VW no doing so well, Ja?

Byker28i said:
Fuel was $2.50 to around $2.95 depending where you bought it for the US gallon a couple of weeks ago. Labour day weekend they were advertising the Mustangs from $32K
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Byker28i said:
Fuel was $2.50 to around $2.95 depending where you bought it for the US gallon a couple of weeks ago. Labour day weekend they were advertising the Mustangs from $32K
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exactly I would buy a dirty diesel either :-)

Mind you I probably wouldn't buy a mustang but hey ho.
 
neil_g said:
handling storage wise?
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Handling the fuel pump, they seem to be operated by the same blokes who can't aim at the toilet. Your hands stink if you don't wear gloves.
 
dejongj said:
That is not wholly accurate. I learned about the coil pack issue the hard way in my Audi with ASN engine. And was pleasantly surprised that the RAC actually carried a coil for my engine in the vehicle. Then I had a second go about two weeks later, again RAC on the road helped me out. Then a burglary happened and my car keys got stolen (but not the car), so I had them decoded at Audi. When it was in for that, they also noted I had the affected coil packs but as I didn't have it serviced at Audi it was never replaced. So at 9 years old they changed all six of them, free of charge. As they should.

Actively employing software to bypass emission test is not good, and I understand criminal charges are likely on its way as well. However the rest is just clouding the issue in your usual pro-Ford anything stance...
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My mates sister had an Audi TT at the time of the coil pack failures, when one failed, Audi took the car in and replaced just that one, when she picked the car up, the service department apologised to her, but she was told others were likely to fail but because of the very high demand at that time, they couldn't replace all of them at once, because they needed what they had to get other cars going. None of what I have written is clouding the issue nor is it written in a pro-Ford stance, it is a fact Americans are downsizing a lot of engines, I only used Ford as an example because those are the engines I'm aware of.
 
Byker28i said:
Tesla's new car ad
L9onuyD.jpg
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Also priced at just short of £50k inclusive of the government grant.
 
:rolleyes::rolleyes:
Byker28i said:
Fuel was $2.50 to around $2.95 depending where you bought it for the US gallon a couple of weeks ago. Labour day weekend they were advertising the Mustangs from $32K
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You must have been in a dear place that weekend, $2.09 where we were!

Mind you it took 6 hours to do an 1.5 hour journey on the Monday morning so didn't save much:rolleyes:
 
Mikesphotaes said:
:rolleyes::rolleyes:

You must have been in a dear place that weekend, $2.09 where we were!

Mind you it took 6 hours to do an 1.5 hour journey on the Monday morning so didn't save much:rolleyes:
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$4.40 at Furnace Creek in Death Valley. Mind you - only fuel for miles...
But when it's only around $30-35 to fill the tank - who cares...
 
nilagin said:
My mates sister had an Audi TT at the time of the coil pack failures, when one failed, Audi took the car in and replaced just that one, when she picked the car up, the service department apologised to her, but she was told others were likely to fail but because of the very high demand at that time, they couldn't replace all of them at once, because they needed what they had to get other cars going. None of what I have written is clouding the issue nor is it written in a pro-Ford stance, it is a fact Americans are downsizing a lot of engines, I only used Ford as an example because those are the engines I'm aware of.
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Well there you go then, you've actually provided a plausible reason for it :)
 
neil_g said:
so are we also going to say urinals should be banned because people waz on the floor?
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How did you jump from not wanting to handle to banning? Maybe I've missed a point somewhere but that was not on my mind at all.
 
Mr Bump said:
The dirty diesel thing is not just emissions, its handling the stuff as well, the yanks find it a dirty fuel for those reasons as well.
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Getting on your hand is not nice; it causes me skin rashes and all sorts of things. But it is not diesel fault, but rather all the nasty additives that can be pretty corrosive and toxic. The same happens with petrol and to be honest it is not hard to avoid a spill. Fuel stations even provide disposable gloves.

On the other hand petrol can happily go up in a fireball after moderate rear ending by a lorry. It is much less likely in diesel powered vehicle. That alone makes me think twice about driving petrol. US roads are particularly bad for this. They typically have major intersections on highways controlled by traffic lights. Some folk fail to stop in time as there is too little advance warning of changing lights. We may hate roundabouts but they are so much safer.
 
nilagin said:
How do you know Americans hate diesels, they don't really have enough diesel cars on sale to form that opinion. Ford don't sell any diesel powered cars in America, they reserve diesel power for their large pick up trucks. lorries and vans. Petrol engines are getting smaller in America too. Ford introduced the Ecoboost engines out in America before we got them in Europe, admittedly there's were of a larger capacity at first, but then you can't replace a V8 with a 1.6 or 2.0. They have however replaced some of their V8's, or as an optional alternative, with a V6, which is more powerful, lower emissions and a lot more economical and they are doing quite well. The fact is an independent test in America, has found VW have cheated the emissions figures, something that under current EU tests would never have shown up. VW have also admitted to have cheated. VW's shares have already taken a big hit, their worth has been seriously damaged and that is before any costs for fixing the issue or any fines. Even after the fines will customers receive any sort of compensation, as the cars economy and performance will be reduced, the cars will no longer be what the owners bought into under those terms.
As for reliability, I have a workmate who worked, up until a February, in a VW/Audi dealership, their is a certain petrol engine in the range that likes to melt it's pistons, he was performing compression checks several times a week on cars with that engine and none without exception had suffered the same fate. Then there is the coil pack issue they had several years ago, so many coil packs were failing, dealers couldn't get hold of enough to replace them. They would only replace coil packs as they failed, knowing full well the car would be back within a week, maybe a month for another coil pack to be replaced and so on and so on until they had replaced all the coil packs. Then their is the Passat diesel wiring loom failure issue of several years ago where once the loom failed the injectors are no longer controlled and keep fuelling and the engine can not be controlled and it eventually breaks.
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There are a number of ways to tell that America doesn't like diesels. The first is the ridiculous tax they put on each diesel. As already said in this thread you can buy a nice Mustang for a few K more than a 4pot diesel Passat. Yes the Passat will do more MPG but when fuel is so cheap over there, it hardly seems worth it.

With regards to reliability every manufacture will have some sort of problem. If we go digging on the internet im sure we can find a fault with every single one. Yes coils and so forth may have been excessively high on one type of engine but we cant say they are not reliable as 'your mate' says. If you look at reliability data for 2015 one example being Which, then most of the reliable cars are small inner city cars, most of which will not clock up a lot of miles.
 
daugirdas said:
40x must be only at peak of load (I.e. When turbo is very hard at work). No2 is produced dueto very high operating temperatures.
You may need to look to Mercedes integrated turbo tech to see much difference. Or go electric.
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It's not No2 it's Nox, two different things and Nox is produced all the time, hence why when peak power isn't needed, some of the exhaust gas is recirculated into the intake manifold. The urea is used to clean up the rest of the Nox emissions as it passes through the exhaust.
 
daugirdas said:
Getting on your hand is not nice; it causes me skin rashes and all sorts of things. But it is not diesel fault, but rather all the nasty additives that can be pretty corrosive and toxic. The same happens with petrol and to be honest it is not hard to avoid a spill. Fuel stations even provide disposable gloves.

On the other hand petrol can happily go up in a fireball after moderate rear ending by a lorry. It is much less likely in diesel powered vehicle. That alone makes me think twice about driving petrol. US roads are particularly bad for this. They typically have major intersections on highways controlled by traffic lights. Some folk fail to stop in time as there is too little advance warning of changing lights. We may hate roundabouts but they are so much safer.
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Agreed with everything there, however insurance is still more for diesel as they are considered to be more complex... not sure why? I am still at a loss why we don't have more automatics over here. It's such a better system when you are coming up to a junction - you don't have to take your hands off the wheel and the car does everything for you.
 
cambsno said:
I still dont get it - my very simple (non technical) thinking is struggling with this. Take a typical 2.0 TDI from all companies - am guessing that most will be in the 135-170 bhp range, and all have similar combined mpg of 55-65. Some will me more, some less. While VW may pollute more than another, I cant believe that theirs is 40x more than anyone elses - so if Fords pollution mark is 10, BMWs may be 14 and VW 400?

Thats like saying that a Samsung 40" TV will use 40 times the energy of a similar Sony or LG model?
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All diesel engines have to have an emissions control of some sort, without it the emissions are way to high. Basically VW had sneakily developed a means to turn off their emission control in everyday use to improve drivability and economy and performance so they can claim their cars are capable of such over what their competitors are capable of achieving.
 
dejongj said:
Ah but those eye lashes around the head lights are so cute.
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Aren't they just though??? http://www.conceptcarz.com/images/Lamborghini/69_lamborghini_miura_s_CC_KM_08.jpg

nilagin said:
The safety for pedestrians when hit by a car is the distance between the bonnet and the engine. Cars now have higher bonnet lines to increase the distance as most head injuries were caused by hitting the top of the engine even though the bonnet would have been in between. What the bonnet is made of is of no consequence other than reducing the weight of the vehicle.
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My car has a pair of airbags under the bonnet to launch any pedestrians skywards over the top of the screen...
 
dejongj said:
I agree with that. I'm still amazed how quickly the UK has turned. I recall when I came to the UK in the mid-nineties that there really wasn't much love for diesel despite some cracking vehicles and engines already available. Move forward 20 years and many people who have no need for a diesel whatsoever seem to swear by it. I really don't understand it, surely people aren't really that gullible? There are so many fantastic petrol engines available that would work so well.
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Probably because of the introduction of direct injection diesel engines were capable of producing very good power could be driven hard but still use little fuel. They are a major leap forward over previous diesel engines. In the 80's insurance companies made it expensive for turbo charged petrol engines, yet add a turbo to a diesel engine and they weren't bothered. Thankfully insurance companies have lapsed on their thinking of turbo charged petrol engines as they are rapidly becoming the norm in small engines as well as higher performance engines.
My previous car was a 155PS 2.2TDCi, it was just 1 second slower 0-60 than it's 3.0 V6 naturally aspirated 220PS petrol equivalent, yet on 30-50 and 50-70 times it would leave the petrol engine variant behind. The fact it could return 60mpg , or 50mpg when driven harder against a best of 29mpg from the petrol engine. The diesel engine variant cost less to insure due to being 4 groups lower in the old insurance groupings and £200 cheaper to tax against the latter petrol variants, it was a no brainer.
But obviously as you say some people have mistakenly bought a diesel engine car when they don't really do the mileage to warrant having one. Two examples of this can be found in another thread with two very low mileage diesel cars.
As I said in an earlier post, car manufacturers are now using that recent diesel engine technology in their petrol engines making them much more economical, cleaner and more powerful for their size.
 
neil_g said:
like it or not, my 2.0 TDI VW for example emits the same CO2 as a much newer 2.0l Petrol BMW.



personally because i doubt the F150 V6 can do 50+MPG. in fact they appear to do about 15-22 (depending on which version V6). but like you say, fuel in america is cheap so its likely that they just dont care.

put petrol at a similar cost to here and i'm sure that picture would change.
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An American gallon is smaller than a UK gallon, 22mpg over there is 26.4mpg over hear.
What year is your 2.0 TDi VW? If it's post 2009 and one of the engines concerned in the cheat, your emissions will only be lower under test conditions
 
daugirdas said:
On the other hand petrol can happily go up in a fireball after moderate rear ending by a lorry. It is much less likely in diesel powered vehicle. That alone makes me think twice about driving petrol. US roads are particularly bad for this. They typically have major intersections on highways controlled by traffic lights. Some folk fail to stop in time as there is too little advance warning of changing lights. We may hate roundabouts but they are so much safer.
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Ford failed to provide suitable crash protection to the petrol tanks in their American Pinto, resulting in cars going up in flames and people dying. Ford were fined as a result and the problem was rectified. That was all back in the 70's. Unless you are unfortunate to be driving one of those Pintos, you are highly unlikely to go up in flames or the car explode if hit in the rear now.
 
Dylanlewis2000 said:
Agreed with everything there, however insurance is still more for diesel as they are considered to be more complex... not sure why?.
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Yes a lot more can and often do go wrong with Diesels. If you're crunching lots of miles then so be it. Its a lot to weigh up if you don't.
 
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daugirdas said:
........... US roads are particularly bad for this. They typically have major intersections on highways controlled by traffic lights. Some folk fail to stop in time as there is too little advance warning of changing lights. We may hate roundabouts but they are so much safer.
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That's why all the drivers I have seen on my USA holidays never rush to get first through the lights when they change.
 
Dylanlewis2000 said:
There are a number of ways to tell that America doesn't like diesels. The first is the ridiculous tax they put on each diesel. As already said in this thread you can buy a nice Mustang for a few K more than a 4pot diesel Passat. Yes the Passat will do more MPG but when fuel is so cheap over there, it hardly seems worth it.

With regards to reliability every manufacture will have some sort of problem. If we go digging on the internet im sure we can find a fault with every single one. Yes coils and so forth may have been excessively high on one type of engine but we cant say they are not reliable as 'your mate' says. If you look at reliability data for 2015 one example being Which, then most of the reliable cars are small inner city cars, most of which will not clock up a lot of miles.
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The cost of the Passat may well be down to if they have to import the car as opposed to build it in America. America has some very strange import tax rules, one of those could be the reason for the higher price. (dejongi get ready for another Ford related anecdote ;) ) Ford sell the Transit Connect (small van based on the Focus) in America, yet it is built in Europe. As a van it is liable for a high import duty, Ford ship them to America as a car with rear seats and everything as it doesn't incur such a high import duty like that. Once off the boat they are driven into a warehouse, seats removed bulkhead fitted behind the front seats, rear side windows blanked off and it's a van again that has legally avoided the higher import duty. The stuff removed is returned to the manufacturing plant to be reused in the next shipment of vehicles. Another thing that makes me think it may be import duty on the diesel Passat is the new Focus RS has just been announced at just under £29k, in America the same car (built in Europe) will be over $36k, yet when a car comes to the UK from America they just swap the $ sign for a £ sign the figures remain practically the same for instance 2.3 Mustang $29 in America and £29k in UK.
 
Dylanlewis2000 said:
Agreed with everything there, however insurance is still more for diesel as they are considered to be more complex... not sure why? I am still at a loss why we don't have more automatics over here. It's such a better system when you are coming up to a junction - you don't have to take your hands off the wheel and the car does everything for you.
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Diesel engines are no more complex than modern petrol engines and the complexity of an engine has little or no bearing on insurance. Diesel engine cars have always been cheaper to insure, I've owned 4 of them and all been cheaper to insure than the petrol equivalent.
 
Talking to an engineer at work he told me how VW cheated. The cars presented for the emissions test have front crash detection fitted. The test takes place on a rolling road but to replicate air passing into the cars air intake and keeping the radiator and intercooler cool, fans are positioned in front of the car. When the car goes onto the rollers the crash detection senses the proximity of the fans and applies the brakes. The test can take place at the speeds required with the brakes on so VW ask if the collision detection system can be turned off. The testers see no problem in this as it shouldn't alter anything. Craftily VW enables an alternative map to run once the collision detection is turned off and the emission system kicks in allowing the car to pass the test.
Mercedes and Toyota were found guilty of doing something similar several years ago. Tests, on the rollers, used to take place with the bonnet open. Both companies used the bonnet open alarm sensor as the trigger to change the map to bring the emissions levels down purely for the test, once the bonnet was closed again, the map would revert back. Now all tests take place with the bonnet shut. I wonder if they will insist on test cars not to have collision detection fitted in the future.

The UK government is now calling for diesel cars to be retested to compare laboratory results to real world results, I get the impression they don't realise the results won't match due to the drive cycles being different. Unless other manufacturers have run a similar cheat, the results won't be as high as VW's.
 
nilagin said:
Talking to an engineer at work he told me how VW cheated. The cars presented for the emissions test have front crash detection fitted. The test takes place on a rolling road but to replicate air passing into the cars air intake and keeping the radiator and intercooler cool, fans are positioned in front of the car. When the car goes onto the rollers the crash detection senses the proximity of the fans and applies the brakes. The test can take place at the speeds required with the brakes on so VW ask if the collision detection system can be turned off. The testers see no problem in this as it shouldn't alter anything. Craftily VW enables an alternative map to run once the collision detection is turned off and the emission system kicks in allowing the car to pass the test.
Mercedes and Toyota were found guilty of doing something similar several years ago. Tests, on the rollers, used to take place with the bonnet open. Both companies used the bonnet open alarm sensor as the trigger to change the map to bring the emissions levels down purely for the test, once the bonnet was closed again, the map would revert back. Now all tests take place with the bonnet shut. I wonder if they will insist on test cars not to have collision detection fitted in the future.

The UK government is now calling for diesel cars to be retested to compare laboratory results to real world results, I get the impression they don't realise the results won't match due to the drive cycles being different. Unless other manufacturers have run a similar cheat, the results won't be as high as VW's.
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Hmmm I'm not convinced of that at all. In order to get maximum performance out of my golf I actually have to switch off the front assist system and every other aid on the vehicle as well. Based upon what your engineer suggest that should provide the reverse effect. I guess it is just in the US ;)
 
nilagin said:
Diesel engines are no more complex than modern petrol engines and the complexity of an engine has little or no bearing on insurance. Diesel engine cars have always been cheaper to insure, I've owned 4 of them and all been cheaper to insure than the petrol equivalent.
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They are bound to be more complex. Nearly all diesels have a turbo, something most petrols do not. Servicing is always more on a diesel too. I have owned both petrol and diesel and I have found that the diesel costs more to insure but gives much better economy.
 
nilagin said:
An American gallon is smaller than a UK gallon, 22mpg over there is 26.4mpg over hear.
What year is your 2.0 TDi VW? If it's post 2009 and one of the engines concerned in the cheat, your emissions will only be lower under test conditions
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3.8litres rather than 4.5.

Did I read the pump urea in to lower the emissions? That's taking the p***?
 
Dylanlewis2000 said:
They are bound to be more complex. Nearly all diesels have a turbo, something most petrols do not. Servicing is always more on a diesel too. I have owned both petrol and diesel and I have found that the diesel costs more to insure but gives much better economy.
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I too have owned petrol and diesel, not aware of what makes of car you have had, but in my experience of owning Ford cars servicing costs are identical regardless of fuel type. More and more smaller capacity petrol engines with turbos are appearing in cars all the time because they are cleaner, more frugal and produce more power. As for insurance, again perhaps it's the make of car you are choosing or in fact the insurer, but in my experience the diesel powered cars have always been a lower group. As for complexity the only difference is diesel ignites it's fuel by high compression, petrol by spark. Other than that there is very little difference between the two.
 
dejongj said:
Hmmm I'm not convinced of that at all. In order to get maximum performance out of my golf I actually have to switch off the front assist system and every other aid on the vehicle as well. Based upon what your engineer suggest that should provide the reverse effect. I guess it is just in the US ;)
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But you aren't going to go to the lengths of trying to achieve maximum performance for an emissions test on a rolling road are you?
 
Byker28i said:
3.8litres rather than 4.5.

Did I read the pump urea in to lower the emissions? That's taking the p***?
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Pigs p***, or so it's rumoured, actually it's artificially manufactured. From what I've heard, depending on mileage covered and with the system working permanently as it should, the urea would need topping up 2 to 3 times a year, at main dealer prices that could be £300-350 a time. My mates Mk2 Escort TDCi needed a top up recently after it kept going into limp mode and eml coming on. A workmate was able to top it up for him, but it still cost him over £150.
 
nilagin said:
Pigs p***, or so it's rumoured, actually it's artificially manufactured. From what I've heard, depending on mileage covered and with the system working permanently as it should, the urea would need topping up 2 to 3 times a year, at main dealer prices that could be £300-350 a time. My mates Mk2 Escort TDCi needed a top up recently after it kept going into limp mode and eml coming on. A workmate was able to top it up for him, but it still cost him over £150.
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That a fairly large add on to the running costs for a diesel.
 
nilagin said:
But you aren't going to go to the lengths of trying to achieve maximum performance for an emissions test on a rolling road are you?
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No, but I'm still switching off the aid. By your mates reconing the map on volkswagens should then change to a lower emissions one. In my practical experience the opposite is true.
 
dejongj said:
No, but I'm still switching off the aid. By your mates reconing the map on volkswagens should then change to a lower emissions one. In my practical experience the opposite is true.
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You misunderstand, unlike you turning off aids to improve performance, VW, in this case, intended to cheat the tests. Switching off the collision detection system was just a clever means to alter the map without the testers suspecting, much like Mercedes and Toyota using the bonnet alarm sensor.
 
nilagin said:
You misunderstand, unlike you turning off aids to improve performance, VW, in this case, intended to cheat the tests. Switching off the collision detection system was just a clever means to alter the map without the testers suspecting, much like Mercedes and Toyota using the bonnet alarm sensor.
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But that would suggest that they send different cars to be tested, and that only those cars have that map. I thought it is being reported that all cars have that map.

When the bonnet trick is used it makes sense as you wouldn't do a performance run with your bonnet open.
 
Poor Toni can't buy a new VW Diesel...
 
dejongj said:
How did you jump from not wanting to handle to banning? Maybe I've missed a point somewhere but that was not on my mind at all.
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sorry i thought in GD it was okay to veer off course :D

(my fault i misread apparently)

nilagin said:
An American gallon is smaller than a UK gallon, 22mpg over there is 26.4mpg over hear.
What year is your 2.0 TDi VW? If it's post 2009 and one of the engines concerned in the cheat, your emissions will only be lower under test conditions
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its 2005, PD140. i was comparing to the latest model 3 series 2.0 petrol (SE i think?) from the parkers figures.
 
dejongj said:
But that would suggest that they send different cars to be tested, and that only those cars have that map. I thought it is being reported that all cars have that map.

When the bonnet trick is used it makes sense as you wouldn't do a performance run with your bonnet open.
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Only one car has to be supplied for that test and they are supplying one with the switch. All other cars are permanently switched off unless of course it has the crash detection system. Once it has been through it's government test, it only has to go through MOT tests where Nox is not measured only CO2. The car will pass that because there is a set level depending on year of manufacture regardless of being over the tax band limit.
 
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