EPA may fine VW

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by darcane

Per Consumer Reports (via Jalopnik):
Consumer Reports Finds How Fuel Economy And Performance Drops When VW Diesels Stop Cheating

Great article; I don't know how I missed your post before.

It also says

We’ve already shown you TFLcar’s Volkswagen Diesel test where they claimed a performance drop in up to 15 horsepower and 32 lb-ft of torque.

While it's neat that Tesla can add more horsepower to their cars via an update, it's a relief that there is no such way for VW to force an update on owners existing cars.

I have a feeling that stock ECUs will rapidly increase in value as dealerships sneak in updates when cars come in for an oil change. Perhaps I should be buying up all the junkyard ones now, while they are normal price and available.

[matt36415]

I have never owned a diesel.

However I see most people here seem to be in the USA where diesel cars are a small percentage of all cars sold. Europe has far more diesels ans they are really growing in number in Australia too. I hope I am not generalising too much but we just dont have acid rain or the smog of L.A and I dont think it happens in northern europe either.

There must be some good reasons all of these people buy them - and VW's are going to be really cheap soon tooo.

[oldtamiyaphile]

Originally Posted by matt36415

Europe has far more diesels ans they are really growing in number in Australia too

Australia had a brief interest in diesel passenger cars when low sulphur diesel hit the market. Most owners soon realised that diesels don't actually make any sense and went back to petrol. Currently, diesel holds a 3% market share in the passenger car market.

SUVs are another story though.

Europeans tend to be moving to hybrids with diesel being banned in some cities/ towns.

[Vman455]

"Australia wide there were 14.0 million petrol powered vehicles registered in 2015 accounting for 77.7% of the total vehicle fleet.

In comparison there were 3.6 million diesel powered vehicles accounting for 19.7% of the fleet.

Over the five year period from 2010, the number of Passenger vehicles and Light Commercial vehicles registered with diesel fuel increased by 96.4% and 62.9% respectively."

Source: http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@....5?OpenDocument

I downloaded the Excel document with more specific statistics (say that 10 times fast!); among passenger vehicles only, diesels account for 11.1% of registrations in Australia (all, not just new).

In Europe, as of 2011 (the most recent year available on the ACEA's website), diesels account for 36.8% of the vehicle fleet, and more than 50% of new passenger car registrations each year are diesels.

[litesong]

Tho this website is called Ecomodder, there is a fair # of posters trying to give excuses to VW. For a short while years ago, I was interested in VW diesels for their high mpg & low rpm torque to save downshifts & still obtain slow accelerations or climb shallow to moderate hills. However, diesels were thought to barely meet U.S. pollution restrictions, while the Prius had 10 times less emissions than U.S. pollution standards. Now we discover that VW diesels put out 40 times more pollutants than U.S. requirements. Yeah, 400 Prius Hybrids pollute no more than ONE VW diesel. Case closed, ship diesels back to Germany.......where diesels are allowed to pollute Europe more than the U.S.

[freebeard]

Ecomodder is a big tent. Everything from bicycles to Bonneville.

I've owned and sometimes driven VWs since 1967, and I still haven't gotten over them dropping the air-cooled flat four over emissions standards. I mean, anti-freeze is poisonous to puppies and kittens.

The story isn't just about VW. Did you look at Why Diesel Needs to Die? Let's see what Europe and Australia do going forward.

I think it's about closed-source, proprietary software and the things it conceals as much as anything. To quote Presidential candidate Lawrence Lessing "Code Is Law".

[oldtamiyaphile]

Here are some newish figures showing that only 3% of passenger vehicles are diesel (year to date):

Diesel on the nose for car buyers

And that's before the VW scandal.

[Hersbird]

Originally Posted by litesong

Tho this website is called Ecomodder, there is a fair # of posters trying to give excuses to VW. For a short while years ago, I was interested in VW diesels for their high mpg & low rpm torque to save downshifts & still obtain slow accelerations or climb shallow to moderate hills. However, diesels were thought to barely meet U.S. pollution restrictions, while the Prius had 10 times less emissions than U.S. pollution standards. Now we discover that VW diesels put out 40 times more pollutants than U.S. requirements. Yeah, 400 Prius Hybrids pollute no more than ONE VW diesel. Case closed, ship diesels back to Germany.......where diesels are allowed to pollute Europe more than the U.S.

I always thought the eco stood for economy and VW was improving the economy of the car. There are some on this site who may put more ecology in the eco but most posts are about saving gas more then anything else.

[Vman455]

Originally Posted by oldtamiyaphile

Here are some newish figures showing that only 3% of passenger vehicles are diesel (year to date):

Diesel on the nose for car buyers

And that's before the VW scandal.

Their information appears to cover just one month of Australian car sales, from early this year based on the date stamp of the comments. They quote 46,761 gas cars and 1459 diesels. The Australian Bureau of Statistics shows, for January 2015, 42,200 cars, 30,489 SUVs, and 19,530 "other" sold countrywide. I wonder why you Australians don't count SUVs as passenger vehicles?

Regardless, there are--again, according to the ABS--more than 1.5 million diesel passenger cars on Australia's roads at the moment, which is a more significant percentage than in the US (where <3% of registered cars are diesels, according to Forbes), but not as much as Europe. And, with sales slowing, more of those diesels are likely older and dirtier than new non-VWs.

So, going back to the original comment that started this tangent: Australia does seem to love diesels more than the US, but the number of diesel passenger cars on American roads is higher than in Australia (because the number of cars we have in total dwarfs yours). As to why Australian cities don't seem to have the smog problems of European or American metros, perhaps that total number plus the size of the continent has something to do with it?

[Xist]

At least two of our members have aftermarket lean burn systems and one removed the environmental systems from his diesel truck.

We are a diverse group with a wide range of priorities.