VW - busted!

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#1390503 20-Sep-2015 02:37

I wonder how secondhand buyers are treated in settlements like these. I'm aware manufacturer will fox the defect but is there any ability for secondhand buyer to join class action. All US law stuff.

Fred99

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#1390562 20-Sep-2015 11:06

pdath: VW are definitely in the gun. To get the certificate before being allowed to sell a vehicle they have to have the EPA test done and declare any aspect of the vehicle which could affect the test results. They also have to make a declaration that the vehicle contains no systems that will try and alter the results.

They are completely screwed. Maximum fine is 18 billion. They are also not allowed to sell any new model diesels until the issue is resolved. They are also required to make every existing vehicle sold compliant. To make them compliant they will have to rob the vehicles of their preformance.

Would you want to take your vehicle on knowing it will come out performing worse?

That hit in performance (economy and power) with the anti-pollution defeat in the ECU turned off will be interesting. With turbo-diesel, then (apart from exhaust post-treatment), NOx production is influenced by combustion temperatures. The obvious ways to reduce combusion temperatures is to increase EGR (that sounds counter-intuitive, but it's how EGR works), reduce boost (easy these days with ECU controlled variable-vane turbo), as well as adjusting fuel injection mapping. But I think these affected models also have urea injection / selective catalytic conversion (SCR) systems to reduce NOx.
EPA should next look at Mercedes Benz (if they're selling diesel "BlueTEC" in the US) and BMW. Perhaps MB and BMW are making high-performance diesels with SCR which do comply with EPA emissions - without using similar tricks to what VW have been using.

I was looking at some figures for roadside NOx measurements. There's been a significant slow reduction in those measurements in European cities. Cars are only part of the problem, and not all cars are diesel. Petrol cars NOx emissions have dropped absolutely massively since the 1980s - I guess it's complex to determine accurately, but the reduction in NOx from petrol engine cars probably accounts for most of the overall drop. There's other data suggesting that actual NOx from diesels has been increasing despite Euro emissions regulations tightening up. This may not be a VW USA only issue.

I don't trust that the Euro emissions regulations are as good as the US. I'm deeply suspicious that there's collusion between the auto-makers and the regulators, there's too much money at stake.

Sidestep

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#1390565 20-Sep-2015 11:11

gzt: I wonder how secondhand buyers are treated in settlements like these. I'm aware manufacturer will fox the defect but is there any ability for secondhand buyer to join class action. All US law stuff.

I'm sure they will. Everyone loves a good free-for-all Class Action. Horrible mess for VW.

Some years ago we were importing used US market vehicles to Canada. We'd take them to a US dealership to complete or verify clearance of recalls before bringing them across the border.

We later recieved letters - at our Canadian address - from a US legal firm asking if we wished to join class action against the manufacturer. I'm pretty sure they even specified the VIN numbers of the affected vehicles.

We figured they'd found us through the manufacturers database. I'm guessing they'd been forced to pass on a list of owners to the class action lawyers..

Dunnersfella

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#1390585 20-Sep-2015 13:04

gzt: At the end of the day no cleverer than a fridge manufacturer.

If they get away with it, then Life's Good.

Aredwood

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#1390671 20-Sep-2015 17:26

There will definitely be a big reduction in fuel economy due to having the emissions control systems constantly running. As lower combustion temperature means lower efficency. So more fuel needed for same power output. And lower exhaust temp means the particulate filter blocks up faster. Which means more active regeneration required. Which consists of injecting extra diesel on the exhaust stroke. Which instead of burning in the engine. It burns in the particulate filter to heat it enough to burn off the soot.

Hopefully this will teach the general public how stupid emissions controls are. As burning more fuel definitely doesn't help to reduce carbon emissions.

gzt

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#1391252 21-Sep-2015 13:41

Sam Morgan owns Volkswagens, not happy.

http://mobile.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.php?c_id=3&objectid=11516211

I assume he purchased new in NZ. Are NZ new Volkswagen even going to have this ECU program?

Fred99

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#1391359 21-Sep-2015 15:22

"The EPA said it is looking to see if other automakers are breaking the rules with diesel vehicles.

California and U.S. agencies “have begun procuring in-use diesel vehicles produced by other manufacturers to screen the vehicles for possible defeat devices. Moving forward we will be reviewing our compliance protocols and introducing ways in which we can effectively test not only for emissions performance but also for the potential presence of defeat devices,” EPA said in a statement to The Detroit News."

Sharesies kids

Free kids accounts - trade shares and funds (NZ, US) with Sharesies (affiliate link).

Fred99

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#1391372 21-Sep-2015 15:43

IMO EPA should look at very hard at all FSI petrol engine cars. These also inherently produce high NOx levels, particularly when running in stratified injection mode (cruise and gentle acceleration), and for the same reason as diesels (high combustion temperatures and low fuel air ratio, where excess O2 + N2 form NOx)
In that case the second cat effectively "stores" NOx, as it can't catalytically reduce it when the injection is in lean stratified mode - as there's excess O2 in the exhaust gases.
The NOx sensor measures when saturation of the NOx storage catalyst is achieved, then cycles the engine map to "lambda one" (stoichiometric) or higher for a few seconds - injecting more fuel.
Thus O2 levels in the exhaust reduce, the NOx storage catalyst is "refreshed", and the injection reverts to lean stratified injection mode. This all happens on a continuous cycle without anything noticeable to the driver.

Why they might want to "cheat" on that isn't because of performance hit, but fuel economy (and thus CO2 emissions), where the excess fuel used solely to "refresh" the NOx storage catalyst will reduce fuel economy - thus defeating it will improve economy. If VW figured out how to detect an EPA cycle with diesel, then they can do exactly the same with FSI petrol. Defeat FSI during a detected test cycle and exhaust NOx will be consistently low.

Batman

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#1391376 21-Sep-2015 15:50

Will we see people returning their VW Audi Lambo and etc ? Note that would be funny!

1eStar

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#1391560 21-Sep-2015 21:41

Have the EPA people watched any diesel drag truck videos?

Fred99

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#1391573 21-Sep-2015 22:53

EPA's letter to VAG has been made public.

an extract:

If that's all the "defeat programme" did, then perhaps they can be easily reset by software. But if by design that's going to cause other problems (ie the catalytic converter system, DPF or engine itself can't handle homogeneous charge for the duration needed to keep NOx emissions below standards in normal driving) then this might indicate that every small VW diesel sold everywhere in the world emissions standards apply may use the same trick.
Apparently in one year and a recall, VW could not fix the problem.

The dirty rats. Indeed they could do exactly exactly the same with all of their petrol FSI cars - basically every car now made by VAG. I have been reading that German authorities are now going to investigate cars made and sold over there.

Fred99

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#1391939 22-Sep-2015 14:24

Here's some evidence that perhaps VW are doing the same with petrol cars in Europe.

"Our test shows: Unfiltered direct injection engines are on the road many times dirtier than filtered diesel engines. In our opinion, violates EU law.

VW Golf 1.4 TSI meets Euro 6 standards in dyno emissions tests, but a complete fail when the test is switched to the "New European Driving Cycle" road simulation test while still monitoring emissions.

This looks pretty bad to me - a Euro 6 VW 1.4 TSI getting thoroughly dorked for actual emissions on highway test cycle, compared with an old Euro 5 compliant Hyundai:

Those ultra-fine particulates are very nasty indeed. Older-style port or throttle body injected petrol engines hardly produce any at all unless they're seriously faulty.

The Euro 7 standard coming later in the decade is supposed to be based on new harmonised test procedures. Two things seem obvious, it seems to use cycles which are very easy to detect - thus beat, and the USA are not part of the deal.

TUV Nord also reported the issue with direct injection petrol engines. I've mentioned it here before.

The response from the German authorities has been... basically nothing.

Perhaps VW and the German Minister for the Environment should be asked a riddle question:
"What has it got in it's pocketses?" I'm deeply suspicious that the answer is "each others handses".

Batman

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#1391990 22-Sep-2015 15:26

this is an amazing scandal!

i read somewhere the actual emission generated is about up to 40X the rated

40X !!!

Fred99

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#1392099 22-Sep-2015 17:21

VW tried to position themselves with "clean diesel" in the US with TV ads like the one below.

So ironic is the situation, you could hardly make it up.

dafman

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#1392101 22-Sep-2015 17:33

How could they be so stupid? Seriously, what could the execs have possibly been thinking. With the number of people required internally to pull this off, it was never an issue of if, but when the news got out!

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