VW Used Software In 482K Diesels To Skirt US Clean-Air Rules

Gweenz said:
Was reading about this on Friday. This is a BIG deal. VW did this knowingly. They actually admitted to it instead of lawyering up. When was the last time a large corporation threw in the towel instead of deny, deny, deny?

If you are a VW owner, the difference in mileage/mileage is really insignificant, but that's not the point. I would be more worried about what other corners they are cutting, and from my experience with recent VW's that is a whole lot.
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Owners said to steer clear of VW because of the high maintenance and other problems. My choice was between a Sentra and Jetta, and I'm glad I went with the Sentra.
 
No octane in diesel. The closest comparative would be the CETANE rating. For some reason, here in the States, the Fed does not require minimum or mandatory crane ratings. However, if you look in any diesel engine owners manual, they specify the desired and as tested crane rating. A few States have to indicate the rating at the pump, however. Also, a good portion of fuel economy/performance warranty would be rejected if the crane rating of your fuel is found to be insufficient. This can also play a role in NOx emissions.
 
WorldExclusive said:
Owners said to steer clear of VW because of the high maintenance and other problems. My choice was between a Sentra and Jetta, and I'm glad I went with the Sentra.
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I've got an expensive vw (911), and while I'm quite mechanically inclined, I'd never finance one to own. It'd be the dumbest move possible.
 
I approve of this behavior.

I am going to by a diesel 911 for the wife and a diesel Huracan for myself just to show my appreciation.

No? Well maybe a R10 TDI for weekends then.
 
cyclone3d said:
With the EPA, they could care less about safety. It is all about their agenda to control everybody, using (debunked) claims about global warming being caused by such things as livestock flatulence and other equally stupid things such as vehicles.

It has been proven time and time again that a properly tuned car without all the useless "emissions" equipment will get better fuel mileage and have more power.. and in my own tests with a few different cars I owned will pass emissions tests even better then when they were new.

Follow the money....
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Yes, follow the money to those all-powerful environmental companies raking in the big bucks...poor Exxon, Chevron, Ford, VW, etc, can't even begin to play in those lofty leagues of high profits. :rolleyes:
 
SLee said:
The USA in general has the toughest emission standards in the world, such that diesels generally needs expensive additional emissions equipment to meet those requirements.

Interestingly, it seems that this issue was found out when a European organization testing Euro VWs couldn't get them to meet Euro standards and began testing US VWs to confirm that diesels could be made clean.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...ons-cheating-found-by-curious-clean-air-group
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Cool, thanks for the link, I missed that part of the story.

It will be interesting what the downstream impact on those who own these cars will be. I cant see VW walking away from the US market, but this is going to be very painful.

Wonder who else out there cheating just got skid marks when the news of this hit.
 
I have a '98 Beetle and a '12 JSW. The Beetle has over 300k on it and the JSW has over 120k. Both are the most reliable and most comfortable cars I've owned although our BMW is more fun to lay into the curves.
 
ok, one corporation busted. only about a thousand more that could be investigated for polluting the environment (the only one we got) for profit.
 
OEM said:
Who gives a shit? The EPA makes shit so strict that I'm sure 40 times what their rules are are probably pretty safe.

FWIW, I don't own a VW, so I'm not defending them to keep myself from feeling like I got duped. I'd buy a VW, though.
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40 times todays allowable limit would put emissions at roughly double the nox emissions from a late 70s diesel. Ive driven both. The old rabbit was not sace too breathe in any manner let alone double. Even if using average emssions it would have to be the 90s for it to pass.
 
Playing devils advocate here....
Im curious as to what EXACTLY the emissions compliance law says.
Does it specifically state that you cannot write specific code in the ECU to detect emissions testing and run a different code that is optimized for emissions?

Some cars have a "green" mode that they can use to get better MPG, VW basically took the same principal and optimized for emissions and rather than giving the user a way to enable it they wrote it into the tune.
When you go for emissions testing would the tester use the regular mode or can they opt for "green" mode?

If the law clearly states that you cannot optimize for emissions standards, then VW broke the law, thats all there is to it, but from my mind they might have found a loophole?
I guess it depends on how you define a "defeat device"

On my highly modified car when I used to live in a region that required emissions I had to install an o2 sensor spacer on the emissions related o2 sensors (car has 3 02 sensors, one for the ECU and two for emissions purposes) to effectively report back "cleaner" emissions by restricting the amount of exhaust that reaches the o2 sensor.
 
There are no "eco" buttons that switch a car to operate outside the boundaries of emissions laws.

Any tampering with mandated emissions equipment is a federal offense, even if it results in cleaner emissions. Chances of being caught and prosecuted are low, but fiddling with your O2 sensors would be a clear case of illegal tampering.

There's not going to be any loophole that explains what VW did. VAG already admitted wrong-doing and yanked current vehicles from the market.
 
I think a lot of people in this thread are confusing emissions and milage.

They are not equivalent.

You could have two engines with exactly the same miles per gallon, but with VASTLY different emissions.

Miles per gallon is a good measure of CO2 emissions, because if you burn a certain amount of hydrocarbon fuel, you get a certain amount of CO2 (unless you have incomplete combusition resulting in carbon monoxide, but that's a different story) There is - however - more to emissions than just CO2.

CO2 - for instance - doesn't create smog. Other pollutants do, and these are present in greater amounts on diesel fumes than in gasoline fumes.

In the VW case, the worst offenders are nitrogen oxides (commonly referred to as NOx) which have been recorded as high as 40x the legal limit. Diesel fumes also contain particulate matter (the black smoke) and other pollutants that are limited by law.

So, it's not ALL about milage. Milage is important, but not the ONLY variable when it comes to vehicle pollution.

This Wikipedia page might be useful for learning purposes.
 
No one's arguing that.

The issue is that in order to bring emissions in line VW is going to have to update the ECU's and customers' vehicles will experience reductions in real-world mpg.

That said, this software was used when they were tested by the EPA and explains why diesel owners regularly experience higher than estimated MPG so fixing it will likely just bring the vehicles down to the EPA figures.
 
Zarathustra[H];1041866929 said:
Yeah, this was pretty red handed.

They probably deemed they would be better off owning up, punishing those involved (unless this direction came from the top, which I doubt).

That being said, their stock price dropped by a fifth today when the markets opened.
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Potential 18Bil fine and their market cap is 62Bil.

Let that stock drop another 15% and they'll be where they should.
 
cyclone3d said:
It is all about their agenda to control everybody, using (debunked) claims about global warming being caused by such things as livestock flatulence and other equally stupid things such as vehicles.

Follow the money....
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OilProfits-table1.png


As he said, just follow the money guys
 
Advil said:
Oh well, another superior technology about to die due to over regulation.

Sure seems like a convenient way to keep those evil diesels that get great fuel economy off the road in the usa.

Sure seems convenient that this all happens right as diesel finally starts to become cheaper than gasoline again.

Sure seems convenient that the fines are somehow utterly disproportionate to the offense... more than the price of the vehicle? That's not regulation, it's thuggery or extortion.

Did VW do it? If we simply take the story at face value without doing our own digging it looks like it. So let's assume they did for the sake of argument. A reasonable fine per vehicles sold in the USA? No. Just ban the cheating bastages from ever selling cars here again? No. Some idiotic cluster-fluck of a absurd number that could total 18 billion? Sounds GREAT!!!

It's makes the EPA look worse than VW. Which is nothing less than I expect from this country anymore.
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Fines are suppose to be high as a deterrent for bad behavior, if you they weren't, no one would pay their taxes on time.

The mileage doesn't really matter if it's spewing death clouds behind it. If it weren't for the epa we would still be using leaded gasoline and our kids would be retarded. Stop drinking the anti "gubernment" kool-aid on this one. At the very least they deserve our scorn for cheating to gain a competitive advantage over other car manufacturers. Even if you don't care about the environmental impact.
 
Forbes, Consumer reports and EPA said no recall has been issued yet, but California is already blocking registration and sales of VW vehicles based on the EPA statement "the cheat device was present on all VW diesels, not just the ones used for EPA testing".

So for now if your interested in the cars buy new and talk the dealer down, buy it from your friend on the cheap, but more states are already talking about blocking registration until VW does OFFICIALLY issue a recall and provides some certificate.
 
Zarathustra[H];1041867609 said:
I think a lot of people in this thread are confusing emissions and milage.

They are not equivalent.

You could have two engines with exactly the same miles per gallon, but with VASTLY different emissions.

Miles per gallon is a good measure of CO2 emissions, because if you burn a certain amount of hydrocarbon fuel, you get a certain amount of CO2 (unless you have incomplete combusition resulting in carbon monoxide, but that's a different story) There is - however - more to emissions than just CO2.

CO2 - for instance - doesn't create smog. Other pollutants do, and these are present in greater amounts on diesel fumes than in gasoline fumes.

In the VW case, the worst offenders are nitrogen oxides (commonly referred to as NOx) which have been recorded as high as 40x the legal limit. Diesel fumes also contain particulate matter (the black smoke) and other pollutants that are limited by law.

.
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Diesel emits soot, not smoke. That is, unless they are burning oil.

Most passenger vehicles with a diesel engine starting with the 2008 model year have a DPF installed. If the system is operating correctly and hasn't been tampered with, the amount of soot (particulates) exiting the tailpipe is negligible. However, during a hard regen, some smoke may be seen.
 
viper1152012 said:
Forbes, Consumer reports and EPA said no recall has been issued yet, but California is already blocking registration and sales of VW vehicles based on the EPA statement "the cheat device was present on all VW diesels, not just the ones used for EPA testing".

So for now if your interested in the cars buy new and talk the dealer down, buy it from your friend on the cheap, but more states are already talking about blocking registration until VW does OFFICIALLY issue a recall and provides some certificate.
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VW just issued a stop sale order to all dealers. If I was a VW dealer, I would be pissed.
 
Only in the United Socialist Republicks of America could a car company have their money stolen for making a less polluting, more fuel efficient vehicle.

The problem with the EPA's "regulations" is that they only look at emissions per unit of fuel burned rather than emissions per unit of distance driven. That penalizes more fuel efficient vehicles.

The "fix" that the EPA fuckwits will mandate on the VW TDI's will reduce mileage and performance, and increase pollution. This is the price you pay for allowing unelected, pencil pushing bureaucrats, to act as law maker, judge, jury, and executioner.
 
Zarathustra[H];1041867609 said:
I think a lot of people in this thread are confusing emissions and milage.

They are not equivalent.

You could have two engines with exactly the same miles per gallon, but with VASTLY different emissions.

Miles per gallon is a good measure of CO2 emissions, because if you burn a certain amount of hydrocarbon fuel, you get a certain amount of CO2 (unless you have incomplete combusition resulting in carbon monoxide, but that's a different story) There is - however - more to emissions than just CO2.

CO2 - for instance - doesn't create smog. Other pollutants do, and these are present in greater amounts on diesel fumes than in gasoline fumes.

In the VW case, the worst offenders are nitrogen oxides (commonly referred to as NOx) which have been recorded as high as 40x the legal limit. Diesel fumes also contain particulate matter (the black smoke) and other pollutants that are limited by law.

So, it's not ALL about milage. Milage is important, but not the ONLY variable when it comes to vehicle pollution.

This Wikipedia page might be useful for learning purposes.
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I'll make sure to bring a diesel VW to my next dentists appointment. Will save on anesthetic costs.
 
damicatz said:
Only in the United Socialist Republicks of America could a car company have their money stolen for making a less polluting, more fuel efficient vehicle.
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It emits more NOx, which can cause smog and other health effects. Much of the fuel efficiency of diesel comes from the fact it is denser than gasoline.

The problem with the EPA's "regulations" is that they only look at emissions per unit of fuel burned rather than emissions per unit of distance driven. That penalizes more fuel efficient vehicles.
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The emissions standards are based on grams/mile.

http://www3.epa.gov/otaq/standards/light-duty/tier2stds.htm
 
McFry said:
Are you asking that regulations be reduced so that pollution levels can rise again?
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I guess I should have put one more qualifier in my comment. Let me see if I can clarify my comment. In California, the allowable NOx emissions are typically 0.4 - 0.7 g/mi for newer cars. My question is this: how far could that limit be relaxed before the air quality would begin to deteriorate? We know that the current levels are, mathematically, more stringent than they need to be in order to maintain the current air quality, since air quality has improved despite increasing population. And how much engine efficiency could be gained (and therefore CO2 emissions lost) by relaxing the emissions rules?

I'm not saying that we *need* to relax the regulations quite yet. I'm just asking the question, and would love to see the numbers. We're basically trading one type of emissions (NOx) for another (CO2), and I would find it interesting to see how much the NOx regulations are impacting fuel consumption.
 
amddragonpc said:
Current administration waited until the 500,000 vehicles number was in the U.S. and decided to ring up an $18 billion dollar bill for VW. KACHING! Easy money.
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Yup and yet GM killed 174 people and only got a 900 million dollar fine. LoL hypocrites
 
Mohonri said:
There's another side to this whole business, though, and that is this: are emissions regulations appropriate to the issues of today? When they were instituted, LA was shrouded in smog. Now, cars have far lower emissions, and LA's sky is (more or less) clear. Do the regulations need to stay as strict as they currently are, or could they be relaxed a bit so that engines can run more efficiently and produce less CO2?
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It seems that the primary issue with this crop of VW cars is they emit nitrous oxides at 40x the allowable limits. Nitrous oxide is about 300 times better at trapping heat in the atmosphere than CO2, so you would have to reduce CO2 output by a huge amount to offset the effect of higher nitrous oxide emissions.
 
this is rich... the largest serial polluter on earth going after a private company for "cheating" on emission testing.

Never could I invent such fiction. It's truly staggering. Even more astounding that people think this is somehow acceptable.
 
cyclone3d said:
With the EPA, they could care less about safety. It is all about their agenda to control everybody, using (debunked) claims about global warming being caused by such things as livestock flatulence and other equally stupid things such as vehicles.

It has been proven time and time again that a properly tuned car without all the useless "emissions" equipment will get better fuel mileage and have more power.. and in my own tests with a few different cars I owned will pass emissions tests even better then when they were new.

Follow the money....
Click to expand...

Auto emissions are about more than the global warming issue. There are other emissions, besides just greenhouse gasses, that are part of the debate.

Seriously, who's this stupid?

Sure, you get a car that can get better gas mileage and more power.

That's great when every city looks and smells like LA did in the 70's.

Or are you going to start suddenly preaching that smog is healthy and good for you?
 
damicatz said:
Only in the United Socialist Republicks of America could a car company have their money stolen for making a less polluting, more fuel efficient vehicle.
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Maybe I read a different article. My understanding is they made a more polluting vehicle, and they hail from a country that is more socialist than the United States, so I'm not sure what you're getting at with that comment.

The problem with the EPA's "regulations" is that they only look at emissions per unit of fuel burned rather than emissions per unit of distance driven. That penalizes more fuel efficient vehicles.
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Why put regulations in quotes? By definition, they seem to be regulations to me. You seem to be operating under the assumption that fuel efficiency and emissions are the same thing. They are not.
 
What's more offensive..... the cheating or the absolutely boring-looking VW cars that put you to sleep looking at them.
 
kydsid said:
40 times todays allowable limit would put emissions at roughly double the nox emissions from a late 70s diesel. Ive driven both. The old rabbit was not sace too breathe in any manner let alone double. Even if using average emssions it would have to be the 90s for it to pass.
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Really? I've been around a few running TDI's and never noticed an excessive amount of fumes.
 
OEM said:
Really? I've been around a few running TDI's and never noticed an excessive amount of fumes.
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That's because the NOx portions of the emissions are clear gasses.

The thick fumes come from the particle portion of diesel fumes. This is the area diesels have improved the most since the 70's
 
Chas said:
Auto emissions are about more than the global warming issue. There are other emissions, besides just greenhouse gasses, that are part of the debate.

Seriously, who's this stupid?

Sure, you get a car that can get better gas mileage and more power.

That's great when every city looks and smells like LA did in the 70's.

Or are you going to start suddenly preaching that smog is healthy and good for you?
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Pollution is a left wing conspiracy to take away our things because they hate our freedoms? And stuff?
 
Mohonri said:
@Zerathustra - the argument is likely to be "bad emissions cause health issues, including contributing to deaths"

You gotta give credit to VW for having the guts to try this. The fact that they got away with it for 10 years is pretty impressive. As the old saying goes, "if you ain't cheatin'...."

I heard someone say that VW might be able to beat this on a technicality, if the regulation is vague or written a certain way, like " meets emissions spec of X when tested..." Technically, their cars *do* pass those tests.

There's another side to this whole business, though, and that is this: are emissions regulations appropriate to the issues of today? When they were instituted, LA was shrouded in smog. Now, cars have far lower emissions, and LA's sky is (more or less) clear. Do the regulations need to stay as strict as they currently are, or could they be relaxed a bit so that engines can run more efficiently and produce less CO2?
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This interactive graph was pretty cool, although it shows that we aren't doing enough yet. http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-whats-warming-the-world/
 
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