GET READY FOR Watchdog !

Adrian composed the following;:

But you keep mentioning 4x4's, therefore lumping us all into the argument. At least be feckin' consistent in your arguments> Do you mean 4x4's do you mean off-roading 4x4's do you mean 'Chelsea Tractors', and again, be as specific as you can be. AFL, I suggest, is not a hot-bed of Chelsea Tractor afficianado's, so why argue about them here ?

Actually, I've lost the idea of what the feckin' argument is now ... so I refer back to a part of my post you snipped ... "Who gives a flying fart, other than the tree-huggers, who's

4x4 does what for the environment really? Most of the time we're tearing the ground up anyway (With Land-owners permission) so cackling among 'ourselves' as to whose is biggest, smallest, cleanest etc just throws us all into the environ-mentalists hands."

My Discovery, a 4x4, is much more economical than my neighbours much lighter 2wd TVR. It is also a cleaner engine from the point of view of it's emissions ... ;)

And ?

I also know of cars that are bigger and heavier than the new Disco. WTF has this to do with emissions and pollutants?

I'm thinking of putting a V8 in the 90. And next month the fuel efficient Freelander is making way for a larger heavier Discovery!

Why????

Because I bloody well want to and I can!!!!!!!!!!

Stew.

On or around 28 Jan 2005 08:31:05 GMT, Adrian enlightened us thusly:

nah, the 2CV doesn't go back as far as 1928.

It was indeed designed in 1948, though, ISTR. I grant you, the emissions and efficiency might have been improved along the way, but since they stopped developing it at least 20 years ago...

not entirely. The 2CV is held dear by the greenloonies as a model of restraint and economy and environmental conscience, whereas in fact it was all of these things 30 years ago and has been falling increasingly behind since. I know a chap who has a small Suzuki, 800 cc 3-cylinder, 's got a cat and closed-loop fuelling and does god-know-how much to the gallon. in terms of emissions etc, that's far ahead of a decrepit 2CV, and it still carries 4 people same as the 2CV (unlike the Smart, it has to be said. Though the Smart makes huge sense for urban areas carrying 1 or 2 people.

diesel engines are inherently more efficient, though, I believe, so for a given power output, they should in fact pollute slightly less.

However, you have to consider the effect of the pollution caused by making the cars, as well... but there's something to be said for it, from the exhaust emissions POV - the old engines (older than about 20 years) *do* chuck out a lot more pollution, hence the lenient levels they're allowed at MOT time compared with new stuff. I believe that it's possible, with a good engine and very careful tuning, to get a Propane engine through the cat-level MOT test without a cat fitted. But most probably wouldn't. My

3.5 V8 passes the test it has to pass easily, mind.

Wasn't the point that the 2cv couldn't be adapted for unleaded the reason for its demise? I imagine in other respects it was no more polluting than other small engined cars of the time.

The thing about it and the ami?? was that it could drive all day with full throttle, like the beetle as well. Whereas other small cars were more powerful but susceptible to engine problems if over stressed.

AJH

On or around Fri, 28 Jan 2005 10:24:02 GMT, "The Caretaker ..." enlightened us thusly:

actually, that's "slightly fewer", in fact. certainly fewer sulphur oxides and the like, but the CO2 and H2O are not much different. Slightly less CO2, slightly more H2O, I think.

Austin Shackles composed the following;:

Having read a little more into it, I agree. It is fewer, but not significantly.

My bad. :)

In message , Austin Shackles writes

Also less CO

The 2CV actually appeared at the Paris motor show in 1939, but all drawings were lost during the war, although the prototype was apparently hidden and survived. It was redesigned after the war, but the design was substantially the same. So it is essentially a prewar design (as are many aspects of the S1 Landrover - for example, I think the basic gearbox design is that introduced by Rover in 1934)

Perhaps - but can it carry two people and two milk cans across a ploughed field in comfort? (part of the design criteria for the 2CV)

Depends how you define pollution - i.e. how you weight different parts of pollution. It also depends on what fuel you are running on. And efficiency has nothing (much) to do with pollution. Diesels are inherently more thermally efficient, mainly due to the fact that they have higher compression ratio. But thermal efficiency and pollution are not necessarily related. The major pollution problem from diesels is probably particulates, which are not a major problem with petrol engines - their major problems are probably (today) carbon monoxide and oxides of nitrogen.

The other question is production of carbon dioxide - which is not a pollutant, and here the question is less clear. Generally speaking diesel fuel will produce more CO2 than petrol as more of the energy content is in the form of carbon, but this is offset by the increased thermal efficiency of the diesel. In the case of both engine types, the net CO2 emission will be reduced by the use of biodiesel or ethanol blends. Here the diesel has the clear advantage as they can run on 100% biodiesel without problems, whereas normal petrol engines are limited to about 20%, and furthermore the energy efficiency and pollution from production of biodiesel are a lot less than for ethanol.

(snip)

JD

How can you describe CO2 and H2O as pollutants? You produce both every time you breathe. CO2 can be described as a "greenhouse gas" but hardly as a pollutant, since it is a natural component of air, and as for water ..... JD

( snipped-for-privacy@despammed.com) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

Not really - since every 2cv runs happily on undeaded - even the ones prior to the completely new engine in the late 60s/early 70s. Ally heads, y'see.

Got the best of both worlds at the moment - got the 3.9 V8 96ES Disco,

2"lift, shiny new stainless Exhaust and NO CATS!! :-) and still got the 94 300Tdi 3- door Disco bog standard apart from removing the CAT. Removing the cats on both has made a hell of a difference but much more noticeable on the 300Tdi it blows td5's away.

The stereo is now idle in the V8 - I just listen to the exhaust note!! :-)

I need to get around to selling the Tdi ( I think!) but my reckoning is that it's depreciated most of it's value so if I keep it a bit longer I'm not going to loose much more. Common sense says sell it - silly side says keep it .

Exactly the point I used to drive a limo, definatly a bigger footprint than my landy and certainly not more economical.

I used to get about 80mpg out of my scooters back in the 70's but they were F all good for off roading :)

loada bollox that, My series 3 wasn't designed for unleaded but she don't complain

Was someone suggesting using 4x4s for off roading? How do you do that?

Bump up the kerb outside the kids private school I think.

P.

given that hes presumably referring to an LJ80, the closest predecessor of the SJ, and so probably the last of the suzuki offroaders to be purely functional and not care about fashion AT ALL (i know the SJ is hardly trendy but they did start to care about looks.. just not on the vitara scale), i should imagine it would cross ploughed fields and maybe the odd ravine without too much discomfort for the driver, passenger, or dairy products.

You could probably even manage 4 milk cans, maybe 6 at a push, depending on if you had the bench seat version or not.

- /\nthony

As others have said, it was. And why the f*ck did the useless, lazy, fat k*****ad from the SMMT allow George "f****it" Monbiot to get away with the pile of lies, propaganda, prejudice and hysteria that he spouted.

Not once did SMMT man mention that 4x4s have better Euro NCAP performance than small vehicles in pedestrian impacts. Even more sadly the NCAP man himself either gave a very biased summary or his statements were cut by Watchdog to only show the bad aspects of 4x4s in a collision.

Also SMMT man was very weak when it came to defending Monbiots ranting about MPG and never mentioend that even if Monbiot and the other idiots have their way and remove all 4x4s from the market the difference it will make to the vehicle emissions inventory is zilch, nada, not a drop, bugger all. Because 4x4s account for a maximum of 7% of 20% of total emissions. That is 1.4% of all emissions come from 4x4s and if those

4x4s are scrapped and replaced with standard saloon cars the maximum emissions saving to be had is 0.7%.

All this crap about 4x4s killing the planet is sheer, utter, propaganda.

It's sheer, utter jealousy too! Pile o'crap. As is the whole green bananawagon. My effin' globe needs warming. Anyway - if it was rue, wouldn't it liberate Antarctica?

Heh heh - I love my heavy car, and I love Stella (and Grolsch!)