Poll for Americans: What about Diesel engines?

[ConnClark]

As aside note my fathers Chevy Luv diesel owners manual reccomends thinning diesel with gasoline in extremely cold temperatures. I do agree that this should only in the coldest temps as in most cases winter diesel will work just fine.

Just remember any thing you add to improve starting abillity is going to drop your btu content and most likely your mileage

Check your owners manual

[hal9999]

First of all, I whish to all nice holydays. (I was off-line for some days).

To instarx:
Huh.
Before you accuse someone to be irresponsible follow the tread and read the answers!!!

1. Concerning the theme to add 10 % gasoline to diesel; I wrote that: IN OLDER DAYS…
2. I said that this was done with older Diesel fuel and therefore with older engines.
3. I just answered the question of guudasitgets about his old farmer.
4. I warned to never fill-up your Diesel with Gasoline.
5. It’s proven that millions of Europeans did that, IN OLDER DAYS, and I never heard that this could harm an OLDER Diesel.
6. Gasoline is just a more refinished fuel as Kerosene and Diesel.
Read: Gasoline gallon equivalent-Wikipedia
7. ConnClark confirms what I wrote. I don’t think that GM would recommend such a thing if it was irresponsible.
8. I never recommended doing that today!

So please lets have a rational discussion without the need for someone to have to post such an useless and justifying posting just because you didn’t follow the thread.

[hal9999]

I won't fight it to death or claim a mental illness of my own in my opinion of facts, I just babble about it when I can. Stone cold sober of course. This seems a good time for that...

ROFL. Very well said !

[hal9999]

Please excuse my ignorance. But why are many of your comments against modern TDI / Particulate Filter (PF) Diesels???

If Europe 20 to 25 years ago decided that Diesel Engines where the best answer to pollution and dependency to the producing fuel countries, in IHO I believe they had their reasons.

The result was, initially, highly polluted cities. But at the end, the European and Japanese manufacture where, due to restrictive anti-pollution laws, forced to engineer better and cleaner Diesel engines.

Why do you think that a Diesel engine without a PF and a Turbo is better ?

- It's common sense that Turbo-Diesel engines have a, more or less (edit) up to (/edit), 30% better efficiency, than a non-turbo diesel engine.
- Peugeot developed the particulate filter, which are now installed in all new Diesels. This is decreasing, year by year, the particulate pollution in our cities.

Now, why the heck would you take out these two pieces of a modern Diesel engine?
(edit) Beside that you would need to reprogram your engine control unit (ECU?) (/edit)

I would be grateful if you could answer these two questions without complicated technical explanations.

[Big Dave]

My problem with the DPF is four-fold.

Any filter induces back pressure. Turbo-diesel efficiency is VERY sensitive to back pressure. Back pressure reduces MPG.

The DPF uses fuel to burn off the collected graphite dust and convert it to CO2 with nothing gained. At least a coal-fired power plant (coal is mostly graphite) produces useful power. The DPF wastes fuel and produces CO2 for no good reason.

DPFs are very expensive. The DPF for a pickup truck costs $4,500 - dealers cost. This imposes a cost premium over gas engines.

It is not needed. The air quality in the US is the best in living memory. The Tier II standards(of which the DPF is) will not produce any noticeable improvement.

In short the DPF is the work of the devil.

[cfg83]

Big Dave -

Here is where the NOx/PM regulations are going in the USA/EU/Japan :


From: 2008 | NGK News | NGK INSULATORS, LTD.

How do you propose to meet the regulations? Is your solution to maintain a separate and lower standard?


CarloSW2

[ConnClark]

My solution is to eliminate Californian emissions and have just one standard to meet.

I would like to note that my car was one of the first 3 passenger car models to have a DPF. They had a tendency to plug so bad the cars wouldn't run at all or even worse the back pressure and heat was enough to crack the heads. Some times the filter would give way and send chunks of it self through the turbo charger thus destroying the turbo.

The EPA made Mercedes Benz swap out plugged DPFs under a life time warranty because they were creating more pollution than they were preventing.

Eventually Mercedes convinced CARB and the EPA to allow them to install a filter that allowed more soot to pass through it so it would plug up as bad.

I have some doubts about the benefits of a DPF in general. Diesel particulate matter below a certain size is what threatens to cause lung cancer. A DPF traps large particles and burns or breaks them up until they are small enough to get through the filter. So what you end up with is more fine particles that threaten to cause cancer.

[hal9999]

To Big Dave & ConnClark:

I did today a quick, non-scientific, research about your comments.
I couldn’t find any document proving what you claim.

I recommend to start with (if you like to read a lot):

Diesel particulate filter - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Diesel particulate matter - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
NIOSH Document: Examination of Diesel Aftertreatment Systems at NIOSH Lake Lynn Laboratory, Mining ID: 2604 | CDC/NIOSH
http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/mining/pubs/pdfs/eodas.pdf

And as last: this interesting 24 pages long study, which its conclusion is:

>>From all we know today, we can confidently say that reducing diesel exhaust in our environment
will mean improving public health, and as this report demonstrates, reducing preventable premature
deaths. We do not need to wait. Technology is available today that can reduce particulate matter emissions by up to 90 percent. Now is the time to clean up our old trucks, buses, heavy equipment and
locomotives to provide a cleaner future for us and our children.<<

Source: Howard Frumkin, M.D., Dr.P.H., FACP, FACOEM
Professor and Chair, Department of Environmental and Occupational Health
Emory University, Rollins School of Public Health
http://www.catf.us/publications/repo...in_America.pdf

Question for ConnClark:
If it’s true what you say about the ultra fine particulates, can you quantify how much of these are produced by a DPF in comparison to a non-filtered vehicle? More, same, less ?

I would appreciate a scientific document (please no biased WebPages or forums).

For Big Dave:

It is not needed. The air quality in the US is the best in living memory.

If you introduce a large number of Diesel cars, without DPF, your air quality will soon get worse. I know it by experience. Or take a look to the map in: Diesel Retrofit in Europe and examine northern Italy.

Any filter induces back pressure. Turbo-diesel efficiency is VERY sensitive to back pressure. Back pressure reduces MPG.

Ok, but this can be overcome by more efficient engines.
For instance my 2002 TDI common rail with no DPF has “only” 150 Hp.
Today’s same engine has 177 Hp and less consumption although it has a DPF.

Engines get more complicated with the time, but new technologies compensate this.

This is just my 2-cent opinion.

[Big Dave]

You may think the imaginary degradation in PM2.5 offsets the loss of MPG. I don't. I have worked enough with the EPA to know just how thin the evidence for such claims are.

Although I equally do not buy the Global Warming hooey, I do get a chuckle from this. For the imaginary benefits of reduced PM2.5 you lose the imaginary benefits of reduced CO2 emissions that a more efficient engine brings you. Further, compliance with the PM2.5 standard involve generating even more CO2 for no good reason.

It seems with environmental extremists and faux public health "experts" on the make for grant funding, nothing is ever good enough.

Also DPF standards are only enforceable on new vehicles. I cut mine off and the EPA has no way to find out.

[instarx]

Originally Posted by hal9999

First of all, I whish to all nice holydays. (I was off-line for some days).

To instarx:
Huh.
Before you accuse someone to be irresponsible follow the tread and read the answers!!!

1. Concerning the theme to add 10 % gasoline to diesel; I wrote that: IN OLDER DAYS…
2. I said that this was done with older Diesel fuel and therefore with older engines.
3. I just answered the question of guudasitgets about his old farmer.
4. I warned to never fill-up your Diesel with Gasoline.
5. It’s proven that millions of Europeans did that, IN OLDER DAYS, and I never heard that this could harm an OLDER Diesel.
6. Gasoline is just a more refinished fuel as Kerosene and Diesel.
Read: Gasoline gallon equivalent-Wikipedia
7. ConnClark confirms what I wrote. I don’t think that GM would recommend such a thing if it was irresponsible.
8. I never recommended doing that today!

So please lets have a rational discussion without the need for someone to have to post such an useless and justifying posting just because you didn’t follow the thread.

You're re-interpreting your post HAL9999. You said 10 -15% gasoline will do it.

"Usually 10 - 15 % of gasoline will do it. But remember never fill-up your diesel up with gasoline."

To me this is a very clear statement. You didn't say "would have done it", you said "will do it". You were clearly saying that adding 15% gasoline is OK, but a full tank of gas is not OK. What is there to misinterpret?

The eight-point (!) rebuttal notwithstanding, I think it quite rational to have said it was irresponsible to have made that recommendation.

To ConnClark:
That's interesting about the Chevy Luv manual. I wonder if there were any caveats such as the maximum amount, or "only in an emergency" or "drain tank and refill with diesel fuel as soon as possible"? My Chevy 6.5L diesel manual says to never add gasoline to its fuel.