OT - Dieselgate again

And unlike USA they won't pay compensation to UK owners.

Only the sheep will have it done.

But they found a way to fiddle US emissions regs. Does the same apply to the UK? Such regs in the UK tend to lag US ones.

They found a way to detect when it was likely that the vehicle was being tested, and then put it in a low emission mode that would not be viable on the road. It applies to both US and European rules; in normal use, the cars involved pollute many times more than is permitted.

I'm struggling to understand how they will fix it without ending up with a car that is so much slower, owners won't accept it.

Chris

That was one of the concerns expressed when this all came about. The 'fix' actually produced a more drivable car, so who would want to have the fix done? 'Thanks, I'll take the money, and I'll take the car to the dealer when I have time, just before I sell it'.

So someone somewhere has had this done? First time I've heard of it. Got any links?

But you've just said it made the car more drivable.

Tim

I fat-fingered there, writing 'more' for 'less'.

Apologies. Too early in the day. The rest of the comment stands, though.

In the UK, pretty well all diesels pollute when booted. Pretty obvious by the smoke and smells from the exhaust.

Are you certain EU and US emission regs are exactly the same? IIRC, they ain't even the same in all US states.

From the mists of time a CI engine will produce more power when over-fuelled. At the expense of both efficiency and emissions. I doubt that has changed by much even now.

ITYM a *less* drivable car? ie poorer out and out performance? But if it does break emission regs, surely the fix should mandatory?

Oh no, as you say it even varies by state.

The thing is, a VW without the testing hack would not even get close to passing EU laws.

Chris

You clearly didn't read my post of 12:28.

Very odd it didn't come to light in the EU too, then?

Why so? The cars involved had been on sale in the US since 2009 until 2015 before the deception was uncovered.

Had our government not stopped roadside spot checks for emissions some years ago, it may well have been uncovered here first.

Chris

When did they do rolling road emission tests? That is the only way that excess emissions would show up. Roadside tests can only realistically be the same as an mot type test.

The fiddle was simply having a defeat device. The actual emissions were not necessarily excessive.

In normal use they emit a permitted amount of pollution. The low emission mode is only slightly better than similar diesels in test conditions (which are not representative of real conditions)

UK response:

Think it's been an open secret that makers fiddle all sorts of things in these 'official' tests - and always have done. I remember reading ages ago that it wasn't possible to combine the performance and decent emissions on diesels many makers were claiming. But just why the US decided to check this model carefully, we'll never know

I very much doubt a roadside check would pick up on such a sophisticated fiddle. Oh - I'm also willing to bet the makers of the injection systems - Siemens or whatever - knew all about it too.

In the US, NOx emissions, which are the real problem, vary from 2 or 3 times the legal limit, up to 40 times the legal limit.

Euro6 limits are allow roughly double the NOx amounts as US laws, so under best-case conditions the cheating cars will vary from just-legal up to 20 times over. I'd call that excessive.

Chris

Surely you have that the wrong way round?

In a rolling road test, the ECU would detect that situation and go into low- polluting mode.

AFAIK, the MOT test is only a sophisticated smoke test; no analysis of emissions is made. The roadside tests that used to be carried out by VOSA, and now abandoned on grounds of costs, were far more sophisticated, and would have detected the cheat

Chris

I understood that the car software detected that the car was stationary and altered the settings so that emissions were lowered. On a rolling road the computer would think the car was moving and not reduce the emissions.

It's much more sophisticated than that, although full details are not yet available. It takes into account wheel rotation speeds, throttle position, steering wheel position changes - pretty much every sensor on the car I should imagine!

Chris