Let he that is without sin...
By all accounts the likes of Volvo are in the frame here as well. Volvo (Ford and others) use PSA engines which are French...
Prosecutors in Paris announced Friday that they were launching an investigation into the Volkswagen scandal, looking into what they termed as suspicions of "aggravated deception". The German auto giant is in hot water on both sides of the Atlantic after it emerged that it had equipped its cars with software that allowed the …
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Actually the worst scores on the "pollution on the road" test announced yesterday are Nissan/Renault. Up to 10 times more than the Eu test spec.
While Volvo is not great it is likely that its entry in the test was defective (yeah, I know, queue jokes about PSV engines).
You mean like a Ford Mondeo with a 2.0 TDCi (DW10) compared to a Peugeot 508 2.0 HDi is heavier by some 11% (150 kg) and has 11% higher fuel consumption? A Citroen C5 weighs about the same as a Mondeo and has about the same efficiency.
Or with a 1.6 (DV6), the C5 has markedly higher fuel consumption than Mondeo despite the same weight.
Or maybe it's because the fuel consumption figures can be easily achieved with normal driving? I've been able to get 30% lower fuel consumption in typical city driving than what the catalog states, and yes, it shocked me, too.
Mind you, they have about the same acceleration, so I don't understand where you get the "significant performance difference" from.
Very suspicious my ass.
150kg is quite a lot of mass. It'd be difficult to account for it in extra emission hardware. Quite likely 508 is slightly smaller, weaker structurally or to contrary uses more high strength steel, possibly better engineered or maybe has smaller/lighter rims/wheels and no spare. Anyway, 11% less mass = better efficiency in city. Lower mass and resulting frontal area of the vehicle = better efficiency on the highway (though not as much difference). Things like transmission/gear ratios matter as well.
Toltec, it is possible to both get more power and better fuel consumption via remapping, but I’d be surprised if they were achieved without also increasing NOₓ emissions. If UK MOTs don’t require NOₓ testing, then that could be a factor in the reasonably common status of remapping there.
er - my TDI is about 400 miles off the quarter of a million and it isn't suffering greatly from the effects of a remap installed by a previous owner. I suspect that the fact that the EGR was bypassed sometime in the past may also have contributed to the longevity of the turbo and associated bits!
It also doesn't test for the presence of cheese either, the point I made was that it got through the MOT tests and what they require.
The MOT also looks for visible smoke so it does have a rudimentary particulate matter test.
Not sure how you think it's "tax dodging" either, it's a year 2000 W plate car so pre dates the CO2 bands for VED and pays the rate based on engine size.
there is documentary evidence (and yes I have seen the videos with my very own eyes), that show this sort of thing has gone on since the dawn of time, I mean just take a close look at the underside of Fred Flintsones car - yes, there it is, Da Feet system. (I'm here all week folks)
If you believe for even an instant that top executives at VW did not know this was going on, and approved of it, even tacitly, then you are an idiot! Their engineers would NOT have done this without approval from the highest levels. Maybe there are no paper or e-trails to the top here, but that is just good CYA crap!
Spaceman Spiff, if this chronology is accurate, then in theory that initial approval could have been made as low in the VW hierarchy as the head of engine development, and his superiors might have known nothing more than “OK, Neußer’s EA189 team has met the EPA and CARB NOₓ emission limits without needing AdBlue — we can start production for the North American markets at reasonable costs”; it would depend on how much information flowed between those levels of the VW hierarchy. That being said, Winterkorn at least seems like someone who’d be interested in engineering details.
There will be lots of investigations but for the most part the only issue is that VW needs to fit new software without the ability to know when an emissions test is being conducted. The engines themselves actually meet or exceed all required emissions requirements in all respecareas where sold. In the U.S., the land of litigation the lawyers will use every means possible to bleed as much money out of VW as possible. It's the American way...
I think the bigger question here is why the EU has been pushing diesel to reduce CO2 while it's obviously a health hazard in terms of both NOx and particulates and heavily dependent on well maintained engines and filters.
I think this may see a return to focusing on petrol (gasoline) again. It's simply a cleaner fuel because it's much more distilled than Diesel.
The cost per L in many markets also doesn't make it much of a saving. It's all an artificial push based on CO2 per km calculations.