstrate small things making big "bangs"?
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DaveBerlin
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Post by DaveBerlin »

This might be of interest just to try too understand what the UK Car Emission Test Procedures are :

http://www.smmt.co.uk/industry-topics/c ... in-the-uk/

Just a few more facts show that New test results showed that dozens of Diesel cars from multiple manufacturers fail to meet specified European emission targets. Vehicles from Renault, Nissan, Hyundai, Citroen, Fiat, Volvo, and Jeep were all tested in real-world conditions — and all of them found severely wanting - this is a real shame for the QQ Owners but hopefully these comments are jumping the Gun - Dave :x

http://eandt.theiet.org/news/2015/oct/v ... hanges.cfm

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/2160 ... e-vehicles
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fat controller
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Post by fat controller »

I got my letter today, for the car I just got rid of, so it appears that it is the first ranges of common rail diesels that followed on after the PD engines. I still suspect that the faults with the late PD engines and now these issues with the early CR engines are purely because VAG found themselves missing the boat on diesel engine development and rushed things to market.
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DaveBerlin
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Post by DaveBerlin »

Is this problem at Emission Problem VW going to create a backlash with all their Select Brands (Bugatti, Lamborghini, Ducati, MAN Trucks etc) that do not make a great deal of money for them - for eg. Off Loading Them ? - Dave :shock:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/ ... ndal-mount
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fat controller
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Post by fat controller »

I wouldn't be a bit surprised if the likes of Bugatti and SEAT get the chop - - MAN trucks too, to be fair; Scania, I am less sure as they have quite a good reputation, however Scania need to take a serious look at some of their product quality, as it leaves a lot to be desired in some places.

My personal opinion is that VW have basically done a Tesco - gone all out, hell for leather to expand at all costs, and sod the quality. It is sad though, as the cornerstone of VW's reputation was quality - and they need to get back to that position, fast, to allow their reputation to begin to recover.
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DaveBerlin
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Post by DaveBerlin »

Here is an article on how this problem was found out in the US and it makes interesting reading - Dave :roll:

How Could Volkswagen’s Top Engineers Not Have Known?
From February through April 2013 the West Virginia University tested three diesel cars: a Volkswagen Jetta, a Volkswagen Passat, and a BMW SUV. The cars emitted almost nothing. Then road tests captured a variety of conditions: high elevations up Mt. Baldy; stop-and-go urban errand-running in San Diego; freeway driving around Los Angeles. The two Volkswagens’ emissions exceeded standards by 5 to 35 times. The BMW’s didn’t. First the results were assumed wrong, so the team recalibrated the instruments and kept on driving. Eventually they realized that, yes, they were seeing something noteworthy, if not exactly shocking. What comes out of a tailpipe on the road is always going to differ somewhat from regulatory targets met in tightly controlled environments. Speed, elevation, and temperature all affect the result..........

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/ ... ave-known-
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Deleted User 1571

Post by Deleted User 1571 »

Does it matter that what comes out of the exhaust on the road varies from the official test figures?

I believe it to be inevitable. The way we drive. The conditions we drive in. The elevation at which we drive. The weather. How many people on board. How full the fuel tank is [there's a potential 150kgs weight difference there and 250kgs for passengers]. They all vary greatly. On the other hand the whole point of a standardised test is to test all under standardised conditions so that fair comparisons can be made between one brand and another and between models. Also when standards are improved, such as from EuroIV to V and now to VI, that the incremental improvements between one generation and another are relative and real and consistent. That an engine might emit some 40% more than some arbitrary figure that means nothing to anyone during normal driving is not important as long as it is actually 95% less, as it should be, than some former standard used, whose engines themselves might have exceeded the official figures produced by the standard tests of their time by 40% during normal driving under similar conditions.

To sum up, it is the incremental improvement, both at test and during normal driving, that is the only important issue, not any arbitrary figure that is at best meaningless to all but laboratory staff.

As long as companies don't actually cheat to gain a commercial advantage!!! THAT is where VW has gone off the rails.
Last edited by Deleted User 1571 on Wed Oct 28, 2015 11:20 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Stevep4
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Post by Stevep4 »

The emission tests are really a joke. They all cheat, one way or another.
Try finding a spare wheel in your Quashqai. Sorry sir, the extra weight of a get you home solution has been replaced by a bottle of goo and a pump......would you like to join the AA ?

My DPF filter light has come on 3 times in the past 2 years.
1st time I spent the evening buzzing up and down the dual carriageway on a wiff of throttle trying to clear out the filter....no luck.
Took it in for the £150 regeneration service at my dealer......and the light cam back on within 2 weeks. Another regen
3rd time it came on was after a 350 mile drive home from Paris at "decent cruising speed" and 40mpg.

And how do they regenerate the DPF filter? Do they remove it and lovingly wash it in Fairy liquid??
Or do they just place a big fan in front of the car and let a computer rev the wheel nuts off the car for an hour or two? And where does all the smut that has collected in your filter go? Into a little doggie poo bag and disposed of environmentally, or just vented to atmosphere?

So manufacturers, why not just cut the bull. Just give us engines that really do manage 50 mpg in the real world. The emissions will look after themselves.
(I get 35 out of my 2.0 diesel +2.... But then again, it does have an old design Renault lump under the bonnet )
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Deleted User 1571

Post by Deleted User 1571 »

Stevep4 wrote:The emission tests are really a joke. They all cheat, one way or another.
Try finding a spare wheel in your Quashqai. Sorry sir, the extra weight of a get you home solution has been replaced by a bottle of goo and a pump......would you like to join the AA ?

My DPF filter light has come on 3 times in the past 2 years.
1st time I spent the evening buzzing up and down the dual carriageway on a wiff of throttle trying to clear out the filter....no luck.
Took it in for the £150 regeneration service at my dealer......and the light cam back on within 2 weeks. Another regen
3rd time it came on was after a 350 mile drive home from Paris at "decent cruising speed" and 40mpg.

And how do they regenerate the DPF filter? Do they remove it and lovingly wash it in Fairy liquid??
Or do they just place a big fan in front of the car and let a computer rev the wheel nuts off the car for an hour or two? And where does all the smut that has collected in your filter go? Into a little doggie poo bag and disposed of environmentally, or just vented to atmosphere?

So manufacturers, why not just cut the bull. Just give us engines that really do manage 50 mpg in the real world. The emissions will look after themselves.
(I get 35 out of my 2.0 diesel +2.... But then again, it does have an old design Renault lump under the bonnet )
You are way over-cynical. If the weight saving of not having a spare wheel makes a difference, it makes a difference, although I suspect that it has as much to do with keeping cost down. After all, does specifying a spare wheel increase its CO2 band?

When the DPF regenerates it actually reduces the carbon to a fine ash which is retained inside the filter to eventually block it completely. That is why the DPF has a finite life before it needs replacement. If your filter fails to regenerate successfully, either the car has a fault or your style and type of driving is not conducive to running a diesel car so equipped.
Your idea that lower fuel consumption equals lower emissions is mistaken. Unfortunately lower emissions of certain products can call for less than optimum combustion. It is a balancing act, but diesel emissions have been reduced by about 90% or more for a given class of car over the last two decades while at the same time the power output has trebled per unit of swept volume. All with even better fuel consumption, refinement and up to four times longer service intervals and double the total engine service life.

A massive achievement in my opinion.
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