# VW & Audi Cheating on their emissions?



## Flyingman (Sep 13, 2009)

Check out this article:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/201...ly-violates-clean-air-standards/?intcmp=hpbt1

This is gonna cost them big time!:yikes:

Why didn't BMW think of this? shhhh, maybe they did!

The Environmental Protection Agency on Friday ordered Volkswagen to fix nearly 500,000 VW and Audi diesel cars that the agency said are intentionally violating clean air laws by using software that evades EPA emissions standards.

VW, which owns Audi, faces billions of dollars in fines, although exact amounts were not determined.

The cars, all built in the last seven years, include a device programmed to detect when they are undergoing official emissions testing, the EPA said, adding that the cars only turn on full emissions control systems during that testing. The controls are turned off during normal driving situations, the EPA said.

The EPA called the company's use of the device illegal and a threat to public health.

The EPA called on VW to fix the cars' emissions systems, but said car owners do not need to take any immediate action. The violations do not present a safety hazard and the cars remain legal to drive and sell, the EPA said.

The German automaker said in a statement it is cooperating with the investigation, but declined further comment.

The EPA said VW faces fines of up to $37,500 per vehicle for the violations -- a total of more than $18 billion. No final total was announced.

Despite the seriousness of the violation, the EPA said VW will be given "a reasonable amount of time to develop a plan to complete the repairs," including both the repair procedure and manufacture of any needed parts.

It could take up to a year to identify corrective actions, develop a recall plan and issue recall notices, the EPA said.

The allegations cover roughly 482,000 diesel passenger cars sold in the United States since 2008. Affected models include: 
***8226;Jetta (Model Years 2009 - 2015) 
***8226;Beetle (Model Years 2009 - 2015) 
***8226;Audi A3 (Model Years 2009 - 2015) 
***8226;Golf (Model Years 2009 - 2015) 
***8226;Passat (Model Years 2014-2015)


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## Flying Ace (Jan 26, 2015)

Yep just read it as well. Wonder if BMW also resorted to electronic trickery to pass emissions. There may be a fix and an extended warranty coming our way?

http://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-volkswagen-probe-20150918-story.html


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## lpcapital (Mar 1, 2007)

I just read this, but I'm a bit at a loss. Since you don't get tailpipe testing in Diesel what's the purpose of turning on/off emission devices?

Even if stuff is off no one will notice since there's no exhaust measurements done.

Would be interested in understanding a bit more of the fact other than the journalism none sense and the government officials agendas (good or bad that they are...)


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## lpcapital (Mar 1, 2007)

Ok here's the notice -> http://www3.epa.gov/otaq/cert/documents/vw-nov-caa-09-18-15.pdf

Now it makes more sense since it refers to the moment at which EPA/CARB actually test the vehicle.


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## Flying Ace (Jan 26, 2015)

I just noticed the other TDI models were not effected.... A6/7/8 Q-cars, Tiguan, Cayenne


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## wxmanCCM (Feb 17, 2010)

Flying Ace said:


> ...Wonder if BMW also resorted to electronic trickery to pass emissions. There may be a fix and an extended warranty coming our way?


Apparently not. The study that alerted EPA to the higher actual emissions of NOx was the ICCT/WVU study in which a BMW X5 35d was the only diesel vehicle that actually met the regulatory limits for NOx.


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## glangford (Dec 11, 2013)

Flying Ace said:


> I just noticed the other TDI models were not effected.... A6/7/8 Q-cars, Tiguan, Cayenne


Up through 2014 models like the Jetta didn't require urea fluid. So i'm guessing the trickery is associated with the non urea models. 2015 Jetta now has urea. If they are required to fix them all, wow! That could be a real cost, particularly if they can't meet emissions without urea. I don't think you could retrofit that in.

I almost bought a 2014 Jetta sportswagen TDI. Was trading that off vs a X1. Noticed the 328d sitting there and got that. Glad I passed on the TDI.

With the price of diesel and gas so low, VW must be hurting in diesel sales. I'm on their email list having test drove one. They recently sent me an offer for as much as 4000 of a mid range jetta. It came to about 19K. Good price, but with this fiasco, their sales will tank.

I'm sure the EPA will take a look at BMW and Mercedes as well now.


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## SMG_II (Oct 8, 2003)

glangford said:


> Up through 2014 models like the Jetta didn't require urea fluid. So i'm guessing the trickery is associated with the non urea models. 2015 Jetta now has urea. If they are required to fix them all, wow! That could be a real cost, particularly if they can't meet emissions without urea. I don't think you could retrofit that in.
> 
> I almost bought a 2014 Jetta sportswagen TDI. Was trading that off vs a X1. Noticed the 328d sitting there and got that. Glad I passed on the TDI.
> 
> ...


In reading through articles about this VW fiasco, I didn't realize that VW's diesel technology here wasn't using urea compared to BMW and MB. Or at least they weren't up until 2014 as glangford noted above.

This certainly won't help diesel's acceptance in the US


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## tonyspumoni (May 23, 2010)

So much for German engineering......oh, wait a minute. Dang.


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## tonyspumoni (May 23, 2010)

I agree that this is likely to really pit the nail in the U.S. diesel coffin though. Even if the new models using DEF injection do not need to cheat the mere prospect of buying a diesel from VW will scare folks off. It will be interesting to see the spillover effect on BMW's diesel offerings. There shouldn't be too much diesel market share to be gained since most diesel shoppers won't cross shop a 25k TDI sportwagen and a 50k 328d but plenty to be lost.


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## floydarogers (Oct 11, 2010)

Now we know why BMW 335d/x5d have had CBU problems and VW had less: no EGR, less CBU.


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## tonyspumoni (May 23, 2010)

That may well be absolutely true. It may also speak to how challenging it is to craft a NOx reduction system that will clean out NOx without compromising performance or reliability. It could be that this is really a high bar indeed.


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## BB_cuda (Nov 8, 2011)

Recall there was the model year that VW couldn't sell TDI Jettas. They didn't sell 2007s. They were allowed to overproduce and continue selling 2006s through the 2007 model year. This was due to new EPA laws that took effect in 2007. In 2008, the Jetta TDI rolled out with DPF and no DEF injection. Later that year, the Passat came with same 2.0L TDI but had both DPF and DEF inject. I asked about this and it was explained that the heavier car produced more pollution and needed additional emission scrubbing. 

Notice I didn't mention EGR in either car above. This is because i didn't have a clue about EGR being a NOX reducer back then. So, i will claim ignorance about EGR on those vehicles. Before shopping BMW, I looked long and hard at VW. I ultimately didn't buy VW due to my very sour experience with a 1975 VW Scirocco i had in college. But, I damn sure learned how to work on front wheel drive, water cooled VW due to that POS. It was the only year that Sciroccos were carburated and mechanical points ignition. I had a new set of points in glove box at all times. An after market Weber 2 barrel was fitted by previous owner and that suited it well.

I test drove a BMW 335D and the hook was set HARD.


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## chuck92116 (Nov 11, 2011)

*VW & Audi Cheating on their emissions?*

The articles coming out about VW are significantly worse than past issues by other makes simply due to the implication of willful intent. If they in fact intentionally wrote software to evade emissions tests, I suspect public opinion will demand jail time. I think it is a given the fines will be the largest in history not including class action lawsuits for defrauding consumers.

They are out an easy $10-20 billion which isn't really a lot considering the net annual revenue.

Damn shame. I really liked the company.


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## Flying Ace (Jan 26, 2015)

glangford said:


> Up through 2014 models like the Jetta didn't require urea fluid. So i'm guessing the trickery is associated with the non urea models. 2015 Jetta now has urea. If they are required to fix them all, wow! That could be a real cost, particularly if they can't meet emissions without urea. I don't think you could retrofit that in.
> 
> I almost bought a 2014 Jetta sportswagen TDI. Was trading that off vs a X1. Noticed the 328d sitting there and got that. Glad I passed on the TDI.
> 
> ...


Actually, you're on to something.

I read the VW cars effected afre the 2.0L TDI models, aside form the Tiguan I mentioned, all others Cayenne, Treg, A6/7/8, Q are all 3.0L with Urea and SCR


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## tonyspumoni (May 23, 2010)

chuck92116 said:


> The articles coming out about VW are significantly worse than past issues by other makes simply due to the implication of willful intent. If they in fact intentionally wrote software to evade emissions tests, I suspect public opinion will demand jail time. I think it is a given the fines will be the largest in history not including class action lawsuits for defrauding consumers.
> 
> They are out an easy $10-20 billion which isn't really a lot considering the net annual revenue.
> 
> Damn shame. I really liked the company.


What would really be an injustice is if you are right, and VW is the first corporation to have decision-makers held accountable legally (and not just monetarily) for willful law breaking. Big Banks have done evil on a far larger and more important scale and not one executive has served time for that.

Still, you are exactly right that both customers and the law will exact deep revenge for this. It'll be the nightmare double fister: stock price declines owing to bad-news induced sales volume declines and balance sheet disaster over looming civil suits with huge potential payouts. Not to mention the fact that the U.S. Government is likely to demand recall and may ask for remediation. Add to that the declines in VW sales in China and it is u-g-l-y for The Peoples Car (VW auf Englisches).

Heck, this will certainly stop all thoughts of any further VW expansion through brand acquisition if not utterly destroy VW period.


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## tonyspumoni (May 23, 2010)

BB_cuda said:


> Recall there was the model year that VW couldn't sell TDI Jettas. They didn't sell 2007s. They were allowed to overproduce and continue selling 2006s through the 2007 model year. This was due to new EPA laws that took effect in 2007. In 2008, the Jetta TDI rolled out with DPF and no DEF injection. Later that year, the Passat came with same 2.0L TDI but had both DPF and DEF inject. I asked about this and it was explained that the heavier car produced more pollution and needed additional emission scrubbing.
> 
> Notice I didn't mention EGR in either car above. This is because i didn't have a clue about EGR being a NOX reducer back then. So, i will claim ignorance about EGR on those vehicles. Before shopping BMW, I looked long and hard at VW. I ultimately didn't buy VW due to my very sour experience with a 1975 VW Scirocco i had in college. But, I damn sure learned how to work on front wheel drive, water cooled VW due to that POS. It was the only year that Sciroccos were carburated and mechanical points ignition. I had a new set of points in glove box at all times. An after market Weber 2 barrel was fitted by previous owner and that suited it well.
> 
> I test drove a BMW 335D and the hook was set HARD.


BB_cuda,

Well you certainly did choose well. I miss mine often and whenever I see a 335d I get nostalgiac. When I still had one I would take my 14 year old daughter on weekend days to a secret, unobserved parking lot at my company and teach her to drive in it. I would scout out Security to make sure they were elsewhere, we would switch sides, and she would putter around the lot. Sometimes (gasp) she would even touch the gas...ahem....diesel and a couple of times I thought I might airbag it.

So when she was getting close to getting her license I siddled up to her one day and asked her, "Honey, do you want the diesel when you turn 16?" I was kinda just ribbing her, having no intention of gifting her the car, and she got quite serious and told me, "No. When I drive Mom's car [A Prius] and I push down hard on the gas and make a mistake it just goes, ehhhhhhhh. When I make a mistake in YOUR car I'll launch myself into the canyon. Your car scares me."

Just goes to prove you can't raise kids right no matter what you do. Glad you still like it.


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## F32Fleet (Jul 14, 2010)

Btw..you guys should read the TDI forums. The emotional responses from the tinfoil hat crowd is quite entertaining.


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## Flyingman (Sep 13, 2009)

Deliberately Polluting will be met with some harsh penalties. I find it rather amazing that such a thing could have been allowed to happen deliberately by management. You know they will challenge it and come up with their own perfectly logical explanation as to why their controls did what they did.

I'm wondering if this will have any impact on European models, if they too have to meet some standards that could only be achieved when the software is set up in a specific way.

It is my understanding of the EPA letter that the software was able to detect when it was under "test" conditions and would then and only then activate the "low emission" mode.

Maybe we need a neat little button on our consoles that allows us to turn the DPF/EGR/SCR "off"!:thumbup:


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## KeithS (Dec 30, 2001)

floydarogers said:


> Now we know why BMW 335d/x5d have had CBU problems and VW had less: no EGR, less CBU.


I was thinking the exact same thing. It's not using DEF, it's the EGR that gets us. I'd gladly use 2X more DEF for a significant reduction in EGR and associated CBU. DEF is cheap. Right now on my 335D I seem to be in the DEF Twilight zone. Over 21K miles since last fill and no sign of the "miles to no start" warning.


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## F32Fleet (Jul 14, 2010)

KeithS said:


> I was thinking the exact same thing. It's not using DEF, it's the EGR that gets us. I'd gladly use 2X more DEF for a significant reduction in EGR and associated CBU. DEF is cheap. Right now on my 335D I seem to be in the DEF Twilight zone. Over 21K miles since last fill and no sign of the "miles to no start" warning.


The problem is catalyst efficiency.


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## Flyingman (Sep 13, 2009)

Not only can VW expect to be hit with a major fine from the EPA, which you know they will settle for far less than what it could actually be levied at, but imagine all of the "individual" owner's that bought these cars thinking they were doing the environment a favor. That will be huge. They can certainly sue the crap out of them, most likely a class action suit.

And VW admitted to doing it after the EPA warned them they would not be allowed to sell 2016 model cars in the US if they did not admit to it.

I'm sure they already have greased the outcome or settlement with the EPA for this.

The fix is rather simple, just defeat the ECU program so the emission controls work all the time. The problem will be this will most likely have a negative effect on performance and efficiency for which the buyers will have yet another lawsuit to go after them for.

I'd say VW is seriously screwed.


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## Flyingman (Sep 13, 2009)

Very good article in Bloomberg:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...n-software-circumvented-car-emissions-testing


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## Flyingman (Sep 13, 2009)

Flyingman said:


> Not only can VW expect to be hit with a major fine from the EPA, which you know they will settle for far less than what it could actually be levied at, but imagine all of the "individual" owner's that bought these cars thinking they were doing the environment a favor. That will be huge. They can certainly sue the crap out of them, most likely a class action suit.
> 
> And VW admitted to doing it after the EPA warned them they would not be allowed to sell 2016 model cars in the US if they did not admit to it.
> 
> ...


Looks like they have already file a class action suit!

Vehicles Reportedly Emitted Nitrogen Oxide at Rates 40 Times Higher Than U.S. Legal Limits

Owners of Volkswagen and Audi "CleanDiesel" automobiles today filed a class-action lawsuit against the automakers' U.S. manufacturer and distributor following news that the company violated federal and state laws by cheating emissions and pollution tests through deceptive, sophisticated software, according to consumer-rights law firm,Hagens Berman.


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## Flyingman (Sep 13, 2009)

EPA is also looking at other manufacturer's and will revise their test protocol.


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## tonyspumoni (May 23, 2010)

Jerry Hirsch wrote a nice article for the front page of today's L.A. Times. "In addition to fines," writes Hirsch, "VW is likely to face consumer lawsuits on two fronts, said Steve Berman, a class action attorney in Seattle who has successfully brought such cases against Toyota, Hyundai among others. Berman said he is already preparing a lawsuit on behalf of a Marin County, Calif., owner who bought a VW because it was marketed as a clean car.."


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## Flyingman (Sep 13, 2009)

tonyspumoni said:


> Jerry Hirsch wrote a nice article for the front page of today's L.A. Times. "In addition to fines," writes Hirsch, "VW is likely to face consumer lawsuits on two fronts, said Steve Berman, a class action attorney in Seattle who has successfully brought such cases against Toyota, Hyundai among others. Berman said he is already preparing a lawsuit on behalf of a Marin County, Calif., owner who bought a VW because it was marketed as a clean car.."


This is going to be a really big deal. Interesting that the news was released on a Friday. Usually in order to lower the hype around it in the news cycle.

And I would expect Ca. to be extra hard on VW.

All I know is that to lower NOX you have to give up on efficiency, unless you put in some serious back end cleaning devices on the exhaust like BMW did. Makes you wonder how VW managed to meet emissions without DEF and SCR while everyone else was using Adblue/DEF. Because now we know they weren't meeting the emissions.


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## Flyingman (Sep 13, 2009)

tonyspumoni said:


> Jerry Hirsch wrote a nice article for the front page of today's L.A. Times. "In addition to fines," writes Hirsch, "VW is likely to face consumer lawsuits on two fronts, said Steve Berman, a class action attorney in Seattle who has successfully brought such cases against Toyota, Hyundai among others. Berman said he is already preparing a lawsuit on behalf of a Marin County, Calif., owner who bought a VW because it was marketed as a clean car.."


Here it is:

http://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-volkswagen-probe-20150918-story.html


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## Flyingman (Sep 13, 2009)

What sucks is we have to pay about $3,000 or $4,000 to do an emissions delete and they get theirs for free with the car!:rofl:


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## Flyingman (Sep 13, 2009)

Another good story with implications that this was discovered in Europe as well.

http://www.greencarreports.com/news...iolated-epa-rules-500k-cars-recalled-breaking


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## Flyingman (Sep 13, 2009)

The VW TDI site is burning up with chatter.

It was just a matter of time before this would come out!:rofl::rofl::rofl:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKef1JFpiCA


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## tonyspumoni (May 23, 2010)

Flyingman said:


> What sucks is we have to pay about $3,000 or $4,000 to do an emissions delete and they get theirs for free with the car!:rofl:


Flyingman. That is hands down the funniest post I have seen in some time. Props.


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## tonyspumoni (May 23, 2010)

I trolled VWVortex for awhile this morning while my kids were wrestling in the dirt and boy are those folks pissed. Those VW TDI owners totally drank the coolaid. Many of their signature blocks have their Fuelly MPG image and most take great pride in their MPG, bragging whenever they would beat EPA estimates. Now they are devastated. First comes sorrow. Next comes acceptance. Last comes vengence, which will be swift and decisive. VW always managed to design their diesels in a way that minimized the difference between equivalently equipped petrol and diesel offerings, and for a long time "managed" this trick without having to resort to urea injection and extensive EGR setups.

Schadenfreude. It sucks


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## chuck92116 (Nov 11, 2011)

*VW & Audi Cheating on their emissions?*

edit:

I read the full EPA letter. Apparently there has been an issue with VW diesel EPA compliance for quite some time.

I am at a loss as to why VW could not have addressed this issue a long long time ago.

I am also surprised at how cordial the EPA is being with regard to handling this issue.

Yeah you are crooks, but keep selling the cars until we get this resolved.


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## tonyspumoni (May 23, 2010)

Chuck82116

Thanks for the tip on the existence of the letter. I too read it and find it more informative than what has been substantiated in the press.

http://www3.epa.gov/otaq/cert/documents/vw-nov-caa-09-18-15.pdf

I wouldn't interpret this as cordial at all, but this is just discussing value judgements and has no bearing on the base merits. Bottom line based on the document? EPA has VW by the shorthairs. Very short indeed.

It is also interesting to note that EPA has already tried to work with VW to solve this, first by impelling a voluntary recall of vehicle and then, when that recall failed to substantially improve or resolve the test failure, asking VW for an explanation.


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## chuck92116 (Nov 11, 2011)

*VW & Audi Cheating on their emissions?*



tonyspumoni said:


> Chuck82116
> 
> Thanks for the tip on the existence of the letter. I too read it and find it more informative than what has been substantiated in the press.
> 
> ...


Another interesting point. I own a 2013 Golf TDI.

The issue effects vehicles back to 2009.

If you understand automotive R&D cycles, the engine R&D most likely occurred around 2006-2007. They had to cook this up well before 2009 as those models hit the streets in 2008.

Totally at a loss why they did not resolve. Unless every stinking thing they tried simply did not work. But why risk their reputation for a small diesel segment in the U.S.?


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## tonyspumoni (May 23, 2010)

That would normally be called The Million Dollar Question but in this case we can without doubt call that The Billion Dollar Question.

Several press reports have stated that this "cheat" spans three engine designs and that may be perhaps the most egregious evidence in support of the notion that this was very clearly a strategic decision and not the result of some random oversight.

I guess we won't know for sure why until all the relevant documents are released but there are at least two possible motivations for pursuing this cheating strategy. If VW felt they could not meet CARB and EPA emissions levels without resorting to design and installation of a urea injection system then they could either resort to subterfuge, the course of action they ultimately did pursue, or stop selling diesel cars in the U.S. until they could. Secondly, VW might have decided that cheating would incur a civil penalty more modest is scope than the cost of compliance. When VW decided, probably in 2007, to resort to an algorithm-based workaround, the corporate world was different. We were in the midst of the subprime mortgage crisis and no one was thinking that the Feds would strongly enforce actions. Other important features would include the desirability of vehicles in a niche market (3% of U.S. passenger car sales are diesels) that cost much more than the petrol equivalent while offering far less efficiency gains. I've been driving cars, mostly new, for over 30 years and I have never, EVER had a car beat EPA estimates let alone meet them. TDI owners are gonzo over their MPG's - a fact unlikely to have eluded the attention of VW's marketing arm.


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## tonyspumoni (May 23, 2010)

It would also be interesting to learn whether VW has been able to sell CARB credits. My guess is that VW has to be at or near the top of the list of the most fuel-efficient passenger car fleets. Having cars with very high EPA ratings, in this case obtained through cheating, would enhance those fleet numbers, potentially allowing VW to offset to other manufacturers. I'll have to check but what if this little ploy allowed VW to "sell" CARB credits to other corporate brands, such as Audi, Porsche, and Lambo?


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## chuck92116 (Nov 11, 2011)

*VW & Audi Cheating on their emissions?*

Is the Urea system the same as the blue chemical additive or something different?

My car has the blue additive system.


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## floydarogers (Oct 11, 2010)

chuck92116 said:


> Is the Urea system the same as the blue chemical additive or something different?
> 
> My car has the blue additive system.


It's "AdBlue", which is a German auto industry tradmarked name. But virtually all diesel cars and trucks currently in production in the West use that system. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_exhaust_fluid


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## tonyspumoni (May 23, 2010)

I am pretty sure that VW only went DEF/AdBlue on more recent TDI's, the exception being the Passat which had it earlier than Golf or Jetta. Not sure about Toureg. But to answer your question, yes, urea injection is the same NOx reducing technology called AdBlue and, in BMW parlance, Diesel Exhaust Fluid (DEF).

What is certain is that VW, like BMW and Mercedes, has now adopted urea injection across their entire line of vehicles.


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## Robert A (May 18, 2003)

My wife has a 2009 Jetta Sport Wagon TDI. Obviously, she's more than ticked off that VW cheated on their emissions testing. 

To me, the bigger question is what effect will the recall have on the engine's performance? My assumption is that it'll be noticeable. Otherwise, VW wouldn't have bothered with the kill switch.


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## NWSnowboarder (Aug 30, 2015)

*Reality Check*

Time for a reality check. Every vehicle built in the last 20+ years has been designed around the premise of being able to pass testing, either MPG, crash, or emissions.

The design of a piston, injection port, whatever is not designed to produce low emissions at all times, but designed to produce low emissions under the conditions of the test.

That was the point of the International Council on Clean Transportation, (ICCT) study on Real-World Emissions. They hypothesized that under real world driving conditions, that diesel emissions would not meet the standard. It was the ICCT that commissioned several studies, one of which was conducted by the Center for Alternative Fuels, Engines & Emissions, (CAFEE) at West Virginia University.

The CAFEE study looked at three diesel vehicles, it was two of those, presumably Volkswagen, that showed dramatically different results comparing the federally mandated dynometer test to the real-world test.

In essence, the ICCT's hypothesis was proven valid which will inevitably change the way all vehicles are emission tested and certified to operate.

When the ICCT results were publicized, the EPA questioned Volkswagon about the variation and they admitted that, just as mechanical components are designed to meet the test parameters, they also designed the software to meet the test requirement.

If you know the test only asks ten questions, do you study the whole book, or the ten questions? You study the test questions.

VW didn't do anything wrong, they just designed their engine to pass the required test.

And yes, I actually did read the EPA letter, the ICCT study and the CAFEE study.


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## tonyspumoni (May 23, 2010)

I read the letter as well, so what do you make, NWSnowboarder, of the fact that VW conveniently elected to repeatedly ignore the requirement that they disclose in their EPA registration application the defeat device? VW did not disclose the "device" on their EPA registration application, which is one of the reasons making the argument that studying for the test is the only problem a specious one.

Moreover, were VW making a good faith effort to implement a real world mechanical solution to an idealistic but unachievable standard, then coding for one ECU mode for testing and another for the real world seem a rather odd way to act in good faith.

No, VW knew exactly what they were doing and they deserve all the opprobrium that can be heaped upon them.


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## glangford (Dec 11, 2013)

Consumer Reports yanks recommendation of Passat and Jetta diesel models.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2015/09/19/consumer-reports-volkswagen/72436098/


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## Pierre Louis (Oct 23, 2011)

Don't forget, the EPA is responsible for testing to make sure cars comply with regulations. 

The "defeat device" may be nothing more than closing the EGR, for example. Something all cars do it seems.

To expect engines to pollute the same at full throttle as at idle or slow speed does not seem in touch with reality - all engines pollute more at speed, its the g/mile that gets better.

Lets remember that the people most vocal about this are the yellow-journalism press, a dubiously devised government agency, and trial lawyers.

We haven't seen the "admission by VW" in writing - it is word of mouth from regulators and an official apology for "breaking trust." VW officially has made no comment to the press otherwise, so who knows what details will come up.

NY Times, LA Times, Consumers Union, Green press. The usual suspects.

It amazes me that VW took its money to re-invest in the US market after the scandalous treatment they received from similar entities for the Audi 5000 debacle, which ended up being "driver error" and not a technical defect in the cars.

Yes, it looks bad and maybe it is. But lets not drink the Kool-Aid: government regulations, fines, and procedures are not what most would consider "fair and unbiased"

PL


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## Kamdog (Apr 15, 2007)

They must have made a decision that damage control might be cheaper than other fixes.


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## Doug Huffman (Apr 25, 2015)

I am amused by the line up of citizens armed with skepticism, and credulous subjects.


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## MotoWPK (Oct 5, 2012)

NWSnowboarder said:


> VW didn't do anything wrong, they just designed their engine to pass the required test.


This is incorrect. Among the certifications a manufacturer makes is that the vehicles they sell are configured as they are for the various requirement tests they pass; emissions, safety, etc. With the defeat device VW was providing a vehicle to prove compliance, but selling a different one to consumers.

This is clearly wrong.


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## Flyingman (Sep 13, 2009)

MotoWPK said:


> This is incorrect. Among the certifications a manufacturer makes is that the vehicles they sell are configured as they are for the various requirement tests they pass; emissions, safety, etc. With the defeat device VW was providing a vehicle to prove compliance, but selling a different one to consumers.
> 
> This is clearly wrong.


Totally wrong. VW admitted to having the defeat software or else they would not be allowed to introduce their 2016 models.

It's one thing to defeat some of the emission control features during specific operational conditions, which must be disclosed. It is another to only have them work under "test" conditions.

VW will pay dearly for this blatant disregard for the regulations. I'm just surprised it took this long for them to get caught.


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## Flyingman (Sep 13, 2009)

Here is the latest:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...ons-cheating-found-by-curious-clean-air-group

"I personally am deeply sorry that we have broken the trust of our customers and the public," Volkswagen Chief Executive Officer Martin Winterkorn said in a statement on Sunday. "We will do everything necessary in order to reverse the damage this has caused."

Admission of guilt, quite clear. The right thing for them to do as they were caught red handed. Very deceptive what they did.

For sure this is going to cause a major set back in the whole "clean diesel" sector as you know the EPA is going to overhaul their testing and verification methods.

VW is going to have to spend a pretty penny getting all those cars retrofitted and I doubt the EPA is going to accept it be a voluntary one on the owners to comply with or not. Certainly in those states with emission checks I am sure the owners of these cars will have to prove they are in compliance.

Certainly not the buyers fault.

Then there will be the penalty phase, plus the loss of reputation. Watch VW stock plummet next week.


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## Master_Chase (Jun 8, 2015)

I don't have a problem with this and kinda of want to buy a VW affected car (and not let them do the recall fix) just to support a company that's willing to give the pinheaded EPA the finger.


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## EMPTYKIM (Sep 24, 2013)

Just out of curiosity, how much more pollution are these cars putting out? What are the numbers and what do they mean?


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## Flyingman (Sep 13, 2009)

EMPTYKIM said:


> Just out of curiosity, how much more pollution are these cars putting out? What are the numbers and what do they mean?


The issue is the amount of NOX being emitted under "normal" usage. Report said it was 15 to 40 times greater than allowed, so a pretty big deal.

Master, why should VW get away with this while others like BMW and MB paid the price to install and meet the EPA regulations? That was obviously a heavy price to pay, and one which we the consumers of course have to pay.

If you're not happy with the EPA Regs don't vote the yoyo's into office!

Rules are rules and the have to be complied with or you will pay a penalty, or worse.

I fully expect to see VW get seriously spanked :spank:and some upper level heads to roll over this.uch:

As to harm, well I suppose they can estimate how many more tons of NOx were released because of this and of course pay an appropriate fine for that. Look at what happened to BP and that wasn't deliberate. This was definitely deliberate, which should carry an even greater penalty.


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## tonyspumoni (May 23, 2010)

Frankly I find the attitude of some here appalling. VW did nothing wrong? Hardly. There is ample evidence against and admission by VW that there were fully aware of what they were doing, in clear violation of several U.S. codes. And as for retribution, it should be ample. I'm not usually one to let politics intrude on conversations about cars, but those same folks who decry the urge to punish VW are often the very same who advocate long prison sentences for minor crimes. Corporations continue to break laws and evade justice knowing full well that any penalty will be a civil fine that can be written off against taxes as would they any other business expense. Now while I agree that VW should stand well back in line of wrongfully acting companies brought to heal - the big banks should be first - but I wouldn't be aghast if some VW executives were brought up on charges. Call me crazy (and many will, which is just fine) but until executives understand that breaking the law, blatantly, for years (in this case spanning three engine designs) may result in jail time as it would for common criminals, they will continue to act like uncommon ones.


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## tonyspumoni (May 23, 2010)

*VW & Audi Cheating on their emissions?*

And for the record I agree with Flyman's take wholeheartedly. Why SHOULD VW skate on this while BWM and Mercedes Benz expended vast engineering resources to solve the problem correctly? BMW and Mercedes Benz may even have lost some market share to VW diesel models that were several thousand bucks less than they would have otherwise been. Admittedly most people don't cross shop a 328d and a Jetta TDI Wagon, but there are few diesel advocates who probably did and ended up choosing the TDI to their evident misfortune.

And before those of you who disagree pile on, claiming for VW either outright innocence or victimization at the hands of those dreaded EPA zealots, please watch a Youtube video of driving in Russia or of what passes for breathable air in China. That way you can see what the absence of laws really looks like.


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## Master_Chase (Jun 8, 2015)

Flyingman said:


> The issue is the amount of NOX being emitted under "normal" usage. Report said it was 15 to 40 times greater than allowed, so a pretty big deal.
> 
> Master, why should VW get away with this while others like BMW and MB paid the price to install and meet the EPA regulations? That was obviously a heavy price to pay, and one which we the consumers of course have to pay.
> 
> ...


Let's not forget that GM knew of an airbag problem with their vehicles for years that causes several deaths.

Look through history America is a country of rebels and in recent years the number of people and companies willing to defy the government has dropped. The liberals know this and are taking advantage of it to grow big government and eventually convert us to socialism.

The harm VW did to the environment (if any) is done paying a bill to the government won't reverse the damage. At the end of the day VW may have cleaner cars than BMW, Mercedes etc because don't forget that DEF is made in a factory that causes POLLUTION, then it's put in this terrible thing called PLASTIC, next this plastic is sometimes but into CARDBOARD so not are we make environmental bad junk but also chop down our trees to put it in, then the DEF is put into a truck and taken to its destination causing more POLLUTION, lastly as you are driving your car the DEF warning light comes on so you have to go pick up the special fluid that makes your diesel run "cleaner".

Obama and the EPA have hurt diesel reliability and MPG. Look at the old Ford 7.3 powerstroke a very simple engine that is ready to go to hell and back anytime you want. Compare that to the new diesels that have all this emission garbage under them that causes problems, two of the most notorious diesel engines affected by the emission laws is the very problematic 6.0 powerstroke and the fuel guzzling 6.4 powerstroke.


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## F32Fleet (Jul 14, 2010)

Master_Chase said:


> Let's not forget that GM knew of an airbag problem with their vehicles for years that causes several deaths.
> 
> Look through history America is a country of rebels and in recent years the number of people and companies willing to defy the government has dropped. The liberals know this and are taking advantage of it to grow big government and eventually convert us to socialism.
> 
> ...


hyperbole much?


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## Master_Chase (Jun 8, 2015)

F32Fleet said:


> hyperbole much?


Yes, sorry didn't originally plan for it to be that just started thinking about DEF and it came out.


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## tonyspumoni (May 23, 2010)

Master_Chase, you sound like a man of considerable experience. Tell me this though. If you'll recall there was considerable ranting about the disaster that would befall us if we didn't let dirty coal plants keep spewing out pollutants that were clearly leading to acid rain. Now, after EPA action to establish pollution controls, we have clearer air and far less acid rain. Blaming Obama for VW's problems is at best silly. Put it this way, if it was Obama who had done the wrong my feeling is that you wouldn't be standing up for him.


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## finnbmw (Jul 6, 2008)

*VW US CEO: We screwed up*

On CNBC: http://www.cnbc.com/2015/09/21/volk...-up-on-eca-emissions-diesel-test-rigging.html


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## poker838 (Jul 19, 2011)

and yet....


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## chuck92116 (Nov 11, 2011)

*VW & Audi Cheating on their emissions?*

1. Up to 11 million cars 
2. May extend to other German brands
3. Liability for cheating 
4. Liability for retroactive fees associated with emissions
5. CEO admitted guilt
6. North American Exec admitted guilt.
7. CEO to resign

This is becoming ridiculous now with blatant disregard for laws.

Will this be a case of "too big to fail" like the banks in 2008? i.e., Too many jobs at stake?


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## Kamdog (Apr 15, 2007)

If this cheating, as it appears it is, is a deliberate case of corporate malfeasance, one has to wonder whether other areas in the corporation have also done similar things. I am hearing rumbles from the financial community that there is concern that the financial books might be cooked too. Not that there is any evidence now, but, like any cheater, the question is, if you were caught with _this_ big cheat, will another big cheat reveal itself? VW has undertaken a huge expansion in recent years, do the actual numbers support it?


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## tonyspumoni (May 23, 2010)

Pierre Louis said:


> At least one highly technically competent VW fan, Drivbiwire, has a similar argument.
> 
> See: http://forums.tdiclub.com/showpost.php?p=4890186&postcount=281


If this is all true then it makes VW's response last year to the EPA inquiry into why their diesels were so far out of emissions compliance (10x-40x excess NOx) all the more puzzling. Let's say our highly technical VW expert is correct and all VW would have had to do was wave their magic software wand and, voila, problem solved. Why then would the recall issued last year, which failed to solve the problem, been so bungled? I'm not buying one cent of it. I work for one of the world's top ten companies and reputation is everything. VW has (oops, had) billions of dollars of goodwill on their 10q filings, much of which just went to near zero. Their stock is down 17% yesterday.

There is no chance this is some idiotic mistake and truth will out, as it has so far. A spokesperson has publicly and in writing admitted they installed a defeat which VW had to be aware was non-compliant from the EPA perspective given the number of such strategies that used to be marketed and installed on diesel fleets. I'm afraid the cooler heads here are the ones that have carefully walked through the data that has been presented heretofore (the published, peer-reviewed WVU study, the timeline and actions of VW and EPA prior to the letter, the letter itself, and investigative press reports) and concluded that VW is at fault.


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## finnbmw (Jul 6, 2008)

poker838 said:


> and yet....


I wouldn't be surprised at all if EPA going after the VW is just the tip of the ice berg. It is naive to think that EPA, watching pictures like this and reading probably hundreds of threads on various diesel forums on how to do EGR, DPF, SCR, DEF delete, will not eventually start cracking down on those practices.


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## Flyingman (Sep 13, 2009)

Pierre Louis said:


> At least one highly technically competent VW fan, Drivbiwire, has a similar argument.
> 
> See: http://forums.tdiclub.com/showpost.php?p=4890186&postcount=281


Pierre my friend, you are on the wrong side of this one.

11 million cars were sold with this defeating software. VW stock dropped another 17.6% this morning and VW announced they would set aside $6.5b to address the US issue.

Now the rest of the world is piling on.

I'm sure it is all just an honest mistake.


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## Flyingman (Sep 13, 2009)

Here is Popular Mechanics take:

http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/a17430/ezra-dyer-volkswagen-diesel-controversy/

It is now being called "Diesel Gate"!:yikes:


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## Flyingman (Sep 13, 2009)

http://www.autoblog.com/2015/09/21/how-should-volkswagen-deal-with-diesel-problems/

Another take.

Definitely not looking pretty for VW.


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## henrycyao (Oct 23, 2012)

finnbmw said:


> VW estimates that up to 11 million vehicles worldwide have the software installed. For the majority of them not it does not have any effect. The fiasco is growing bigger.
> 
> http://www.volkswagenag.com/content/vwcorp/info_center/en/news/2015/09/Ad_hoc_US.html


It's interesting that this affect euro 6 specification cars which is very similar to us.


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## Pierre Louis (Oct 23, 2011)

tonyspumoni said:


> If this is all true then it makes VW's response last year to the EPA inquiry into why their diesels were so far out of emissions compliance (10x-40x excess NOx) all the more puzzling. Let's say our highly technical VW expert is correct and all VW would have had to do was wave their magic software wand and, voila, problem solved. Why then would the recall issued last year, which failed to solve the problem, been so bungled? I'm not buying one cent of it. I work for one of the world's top ten companies and reputation is everything. VW has (oops, had) billions of dollars of goodwill on their 10q filings, much of which just went to near zero. Their stock is down 17% yesterday.
> 
> There is no chance this is some idiotic mistake and truth will out, as it has so far. A spokesperson has publicly and in writing admitted they installed a defeat which VW had to be aware was non-compliant from the EPA perspective given the number of such strategies that used to be marketed and installed on diesel fleets. I'm afraid the cooler heads here are the ones that have carefully walked through the data that has been presented heretofore (the published, peer-reviewed WVU study, the timeline and actions of VW and EPA prior to the letter, the letter itself, and investigative press reports) and concluded that VW is at fault.


Yes, agreed.

I see this also as an existential argument for "the way things are done" at societal, political, and corporate level. Is this the ultimate expression of intolerance (by both EPA and VW) or does our culture allow non-violent psychopaths into powerful positions. "Anything you can get away with" does not seem very promising as a company mantra, but the EPA sets the rules and does the testing.

But "god's gift to mankind" computer programmers may also have something to do with this,, I suspect. Would make a really good novel, I think....

PL


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## Pierre Louis (Oct 23, 2011)

Flyingman said:


> Pierre my friend, you are on the wrong side of this one.


Typical of wrongheaded Internet etiquette: "If you don't agree, you must be disagreeing and therefore you are wrong"

Au contraire, I am on neither side.

PL


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## Flyingman (Sep 13, 2009)

***8220;Our company was dishonest with the EPA, and the California Air Resources Board and with all of you,***8221; Michael Horn, the head of the VW brand in the U.S., said Monday in Brooklyn, New York, where he was revealing a redesigned version of the Passat. ***8220;We have totally screwed up. We must fix the cars to prevent this from ever happening again and we have to make this right. This kind of behavior is totally inconsistent with our qualities.***8221;

I will rest my case.


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## Flyingman (Sep 13, 2009)

http://money.cnn.com/2015/09/22/news/vw-recall-diesel/

A laymans explanation of what this means. Watch one of the CNN Videos as they have the head of the group that actually discovered the problem.

To be clear they had no real idea how or why the cars were not meeting NOx when not in "Test" mode, and it was Volkswagon that ultimately came forward finally with the fact that they had programmed the software to do so.:tsk:

Well, at least since the outbreak of this news last Friday VW appears to be saying and doing the right things and not running and hiding. Too bad they didn't try to resolve this in an honest way last year when it was pointed out to them.


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## subdude (Apr 11, 2013)

1) VW may have not complied with our laws and intentionally misrepresented the emissions performance of the vehicles for sale here in the US.

2) The EPA has no check whatsoever and gets to establish arbitrary and meaningless emissions targets based on science that has yet to be proven on anything but a computer model. The Justice Department has now set out to destroy a company on this basis.


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## John Davis (Sep 5, 2012)

My understanding is that Volkswagen sort of owns Porsche, or that they are both owned by some entity. (I'm not clear on all that.)

I wonder if VW's inevitable financial problems are going to undermine Porsche somehow.


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## Santorini Blue (Apr 7, 2014)

John Davis said:


> My understanding is that Volkswagen sort of owns Porsche, or that they are both owned by some entity. (I'm not clear on all that.)
> 
> I wonder if VW's inevitable financial problems are going to undermine Porsche somehow.


Porsche, Lamborghini, Audi & Bentley will all suffer.
R&D budgets will be slashed.


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## chuck92116 (Nov 11, 2011)

Can you imagine being the developer who wrote the algorithm to circumvent emissions testing?

They must have paid him a lot of money to do it and keep quiet.

Not one German whistle blower in the past 6-8 years.


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## finnbmw (Jul 6, 2008)

*VW CEO is out?*

http://www.autoguide.com/auto-news/...ay&utm_source=relatedscout&utm_content=title5


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## John Davis (Sep 5, 2012)

Santorini Blue said:


> Porsche, Lamborghini, Audi & Bentley will all suffer.
> R&D budgets will be slashed.


That's a damned shame. I was looking forward to hearing more about Porsche's new concept battery, which is supposed to charge in 15 minutes and have a 300 mile range. Now that will be slowed down.


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## tonyspumoni (May 23, 2010)

Thanks. A reasonable voice.


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## Ninong (May 20, 2014)

I have never liked CARB or the EPA or the CAFE standards. However, I understand what they're trying to do and agree that it's something that has to be done, somehow.

All 11 members of CARB are appointed by the Governor, an elected representative of the people. CARB, of course, was established by Ronald Reagan in 1967. Then the EPA was established by an Executive Order of Richard Nixon in 1970. The EPA Administrator is appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. They're tasked with enforcing our environmental laws, including the Clean Air Act.

They may be bureaucrats and maybe we don't like what they do, but they're doing what they were hired to do, which is enforce the laws passed by the peoples' representatives in the California legislature or the US Congress.

The air is cleaner now than it was in the 1960's and '70's... in California anyway.


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## Ninong (May 20, 2014)

Volkswagen is so screwed!

What if it turns out that they're the only one of the Big Three German manufacturers that deliberately installed a "defeat device" in their software in direct violation of the law? And then lied about it to governmental officials for years.

Germany has already asked local prosecutors to open a criminal investigation into Volkswagen's cheating. Does Germany have the equivalent of the Fifth Amendment?


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## Flyingman (Sep 13, 2009)

I can fully appreciate how folks with the VW TDI's may feel, but they shouldn't drag down all automakers of diesel vehicles because of what VW did.:tsk:

We need to keep getting the word out that indeed our diesels are clean running.:thumbup:

After all, look how far we have come! My dad owned about 3 or 4 of these cars over the 70s-80s. He swore by them!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-5s8ZkCICI

Me and My Jetta: How VW Broke My Heart

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/27/opinion/sunday/me-and-my-jetta-how-vw-broke-my-heart.html?_r=0


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## tonyspumoni (May 23, 2010)

Well we won't know for sure whether VW was the only cheater for awhile, but the evident lack of concern on the part of the entire BMW and Mercedes Benz management teams should suggest that they are not worried and bodes well. Both have stronger brands that does VW (I'll have to check that on their 10-Q filings under "Goodwill" to confirm my hypothesis) and both have obviously devoted considerably more energy to technology development as opposed to mere technology adoption than VW. In other words, BMW and MB probably had more to lose by cheating than by not cheating. This, combined with with the ability of one BMW model to meet guidelines as verified by an independent audit, an event everyone agrees could not occur by mere happenstance given how impossible it is ("Can't be done!" [Arms waving around]), adds weight to the suggestion that BMW at least is clean.

Worst case, BMW will have made a good faith attempt to satisfy the mandate to shift from leaded to unleaded gas. Oh dang. I meant NOx emissions mandate. Sorry. Lost my head there.


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## tonyspumoni (May 23, 2010)

*VW & Audi Cheating on their emissions?*

If BMW does prove to have neither played a role in this, as they would have had they known and turned a blind eye, nor to have adopted it for its own whether they might go after VW legally for defaming them. It would be a stretch but BMW has vast legal resources and they might allege that VW, by cheating and by being the flagbearer for clean diesel, defamed ALL clean diesel. Sure, it'd throwing dirt on fresh wounds, but that is in actuality exactly what VW has done. Diesels, never popular with the U.S. auto buyer, are d-e-a-d here now.


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## tonyspumoni (May 23, 2010)

All diesels will be checked on a more realistic test cycle. Sorry if I missed this an it has been reported already.

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/bu...-steps-foil-emissions-test-cheating/72798322/


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## subdude (Apr 11, 2013)

The NOx limit is 0.2 g/HP-Hr. Can someone please tell me what happens if we allow the limit to be 0.4 g/HP-Hr in more specific terms than "we will have dirtier air". Does anyone understand what the effects would be? And if 0.2 is good well than 0.1 must be great but can you tell me how much things would improve is quantifiable terms. That is what I mean be arbitrary limits. What if the limit was 0.4 AND the manufacturers were able to develop a system that works reliably at a cost the average person could afford( some cite that BMW has a system and I will tell you again you'd better plan to deal with CBU and clogged EGR components) Seems to me that is what is not reasonable. 

I do not disagree with VW being held accountable as they deceived regulators and their customers.

The limits are not set in any sense of what is practical and have less to do with environmental protection and more with artificially making one technology viable over another because Hybrids and electric vehicles do not make ANY sense unless the cost of everything else right down to and including a barrel of oil, is driven sky high.


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## Kamdog (Apr 15, 2007)

Just because _you_ lack the science and engineering expertise behind the numbers does not mean they are invalid.

The air is far cleaner now than it was before all of this started, and I tell you, people complained like mad when the emission controls choked the old car technology. But the air improved dramatically, and my family sedan out accelerates the muscle cars of the '60s, and there is no more constant haze either.

So the air quality scientists and engineers set air quality standards and greatly improved air quality, and the automobile engineers and scientists figured out how to make better cars.

VW cheated, and it is all on them. Too, they took a competitive advantage over the other car makers by this cheat as well.


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## Autoputzer (Mar 16, 2014)

subdude said:


> That is what I mean be arbitrary limits...
> 
> The limits are not set in any sense of what is practical and have less to do with environmental protection and more with artificially making one technology viable over another because Hybrids and electric vehicles do not make ANY sense unless the cost of everything else right down to and including a barrel of oil, is driven sky high.


Pollution, energy efficiency, and product safety laws steadily become more strict as advancing technology allows. The goal is zero pollution, zero fuel use, and zero deaths and injuries. The politicians and bureaucrats constantly and gradually push toward these goals. Occasionally, they go too far, industry can't meet the requirements, and they back off. But, that's rare. California once had a law that all manufactures who sell a significant number of cars there must make ten percent of their fleet zero emission vehicles. This was a rare case where they did eventually back off.

I'm convinced that every time some politicians see a 600 h.p. car (e.g. an M5), they think "We need to tighten up emission laws and CAFE requirements." They probably also say to themselves "Income taxes are too low."


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## 3ismagic# (Mar 17, 2011)

subdude said:


> The NOx limit is 0.2 g/HP-Hr. Can someone please tell me what happens if we allow the limit to be 0.4 g/HP-Hr in more specific terms than "we will have dirtier air". Does anyone understand what the effects would be? And if 0.2 is good well than 0.1 must be great but can you tell me how much things would improve is quantifiable terms. That is what I mean be arbitrary limits. What if the limit was 0.4 AND the manufacturers were able to develop a system that works reliably at a cost the average person could afford( some cite that BMW has a system and I will tell you again you'd better plan to deal with CBU and clogged EGR components) Seems to me that is what is not reasonable.
> 
> I do not disagree with VW being held accountable as they deceived regulators and their customers.
> 
> The limits are not set in any sense of what is practical and have less to do with environmental protection and more with artificially making one technology viable over another because Hybrids and electric vehicles do not make ANY sense unless the cost of everything else right down to and including a barrel of oil, is driven sky high.


Well I could explain the epidemiology of it all but since I don't think you really want to know I won't waste my time.
Instead I'll just suggest you take a graduate course in toxicology, another in environmental epidemiology and third on advanced mortality analysis. Depending on your math background you may also need a course in calculus.

I'll add that air pollution kills about as many Americans every single year as 100 9-11s. It kills more than 4,000 people every day in China.


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## tonyspumoni (May 23, 2010)

*VW & Audi Cheating on their emissions?*



subdude said:


> The NOx limit is 0.2 g/HP-Hr. Can someone please tell me what happens if we allow the limit to be 0.4 g/HP-Hr in more specific terms than "we will have dirtier air". Does anyone understand what the effects would be? And if 0.2 is good well than 0.1 must be great but can you tell me how much things would improve is quantifiable terms. That is what I mean be arbitrary limits. What if the limit was 0.4 AND the manufacturers were able to develop a system that works reliably at a cost the average person could afford( some cite that BMW has a system and I will tell you again you'd better plan to deal with CBU and clogged EGR components) Seems to me that is what is not reasonable.
> 
> I do not disagree with VW being held accountable as they deceived regulators and their customers.
> 
> The limits are not set in any sense of what is practical and have less to do with environmental protection and more with artificially making one technology viable over another because Hybrids and electric vehicles do not make ANY sense unless the cost of everything else right down to and including a barrel of oil, is driven sky high.


"Epidemiological studies show that long-term exposure to air pollution may increase the relative risk of obstructive lung diseases such as COPD or asthma. The risk of increased obstruction is higher among residents living in close proximity to high traffic routes where there are high concentrations of PM(10). The present study consists of two parts: the measurement of the concentration of air pollutants and of pulmonary function in selected groups of people. The study was conducted in Warsaw, Poland, in seven localizations with typical urban canyon characteristics and roads with high traffic. The control group consisted of people living in other regions of Poland with a significantly lower (p***8201;


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## MotoWPK (Oct 5, 2012)

tonyspumoni said:


> All diesels will be checked on a more realistic test cycle. Sorry if I missed this an it has been reported already.
> 
> http://www.detroitnews.com/story/bu...-steps-foil-emissions-test-cheating/72798322/


Not just diesels, gasoline powered vehicles as well, as it should. One of the big lessons in this is the need for re-evaluation of the vehicle certification process.


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## tonyspumoni (May 23, 2010)

Dang edit function. Complete post follows:

AbstractSend to:
Adv Exp Med Biol. 2015;849:83-91. doi: 10.1007/5584_2014_103.
Relative risk of lung obstruction in relation to PM10 concentration as assessed by pulmonary function tests.
Adamkiewicz 1, Gayer A, Mucha D, Badyda AJ, Dbrowiecki P, Grabski P.
Author information
Abstract
Epidemiological studies show that long-term exposure to air pollution may increase the relative risk of obstructive lung diseases such as COPD or asthma. The risk of increased obstruction is higher among residents living in close proximity to high traffic routes where there are high concentrations of PM(10). The present study consists of two parts: the measurement of the concentration of air pollutants and of pulmonary function in selected groups of people. The study was conducted in Warsaw, Poland, in seven localizations with typical urban canyon characteristics and roads with high traffic. The control group consisted of people living in other regions of Poland with a significantly lower (p***8201;<***8201;0.05) concentration of air pollutants. The study was performed in the years 2008-2012. The incidence of obstructive lung disease was determined according to the GOLD guidelines. The study subjects were all non-smokers. The relative risk of disease took into account different exposure times to air pollutants. The findings indicate that an increase in PM(10) concentration by each 10 ***956;g/m(3) caused an increase in the relative risk of lung obstruction by a factor of 1.27, 1.24, and 1.19 for the residence period in the vicinity to heavy traffic city roads for 20, 30, and 40 years, respectively as compared with the residence of rural unpolluted areas. A decrease in the number of people with lung obstruction with the length of residence actually indicates that people exposed to high concentrations of PM(10) become affected by lung obstruction at a lower age. The study shows a positive relative risk of lung obstruction due to an exposure to high PM(10) emission.

Subdude,

You are asking for a deterministic mathematical answer to a question that cannot properly be answered in this way, though you are right to question everyone's assumptions. All risk is defined in terms of probabilities. The above study is typical of those in the field, examining the incidence of dysfunction in populations exposed to different levels of pollutants and computing from the data a model that states that the probability of pulmonary disease is strongly correlated with levels of NOx. The term NOx actually refers to two specific, but high related compounds: nitrogen dioxide (NO2), often more commonly referred to as nitrous oxide, and nitric oxide (NO). Both have profound and very well documented effects on cellular and organismal behavior. Please type either term into The National Center for Biological Information's search portal for a listing of peer-reviewed (expertly adjudicated) publications.


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## Flyingman (Sep 13, 2009)

*The Pile On Continues!*

Volkswagen models sale halted in Switzerland

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-34365794

Countries investigating emissions-rigging scandal

United States: Scandal emerged following findings by the Environmental Protection Agency. Justice Department and New York regulators have launched criminal investigations

Germany: Transport Ministry to send fact-finding committee to Volkswagen

United Kingdom: Vehicle Certification Agency to re-run lab tests and compare with "real-world" driving emissions

Switzerland: Task force set up to investigate

Italy: Spot checks to be carried out on at least 1,000 diesel vehicles, transport minister says

France: Random checks on 100 diesel cars aimed at "ensuring the absence of fraud", says Environment Minister Segolene Royal

South Korea: Environment Ministry to investigate 4-5,000 Jetta, Golf and Audi A3 vehicles, could extend to all German diesel cars if problems found

Canada: Environmental Agency investigating some 100,000 Volkswagen and Audi diesel cars

Norway and India opening fraud investigations


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## Flyingman (Sep 13, 2009)

Tentative Timeline for Volkswagen Diesel Recall Laid Out by EPA

http://www.edmunds.com/car-news/tentative-timeline-for-volkswagen-diesel-recall-laid-out-by-epa.html

WASHINGTON - While emphasizing that it has not yet ordered a recall in the Volkswagen diesel-emissions cheating scandal, the EPA on Friday gave consumers a better idea of what to expect in terms of a recall timeline.

No remedy is in place yet for the affected VW vehicles that have the "defeat device" software that allows them to pass EPA pollution testing.

"We expect solutions will be found relatively quickly for 2015 vehicles," said Chris Grundler, director of the EPA's office of transportation and air quality, in a media conference call on Friday.

The solution is somewhat complicated because three generations of Volkswagen's clean-diesel engines from model years 2009-'15 are affected.

Grundler said there will be "different solutions for each generation of technologies."

The newer VW clean diesels have sophisticated hardware called SCR or selective catalytic reduction; older VW diesels have a less complicated, less expensive device called a lean NOx trap and will require "engineering changes," Grundler said.

The three generations of VW clean-diesel engines overlap model years and roughly break down into these categories: Generation 1 diesels include 2009-'12 cars; Generation 2 diesels include 2012-'14 cars and Generation 3 diesels cover the 2014-'15 model year.

The affected vehicles include the 2009-'15 Volkswagen Jetta; 2009-'14 Jetta Sportwagen: 2012-'15 Beetle and Beetle convertible; 2010-'15 Audi A3; 2010-'15 Volkswagen Golf; 2015 Golf Sportwagen and 2012-'15 Passat.

The EPA has said it is likely that owners of affected Volkswagen diesel vehicles will receive a recall notice in the future from Volkswagen. The notice from Volkswagen will provide instructions on how to get the car repaired at a Volkswagen dealership.

"In the meantime, these cars are safe and legal to drive," Grundler said. "Owners do not need to take action at this time."

The EPA said in a posting on its Web site that it will not confiscate any Volkswagen vehicle or require an owner to stop driving it.

It also said, "Depending on the complexity of the repair and the lead time needed to obtain the necessary components, it could take up to one year to identify corrective actions, develop a recall plan and issue recall notices."

The EPA said owners are not able to turn off the so-called emissions "defeat device" by themselves. The device is embedded in the software code that runs the engine control computer.

The VW diesels with the defeat device do not comply with EPA emissions standards.

Edmunds says: Owners of these vehicles will still have to sit tight and wait for further instructions from the EPA and Volkswagen.


----------



## Pierre Louis (Oct 23, 2011)

This forum is not a scientific journal nor is it qualified to discuss high level business ethics. I have kept up with diesel and environmental tech and science for over 40 years, but don't have time to dig up all of the evidence, nor do I wish to have adversarial discussions based on what is essentially prevailing bias. See Why Most Published Research Findings Are False

The dismantling of VW and the diesel car business will do no good in the long run, while short term disciplinary measures will hopefully improve some corrupt corporate culture.

PL


----------



## Flyingman (Sep 13, 2009)

Pierre Louis said:


> This forum is not a scientific journal nor is it qualified to discuss high level business ethics. I have kept up with diesel and environmental tech and science for over 40 years, but don't have time to dig up all of the evidence, nor do I wish to have adversarial discussions based on what is essentially prevailing bias. See Why Most Published Research Findings Are False
> 
> The dismantling of VW and the diesel car business will do no good in the long run, while short term disciplinary measures will hopefully improve some corrupt corporate culture.
> 
> PL


We'll get over this.:thumbup:


----------



## henrycyao (Oct 23, 2012)

subdude said:


> The NOx limit is 0.2 g/HP-Hr. Can someone please tell me what happens if we allow the limit to be 0.4 g/HP-Hr in more specific terms than "we will have dirtier air". Does anyone understand what the effects would be? And if 0.2 is good well than 0.1 must be great but can you tell me how much things would improve is quantifiable terms. That is what I mean be arbitrary limits. What if the limit was 0.4 AND the manufacturers were able to develop a system that works reliably at a cost the average person could afford( some cite that BMW has a system and I will tell you again you'd better plan to deal with CBU and clogged EGR components) Seems to me that is what is not reasonable.
> 
> I do not disagree with VW being held accountable as they deceived regulators and their customers.
> 
> The limits are not set in any sense of what is practical and have less to do with environmental protection and more with artificially making one technology viable over another because Hybrids and electric vehicles do not make ANY sense unless the cost of everything else right down to and including a barrel of oil, is driven sky high.


VW was found in violation as much as 40x the limit. I don't get how 0.4g/HP-Hr vs 0.2g/HP-Hr will help anything?


----------



## Pierre Louis (Oct 23, 2011)

flyingman said:


> we'll get over this.:thumbup:


Yes!


----------



## floydarogers (Oct 11, 2010)

Saw this yesterday. I suspect that PL might agree with the tone and premises.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opini...am-is-partly-the-governments-fault/ar-AAeInH3

Certainly I don't want to see cars running around w/o emissions gear, and in fact the modern engine controls and such get performance out of the ICE that was only dreamed about back in 1980 or so. But our system of laws and administration of them seems to have a preference for quick fixes that have unintended consequences that aren't very good. Inflexibility is not a good approach to real-world problems. The EPA's inflexible test proceedures are incapable of catching cheats, and the inflexible business world's desire for profits-or-else encourages cheating.


----------



## Proconsul (Aug 2, 2015)

Actually, SO2 seems to be implicated as much as, or more than, NOx in most of the peer-reviewed studies I have seen:

PubMed
US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health

Rev Environ Health. 2008 Oct-Dec;23(4):243-97.
A systematic review of the relation between long-term exposure to ambient air pollution and chronic diseases.
Chen H1, Goldberg MS, Villeneuve PJ.
Author information
Abstract
We conducted a systematic review of all studies published between 1950 and 2007 of associations between long-term exposure to ambient air pollution and the risks in adults of nonaccidental mortality and the incidence and mortality from cancer and cardiovascular and respiratory diseases. We searched bibliographic databases for cohort and case-control studies, abstracted characteristics of their design and conduct, and synthesized the quantitative findings in tabular and graphic form. We assessed heterogeneity, estimated pooled effects for specific pollutants, and conducted sensitivity analyses according to selected characteristics of the studies. Our analysis showed that long-term exposure to PM2.5 increases the risk of nonaccidental mortality by 6% per a 10 microg/m3 increase, independent of age, gender, and geographic region. Exposure to PM2.5 was also associated with an increased risk of mortality from lung cancer (range: 15% to 21% per a 10 microg/m3 increase) and total cardiovascular mortality (range: 12% to 14% per a 10 microg/m3 increase). In addition, living close to busy traffic appears to be associated with elevated risks of these three outcomes. Suggestive evidence was found that exposure to PM2.5 is positively associated with mortality from coronary heart diseases and exposure to SO2 increases mortality from lung cancer. For the other pollutants and health outcomes, the data were insufficient data to make solid conclusions.
PMID: 19235364 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]


----------



## Nadir Point (Dec 6, 2013)

Proconsul said:


> Actually, SO2 seems to be implicated as much as, or more than, NOx...


A study like this with demographic, geographic and health point variables encounters about a jillion too many variables to have any significance whatsoever. You could take all the data and simply replace Nox or the pollutant of your choice and replace it with "ambient noise" to get the same results.


----------



## floydarogers (Oct 11, 2010)

A little lightness to a serious discussion


----------



## 3ismagic# (Mar 17, 2011)

Nadir Point said:


> A study like this with demographic, geographic and health point variables encounters about a jillion too many variables to have any significance whatsoever. You could take all the data and simply replace Nox or the pollutant of your choice and replace it with "ambient noise" to get the same results.


Actually it doesn't. I'm a demographer. I study mortality for a living.


----------



## totitan (May 11, 2013)

VW told me that my car was a clean diesel. What they didnt tell me is that its a clean diesel only when hooked up to a dyno. :/


----------



## tonyspumoni (May 23, 2010)

Pierre Louis said:


> This forum is not a scientific journal nor is it qualified to discuss high level business ethics. I have kept up with diesel and environmental tech and science for over 40 years, but don't have time to dig up all of the evidence, nor do I wish to have adversarial discussions based on what is essentially prevailing bias. See Why Most Published Research Findings Are False
> 
> The dismantling of VW and the diesel car business will do no good in the long run, while short term disciplinary measures will hopefully improve some corrupt corporate culture.
> 
> PL


Pierre,

There have been several excellent studies showing that the most provocative findings, e.g. those in the highest impact journals, are indeed subject to serious question, but you err in claiming that the net result is all false. This is the same foolish argument global warming deniers use: focus on an individual falsehood in a great ocean of truth and claim that all similarly derived truths are also falsehoods. You don't sound like a fool and I've enjoyed a great many of your posts, but you are saying foolish things.

And saying that science has no place in this forum but that your 40 years of "experience" does is just hogwash by another name. And by refusing to take the time to add facts to support your views you undercut them. You are, of course, like all of us, entitled to your opinion, but if you wish it to be one that carries weight, then you should take the time to do so.


----------



## tonyspumoni (May 23, 2010)

On a more general note, for those who claim that the NOx standards (NO and NO2) are egregiously too high, please direct me to posts where you were as highly critical of the egregious limits BEFORE DieselGate than after, particularly those of you who claim broad personal expertise in the Diesel area. 

Reading these posts and those on other boards is an exercise in invective, vitriol, and sophistry. One person claims that we shouldn't regulate NOX at all in these TDI's because they emit far less CO2, despite copious evidence that the two components of NOX each have different effects and that NO2 has something like 200- to 300-fold more ozone producing potential per unit mass than does CO2 ("Overview of Greenhouse Gases – Nitrous Oxide" (PDF). US EPA. Page 164), so by emitting 10x to 40x more NOX for just a halving or less of CO2 would be considered what? Bad, that's what. Another claims that these limits will be the death of diesel. Why? Because VW thought they could make more money by screwing 500,000 people here and 10.5 million elsewhere?


----------



## montr (Oct 7, 2006)

I wonder if the EPA will make the VW recall procedure mandatory. Can they?
What will happen when someone show up for the recall with part of the emission control system missing or modified by the owner? Will they refuse to work on it?
As we all know, in US and Canada, we are not allowed to disable or defeat the emission control system but there are case where it is done for off-road purpose (for example: racing).


----------



## Flyingman (Sep 13, 2009)

It sounds rather clear that the EPA is not planning to go after the owners of these cars.

And I think they will give quite a bit of leeway to get the issue resolved, but no more shenanigans on the part of the OEM.

Revised and more realistic testing will be implemented, as proposed by the ICCT and now justified by the WVU test program that uncovered that 1) VW was cheating and 2) BMW met the standard.

I suspect they will focus more on any new car being sold or introduced, i.e the 2016 going forward, with the expectation that the older vehicles will run out their economical life in short order.

The harm is done. VW will pay a penalty. And we will all be that much more aware of what the heck is going on.


----------



## Flyingman (Sep 13, 2009)

The average age of vehicles in the USA is on the order of 10-11 years. Average trade in is about 6.5 years.

Would you expect the VW TDI to follow this trend or because of "brand loyalty", better MPG, etc... they might stay on the road longer than average vehicles?


----------



## finnbmw (Jul 6, 2008)

*Very interesting article in NY Times*

I found this on ClubTouareg forum (credit to Oregon TDI). It's long, but IMO very interesting as it chronicles what happened at VW, EPA and CAR

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/27/b...ions-fueled-a-scandal.html?smid=pl-share&_r=0

9/26/2015

As Volkswagen Pushed to Be No. 1, Ambitions Fueled a Scandal * The New York Times

By DANNY HAKIM, AARON M. KESSLER and JACK EWING SEPT. 26, 2015

Martin Winterkorn, Volkswagen***8217;s chief executive, took the stage four years
ago at the automaker***8217;s new plant in Chattanooga, Tenn., and outlined a bold
strategy. The company, he said, was in the midst of a plan to more than triple its sales in the United States in just a decade ***8212; setting it on a course to sweep by Toyota to become the world***8217;s largest automaker.

***8220;By 2018, we want to take our group to the very top of the global car
industry,***8221; he told the two United States senators, the governor of Tennessee
and the other dignitaries gathered for the opening of Volkswagen***8217;s first
American factory in decades.

One way Volkswagen aimed to achieve its lofty goal was by betting on
diesel*powered cars ***8212; instead of hybrid*electric vehicles like the Toyota Prius
***8212; promising high mileage and low emissions without sacrificing performance.

Ray LaHood, the transportation secretary, endorsed the company***8217;s
commitment to diesel that day, calling it an ***8220;ingredient in the recipe for our
long*term energy security.***8221;

Volkswagen***8217;s unbridled ambition is suddenly central to what is shaping
up as one of the great corporate scandals of the age. On Tuesday, Volkswagen said it had installed software in 11 million diesel cars that cheated on emissions tests, allowing the vehicles to spew far more deadly pollutants than regulations allowed. About 500,000 of the cars were sold in the United States, including Passats that rolled off the assembly lines in Chattanooga.

Disabling the emissions controls brought major advantages, including
much better mileage ***8212; a big selling point in Volkswagen***8217;s push to dominate in America.

The admissions forced Mr. Winterkorn to resign and have led to a
management overhaul. Several executives were dismissed, including two top
managers in research and development. Volkswagen shares declined about 34 percent last week, and the company faces penalties of as much as $18 billion from the Environmental Protection Agency.

Volkswagen***8217;s current crisis has its roots in decisions made almost a
decade ago. In 2007, it abandoned a pollution*control technology developed
by Mercedes*Benz and Bosch and instead used internal technology.
At the same time, the determination by Mr. Winterkorn, the company***8217;s
hard*charging chief executive, to surpass Toyota put enormous strain on his
managers to deliver growth in America.

To capture market share, Volkswagen, which also makes such brands as
Audi and Porsche, would need to build the larger cars favored by Americans.
But it would also need to comply with the Obama administration***8217;s toughening
standards on mileage. All automakers developed strategies to meet the new
mileage rules, and diesel was a big part of Volkswagen***8217;s plan. But diesel
engines, while offering better mileage, also emit more smog*forming
pollutants than conventional engines, so Volkswagen***8217;s strategy ran head*on
into American air pollution standards, which are stricter than those in Europe.

Cheating on emissions tests solved several issues at once. Not only were
drivers rewarded with better mileage and performance, but the automaker also avoided more expensive and cumbersome pollution*control systems.
While Volkswagen cheated behind the scenes, it publicly espoused virtue.
This, after all, is the company that used one of the largest advertising arenas in the world, the Super Bowl, to run a commercial showing its engineers
sprouting angel***8217;s wings.

The scandal has shaken not just Volkswagen, but the whole auto industry.
And it is painful for Germany, where one in seven workers is employed directly or indirectly by the auto industry. Volkswagen has long been a symbol of the efficiency and engineering acumen that make the country one of the most formidable economies in the world.

It is not Volkswagen***8217;s first run*in with regulators over emissions. When
the United States began regulating tailpipe pollutants in the 1970s,
Volkswagen was one of the first companies caught cheating. It was fined
$120,000 in 1973 for installing what became known as a ***8220;defeat device,***8221;
technology to shut down a vehicle***8217;s pollution control systems. This time, it
equipped its vehicles with software that was programmed to fake test results, an action the E.P.A. rebuked in 1998, when it reached a $1 billion settlement with truck*engine manufacturers for doing the same thing.

Over the last year, when confronted with evidence that its system was not
performing as promised, Volkswagen aggressively pushed back, saying that
regulators were not doing the testing properly.

Scrapped Technology

In 2007, Mr. Winterkorn attracted little attention when he made his first
trip to Detroit as Volkswagen***8217;s chief executive, during the industry***8217;s annual
auto show there. The company was then a bit player in the United States.
There was more excitement about Changfeng Motor, the first Chinese automaker to participate in the show.

One Volkswagen executive did make headlines ***8212; but he was not there.
Wolfgang Bernhard, head of the Volkswagen brand, was a well*known figure
in Detroit, having spent several years as the second*highest*ranking executive at Chrysler, then part of Daimler. He was remembered for dressing in black leather during one auto show while he rode a four*wheel, 500*horsepower motorcycle called the Dodge Tomahawk.

Mr. Bernhard was widely expected to resign in a corporate shake*up, and
he did a few days later. His departure set off ripples not just in Volkswagen***8217;s
boardroom, but also under the hoods of its future diesel vehicles. Mr.
Bernhard, a longtime Daimler executive, previously announced a deal to use a technology called BlueTec, which was developed by Mercedes, a division of
Daimler, and Bosch, a German supplier.

BlueTec mixes a chemical known as urea with engine exhaust to
neutralize nitrogen oxide, one of the most harmful diesel pollutants. While it is an effective system, it can be costly and requires drivers to periodically top up a tank of urea.

A few months after Mr. Bernhard***8217;s departure, the plan was scrapped. The
trade publication Automotive News quoted an Audi executive saying
Volkswagen***8217;s own technology was strong enough. ***8220;We don***8217;t need BlueTec,***8221;
the executive said.

There have been no suggestions to date that BlueTec vehicles sold by
Mercedes violate emissions standards.

Matt DeLorenzo, a diesel expert and the managing editor at Kelley Blue
Book, said it was not surprising to the industry at the time that Volkswagen
abandoned BlueTec for its small and midsize cars in favor of a system that
would not require the unwieldy, expensive urea tank. (Volkswagen uses its
own urea*based system for heavier vehicles like the Touareg S.U.V.)

***8220;Volkswagen wanted to make the diesel ownership experience as easy as
possible, akin to having a regular gas engine,***8221; he said.

In the 1970s, Mr. DeLorenzo said, when automakers all switched to
catalytic converters to meet American emissions standards, Honda developed
an engine technology that it claimed would run clean without the converters. It worked ***8212; at least at first ***8212; and Honda sold the cars for several years. But emissions requirements kept tightening each year, and Honda***8217;s solution could no longer keep up. The automaker was forced to switch to catalytic converters like everyone else.

Mr. DeLorenzo theorized that Volkswagen may have faced a similar
situation, in which the company thought it could start selling its non*urea
diesels in America and get a year or two of sales on the books, and as
emissions standards ratcheted up, it would find a way to improve the
technology to keep pace.

***8220;It could have been an incremental thing that got them caught up in this,***8221;
he said. ***8220;They thought they could maybe fix this later, then discovered they
couldn***8217;t and went down a dark path.***8221;

Mr. Bernhard, who is now head of Daimler***8217;s truck division, declined
through a spokesman to comment.

Chance Revelation

The same year Mr. Winterkorn made his speech in Chattanooga, officials
from California***8217;s environmental regulator began hearing about a problem
from their European Union counterparts: They were finding discrepancies
between the emissions of diesels in the lab and on the road, across the
industry.

It was not completely unexpected that on*the*road performance might
not match lab tests, given the varying road conditions vehicles face. But it led to the idea that new testing methods outside laboratories might be needed.

In 2013, a nonprofit group, the International Council on Clean
Transportation, proposed testing on*road diesel emissions from cars in the
United States ***8212; something never done before.

California regulators decided to team up with the group. They had an
attractive chip to offer: the state***8217;s laboratory, where vehicles were tested for California emissions compliance.

The transportation council, staffed by a number of former E.P.A. officials,
did not expect to catch Volkswagen, or anyone else, cheating. In fact, it
assumed that American diesel cars would run much cleaner than their
European counterparts, thanks to stricter United States emissions rules. The
group felt that by promoting a success story for diesel, it could pressure ***8212; and perhaps shame ***8212; automakers in Europe into improving their own emissions.

***8220;We thought we would be seeing some clean vehicles,***8221; said John German,
one of the project leads at the council. ***8220;That was the whole point when we
started.***8221;

It was only by chance that the group***8217;s testing of three vehicles began with
two Volkswagens. The researchers already had a BMW X5 and a Volkswagen
Jetta ***8212; and then a Passat owner happened to see an ad seeking cars for the
project and offered up his.

Researchers hit the road, traveling five routes with varying terrain and
traffic. Almost immediately, the two Volkswagens set themselves apart from
the BMW. ***8220;If you***8217;re idling in traffic for three hours in L.A. traffic, we know a car is not in its sweet spot for good emissions results,***8221; said Arvind Thiruvengadam, a research professor at West Virginia University, which was hired to conduct the tests. ***8220;But when you***8217;re going at highway speed at 70 miles an hour, everything should really work properly. The emissions should come down. But the Volkswagens***8217; didn***8217;t come down.***8221;

It was difficult to know what was going on: When the two Volkswagens
were placed on a ***8220;car treadmill***8221; known as a dynamometer, they performed
flawlessly.

***8220;It just didn***8217;t make sense,***8221; Mr. German said. ***8220;That was the real red flag.***8221;

Coming Clean

By 2014, the California regulators determined what to do next. First, they
alerted their federal counterparts at the E.P.A. Then, they opened an
investigation. ***8220;We brought in Volkswagen and showed them our findings,***8221;
said Stanley Young, a spokesman for the California Air Resources Board. ***8220;We
asked them, ***8216;How do you explain this?***8217; ***8221;

Volkswagen fired back. ***8220;They tried to poke holes in our study and its
methods, saying we didn***8217;t know what we were doing,***8221; Mr. Thiruvengadam
said. ***8220;They were very aggressive.***8221;

The company offered many explanations: Weather conditions. Driving
styles. Technicalities that it claimed the researchers and regulators did not
understand.

***8220;There was always some story, some reason they***8217;d come up with each
time,***8221; Mr. Young said. ***8220;Meeting after meeting, they would try to explain it
away, and we***8217;d go back to the lab and try again. But we***8217;d get the same results.***8221;

The back*and*forth lasted for months. Finally, in April, Volkswagen made
an offer: It would conduct a voluntary recall, or service campaign, to fix the
problem in certain model year 2010 to 2014 diesel vehicles. Regulators got the software update for their test vehicles and returned to
the lab.

The results were not good. ***8220;It didn***8217;t solve the problem,***8221; Mr. Young said.

Confronted again, Volkswagen continued to maintain that there was a
problem with the testers, not the vehicles.

California regulators changed tack, examining the company***8217;s software.
Modern automobiles operate using millions of lines of computer code. One day last summer, the regulators made a startling discovery: A subroutine, or
parallel set of instructions, was secretly being sent by the computer to what
seemed to be the emissions controls.

Regulators were floored. Could Volkswagen be trying something similar to
what the heavy*truck industry did to manipulate emissions tests in the 1990s?

Regulators set out to cheat the cheat, tweaking lab test parameters to trick
the car into thinking it was on the road. The Volkswagens began spewing
nitrogen oxide far above the legal limit.

Government officials then increased the pressure on the company,
threatening to withhold approval for its 2016 Volkswagen and Audi diesel
models. According to the E.P.A., that is what forced Volkswagen***8217;s hand. On
Sept. 3, a group of senior engineers admitted what the regulators had
suspected: The company had installed defeat devices on nearly 500,000 diesel vehicles sold in the United States. In a presentation, they admitted that the software subroutine had been added to vehicles going back to the 2009 model year, when Volkswagen***8217;s ***8220;clean diesel***8221; arrived in America with promises of an environmentally friendly future.

***8220;It was the repeated answers that did not add up that really led to the
discovery of the problem in the first place,***8221; Mr. Young said. ***8220;They were kind of hoisted on their own petard.***8221;

The revelations were so stunning that some executives at Volkswagen
Group of America were kept in the dark about the pending E.P.A. violation 
until just before it was announced, according to two people familiar with the
situation who spoke on condition of anonymity.

This month, Volkswagen and Audi executives in Herndon, Va., began
pressing executives in Germany for information about the delay in certifying
the 2016 models for sale. The absence of details was already hampering plans for product introductions at United States dealerships.

But there was no explanation from Germany ***8212; until just before the E.P.A.
announced the violation of the Clean Air Act.

After the scandal broke, Mr. Winterkorn issued a written and then a video
apology. He resigned on Wednesday, saying that he had no knowledge of the
trickery. ***8220;I am not aware of any wrongdoing on my part,***8221; he said, adding,
***8220;Volkswagen needs a fresh start.***8221;

Volkswagen***8217;s supervisory board named Matthias Müller, head of the
Porsche division, the new chief executive, on Friday.

On Mr. Winterkorn***8217;s watch, Volkswagen did become the largest
automaker in the world, surpassing Toyota in July. He had two months to
savor it.

Reporting was contributed by Nicola Clark, Bill Vlasic and Melissa Eddy.
A version of this article appears in print on September 27, 2015, on page A1 of the New York
edition with the headline: As VW Pushed to Be No. 1, Ambitions Fueled a Scandal


----------



## Doug Huffman (Apr 25, 2015)

I view this scandal in general just as I do anti-nuclear hysteria in the mainstream media, liars cozening the credulous for more sales. If one has the slightest technical/engineering expertise, a specialist/professional opinion will likely be more accurate and valuable.


----------



## totitan (May 11, 2013)

I did it! Ive been working it for a couple of days and finally found a dealer that will take my 12 JSW tdi, not try to screw me on the payoff, and sell me 16 GSW SE tsi for a great price. I just about gave up a couple of times when vw dealers wouldnt even call me back, but I finally found a young aggressive internet sale mgr at a dealership 85 miles from home and he made it happen.


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## tonyspumoni (May 23, 2010)

The EPA in their statement seemed quite confident that the fix would be easy for the latest generation of EA189 motors, a bit more complex for the one before it that still used SCR, and hardest for the earliest version lacking SCR because it would require "engineering". I'm buying BMW stock Monday morning. It's worth the risk to me. Glad you got your TSI Totitan.


----------



## tonyspumoni (May 23, 2010)

floydarogers said:


> Saw this yesterday. I suspect that PL might agree with the tone and premises.
> 
> http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opini...am-is-partly-the-governments-fault/ar-AAeInH3
> 
> Certainly I don't want to see cars running around w/o emissions gear, and in fact the modern engine controls and such get performance out of the ICE that was only dreamed about back in 1980 or so. But our system of laws and administration of them seems to have a preference for quick fixes that have unintended consequences that aren't very good. Inflexibility is not a good approach to real-world problems. The EPA's inflexible test proceedures are incapable of catching cheats, and the inflexible business world's desire for profits-or-else encourages cheating.


Floyd,

Are you suggesting EPA might need more resources?


----------



## tonyspumoni (May 23, 2010)

Incidentally, I would applaud that view. It is standard American practice to eviscerate regulatory bodies and then complain when they don't to their job. The amount of bitching about the EPA and CARB, who did NOT lie, cheat, and commit obvious and avowed fraud ("Clean, clean, clean Diesel"), is vastly out of proportion to the bitching about VW. Those VW guys and gals should go straight to f'ing jail.


----------



## tonyspumoni (May 23, 2010)

When we ever learn that industry cannot possibly honestly regulate itself? Banks, investment houses, car manufacturerss, nuclear energy, medicine, etc., all "regulate" themselves and in the end screw us in the name of their own bottom line. Heck I used to think f'ing peanuts were safe!


----------



## subdude (Apr 11, 2013)

henrycyao said:


> VW was found in violation as much as 40x the limit. I don't get how 0.4g/HP-Hr vs 0.2g/HP-Hr will help anything?


Yes at times UP TO 40x the limit. Was there a distribution graph presented or an average posted? NO Clearly a few of you do not understand the difference between filling a room full of a toxic component at a given concentration and tail pipe emissions into the environment which 1) has removal mechanisms and 2) has infinitely more volume such that the concentrations remain negligible. I agree with PL, there can be no rational discussion here and every one of you have missed my first point the regardless of the fact that I know the limit is without ant sort of rational basis VW was obligated to follow it and we are required to dump good money after bad to support the nonsense environmental laws that we have.


----------



## subdude (Apr 11, 2013)

Kamdog said:


> Just because _you_ lack the science and engineering expertise behind the numbers does not mean they are invalid.
> 
> The air is far cleaner now than it was before all of this started, and I tell you, people complained like mad when the emission controls choked the old car technology. But the air improved dramatically, and my family sedan out accelerates the muscle cars of the '60s, and there is no more constant haze either.
> 
> ...


How wrong can you be? It is not that I do not have the engineering or science. WE do not have the engineering or science capacity to adequately model something as complex as the global climate and for the 1000th time I am not advocating that we have zero emission controls or laws, just ones that do not bias a given political agenda and truly protect the earth.


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## floydarogers (Oct 11, 2010)

subdude said:


> ..., just ones that do not bias a given political agenda and truly protect the earth.


Just to remind you: the current regulations from the EPA for car emissions became effective in 2005, the middle of Bush's terms. Any speculation about "political agenda" on your part are wholly unsupported by the facts.


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## totitan (May 11, 2013)

tonyspumoni said:


> The EPA in their statement seemed quite confident that the fix would be easy for the latest generation of EA189 motors, a bit more complex for the one before it that still used SCR, and hardest for the earliest version lacking SCR because it would require "engineering". I'm buying BMW stock Monday morning. It's worth the risk to me. Glad you got your TSI Totitan.


Thanks Tony. The new MQB platform feels like its made from a piece of machined billet. It feels more s class than vw in build quality and materials.


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## Ninong (May 20, 2014)

floydarogers said:


> Just to remind you: the current regulations from the EPA for car emissions became effective in 2005, the middle of Bush's terms. Any speculation about "political agenda" on your part are wholly unsupported by the facts.


In addition, the EPA was established in 1970 by an Executive Order of President Richard Nixon, three years after CARB was signed into law by Governor Ronald Reagan.


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## F32Fleet (Jul 14, 2010)

montr said:


> I wonder if the EPA will make the VW recall procedure mandatory. Can they?
> What will happen when someone show up for the recall with part of the emission control system missing or modified by the owner? Will they refuse to work on it?
> As we all know, in US and Canada, we are not allowed to disable or defeat the emission control system but there are case where it is done for off-road purpose (for example: racing).


I suppose VW could provide the EPA with a list of VIN's that have not had the 'fix'. In turn the EPA could publish the list to the States and allow them to check VIN's come registration time.


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## Ninong (May 20, 2014)

montr said:


> I wonder if the EPA will make the VW recall procedure mandatory. Can they?
> What will happen when someone show up for the recall with part of the emission control system missing or modified by the owner? Will they refuse to work on it?
> As we all know, in US and Canada, we are not allowed to disable or defeat the emission control system but there are case where it is done for off-road purpose (for example: racing).





F32Fleet said:


> I suppose VW could provide the EPA with a list of VIN's that have not had the 'fix'. In turn the EPA could publish the list to the States and allow them to check VIN's come registration time.


Good question but I think the EPA leaves enforcement to the various states once they have given the manufacturer initial approval to sell a car here. Remember that the holdup on getting the new BMW 340i released from the port was because it was awaiting CARB approval. The EPA withdrew approval only on unsold cars in dealer stock with those engines. They were all removed from showrooms and front lots by the dealers and moved to areas where cars that are not for sale are stored.

California, for instance, might come up with a way for smog check stations to test the exhaust while the vehicle is actually being driven on the road in order to detect if the exhaust emissions are above the limits. If your renewal notice calls for a smog certificate, you can't renew your registration without one. If you're bringing a car into California that has previously been registered in another state, even if it's the current model year, you need a smog certificate.


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## Pierre Louis (Oct 23, 2011)

subdude said:


> Yes at times UP TO 40x the limit. Was there a distribution graph presented or an average posted? NO Clearly a few of you do not understand the difference between filling a room full of a toxic component at a given concentration and tail pipe emissions into the environment which 1) has removal mechanisms and 2) has infinitely more volume such that the concentrations remain negligible. I agree with PL, there can be no rational discussion here and every one of you have missed my first point the regardless of the fact that I know the limit is without ant sort of rational basis VW was obligated to follow it and we are required to dump good money after bad to support the nonsense environmental laws that we have.


Yes, thank you.

That diesel cars were/are forced into being the square peg into the round hole of, what was originally, rules designed for gasoline vehicles makes the NOx standard suspect.

PL


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## tonyspumoni (May 23, 2010)

Why should diesel cars be held to a standard less stringent than for petrol vehicles? If they are 15-20% less polluting in terms of CO2 produced per gallon of fuel (citation is BMW press release of Friday) but 1000% to 4000% (10x - 40x for those keeping score) worse in NOx, then the net result sucks in terms of pollution. They SHOULD of course. Go EPA!

(NO and NO2 are NOx, the former a proven vasoactive poison and the later with 200x the global warming capacity of CO2 by mass).

Somehow, we keep circling back to bitching about these "stringent standards" only after they were breached. Like complaining about sunburn after you've forgotten the sunscreen in the trunk.


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## tonyspumoni (May 23, 2010)

Ninong said:


> Good question but I think the EPA leaves enforcement to the various states once they have given the manufacturer initial approval to sell a car here. Remember that the holdup on getting the new BMW 340i released from the port was because it was awaiting CARB approval. The EPA withdrew approval only on unsold cars in dealer stock with those engines. They were all removed from showrooms and front lots by the dealers and moved to areas where cars that are not for sale are stored.
> 
> California, for instance, might come up with a way for smog check stations to test the exhaust while the vehicle is actually being driven on the road in order to detect if the exhaust emissions are above the limits. If your renewal notice calls for a smog certificate, you can't renew your registration without one. If you're bringing a car into California that has previously been registered in another state, even if it's the current model year, you need a smog certificate.


California is highly unlikely to mandate live highway cycle emissions testing - too expensive, at least in the near term. They wait for EPA to randomly test all vehicles, new and used. The bigger question is what the EPA will do when they encounter noncompliant used vehicles they formerly certified. In the U.K., where owners pay to pollute through a pollution tax banding system, I'm wondering if regulators will adjust the tax band of TDI's sold there? If so, yes, drivers will be punished, but in the end it will be VW who will be punished, as no owner you was in a low-tax band because of perceived efficiency is likely to buy another VW for a generation or two. Now I am not sure if the U.K. vehicle tax includes NOx as a criteria or only CO2, but surely if the fix to meet NOx limits for reals makes the U.K. TDI's less efficient, then CO2 will go up and so will the tax if regulators wish to impart this retroactively.


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## Ninong (May 20, 2014)

tonyspumoni said:


> California is highly unlikely to mandate live highway cycle emissions testing - too expensive, at least in the near term.


Someone asked how you would catch a VW owner who chose to ignore a recall letter and kept on driving his car without getting whatever "fix" was in the works. What I meant was that the only way to tell if the car had been "fixed" would be to do an on-the-road exhaust emissions test for smog certification. Unless VW is required to notify the EPA of the VIN of cars that were not brought in after a certain period of time.



> The bigger question is what the EPA will do when they encounter noncompliant used vehicles they formerly certified.


I assume EPA would do nothing when they encounter a noncompliant used vehicle they formerly certified unless EPA approves a proposed "fix" by VW and then, after being notified by VW of the recall, the owner ignores the recall and continues to pollute. I don't believe the EPA has ever gotten involved in anything like that before? In California, your car is tested based on it meeting the original EPA emission standards for that model and model year. If EPA decides that it is mandatory for owners receiving a recall notice from VW to take their cars in to the dealer to be "fixed," the only way to determine if the owners complied would be for California, or another state, to perform on-the-road exhaust emission tests, something they are not set up to do. Either that or rely on VW to notify the EPA of the VIN of cars that were not brought in to be fixed.

My guess is that even if VW cannot come up with a "fix" that works for the cars presently on the road, nothing will be done about them. The owners will continue driving them as before and the only ones who will pay the penalty will be Volkswagen. California will continue to certify them for smog certificates based on current testing procedures. Even if the testing procedures did change to real road testing, California is not likely to penalize the owners for something they had no control over. Of course, EPA could always force VW to either offer very generous trade-in allowances on those cars or even buy them back at some above-market value.

VW is really in a bad situation because they may not be able to come up with a practical, reasonably inexpensive way to correct this situation, especially on the older cars. In that case, the end game might just be a very large punitive fine against VW, _a la_ BP.

What happens if the other 10.5 million cars with the same defeat device that were sold worldwide, in addition to the 482,000 in the US, don't even meet the looser EU standards? Do any of those countries have laws prohibiting defeat devices?


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## finnbmw (Jul 6, 2008)

*2.1 million Audis have "cheat" emission software*

The Dieselgate scandal is widening to include 2.1 million Audi A1, A3, A4, A5, A6, TT, Q3 and Q5 vehicles

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-34377443


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## Autoputzer (Mar 16, 2014)

Ninong said:


> I assume EPA would do nothing when they encounter a noncompliant used vehicle they formerly certified unless EPA approves a proposed "fix" by VW and then, after being notified by VW of the recall, the owner ignores the recall and continues to pollute. I don't believe the EPA has ever gotten involved in anything like that before?
> My guess is that even if VW cannot come up with a "fix" that works for the cars presently on the road, nothing will be done about them. The owners will continue driving them as before and the only ones who will pay the penalty will be Volkswagen. California will continue to certify them for smog certificates based on current testing procedures.


The fix will likely involve added a DEF system to the cars. The question is where to put the DEF equipment. M-B puts it in what used to be the spare tire hole. Customers will not go for that, so my guess would be a smaller fuel tank with the DEF hardware taking up the gained space. Owners would likely get free emission systems maintenance for life, free DEF, and monetary compensation for having a smaller fuel tank.

The laws on the books now give the EPA the option to impose a $37,500/car fine. They MIGHT lower that if VW does a re-work of the cars. The worst case scenario for VW is a $37,500 fine and the requirement that they buy back all the cars and either scrap them or export them to a country without emission requirements. That's a big stick that regulators can hold over them.

The California inspections test for NOx. Under the current law, car owners have to pay a minimum amount in repairs to attempt to pass the test, but then are allowed to go until the next inspection where they have to go through the process all over again. The California legislature could easily pass a law that VW dirty-diesels MUST pass a test or taken off the road in California. That would cause VW to be sued by car owners and they'd be forced to buy back the cars.

There's a steering wheel position sensor that the defeat software used. They might have to modify the dynamometer test to unplug that sensor and plug in a "dongle box" that introduces oscillating, realistic on-the-road steering wheel position data to the cars' computer. It really was ingenious how VW faked the test. One of the many post here on this topic showed the portable set-up that WVU engineers used to catch VW. It took the whole cargo compartment of an SUV, and it had two gasoline generators running (inside the cargo compartment, with exhaust piped outside). On the road testing, with any degree of accuracy, would be impractical.


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## Kamdog (Apr 15, 2007)

My bet is that VW will be required to notify authorities which specific cars have been fixed, and that that information will be transmitted to registration systems around the states. At some point, even if it is a year or two away, you probably won't be able to register or sell a car that should have been fixed but wasn't.


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## xx99 (Sep 21, 2015)

*EPA tested an BMW X5*

The EPA tested an BMW X5 at same time as VW Passat. And the BMW X5 came out clean... :roll eyes: meaning the same result almost as in the Laboratory as under normal drivning conditions.

The VW Passat had 20-30 times higher values in the same tests. Lets hope this will be the case for BMW in the long run :angel:

http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/industry/vw-emissions-scandal-other-manufacturers-deny-cheating


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## Nadir Point (Dec 6, 2013)

*It's Already Being Done*



Ninong said:


> California, for instance, might come up with a way for smog check stations to test the exhaust while the vehicle is actually being driven on the road...


Colorado has been doing this for years. It's called Rapidscreen:

http://aircarecolorado.com/rapidscreen/

They typically set up at the on-ramp to an interstate, where vehicles are more likely to be running at higher throttle.


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## KeithS (Dec 30, 2001)

Autoputzer said:


> The fix will likely involve added a DEF system to the cars. The question is where to put the DEF equipment. M-B puts it in what used to be the spare tire hole. Customers will not go for that, so my guess would be a smaller fuel tank with the DEF hardware taking up the gained space. Owners would likely get free emission systems maintenance for life, free DEF, and monetary compensation for having a smaller fuel tank.


This will never happen. It would cost more to retrofit the car than simply replace it. Either owners will be compensated for having a car with lower MPG and Power than advertised (when the "normal driving' program is removed), or there will be a significant buy back and/or replacement offer.

I've been saying all along that VW was really *smart *in figuring out how to cheat the system, and really *stupid* for thinking they would get away with it.


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## Flyingman (Sep 13, 2009)

Nadir Point said:


> Colorado has been doing this for years. It's called Rapidscreen:
> 
> http://aircarecolorado.com/rapidscreen/
> 
> They typically set up at the on-ramp to an interstate, where vehicles are more likely to be running at higher throttle.


Nadir,

Neat concept but some reason I don't think it works. Wouldn't it have caught all of the VW TDIs emitting up to 40 times their NOx limits? Surely a few of these TDI would have been registered and have failed their test?:dunno:

Of course if it fails the drive by test you can always go take the standard fixed emission test, and whala, it passes!

Why didn't this system pick something up?


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## Flyingman (Sep 13, 2009)

I found the answer!

Do Diesel-Powered Vehicles Require Inspections?

Yes, but Air Care Colorado stations DO NOT inspect diesel-powered vehicles. Diesel vehicles are inspected at independent diesel emissions testing facilities. Find a list of independent diesel stations here. 

The following rules apply to diesel-powered vehicles:
•Light-duty vehicles with a gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) of 14,000 pounds or less are exempt from an emissions testing for four (4) years if they are purchased brand new.
•2003 and older vehicles are tested every year.
•2004 and newer vehicles are tested every two years.
•Heavy-duty vehicles with a gross vehicle weight of 14,001 pounds or more are exempt from emissions testing (if they are purchased brand new) for the first four (4) years, and then tested every two (2) years until they reach their 10th year. After that, these vehicles require inspection every year.


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## Nadir Point (Dec 6, 2013)

*More Than Once...*

You answered your own question:



Flyingman said:


> Neat concept but some reason I don't think it works.


It works quite well, actually.



Flyingman said:


> Surely a few of these TDI would have been registered and have failed their test?


Absolutely. But the drive-by is not a "test," just a detection. It's kinda like a roadside sobriety test for cars. Then after arrest, blood tests provide data for court records.



Flyingman said:


> Of course if it fails the drive by test you can always go take the standard fixed emission test, and whala, it passes!


Which is exactly why alot VW owners got nasty-grams from the state, ordering them to go in for a real test at the testing station.



Flyingman said:


> Why didn't this system pick something up?


It did - lots. And continues to do so.


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## Ninong (May 20, 2014)

finnbmw said:


> The Dieselgate scandal is widening to include 2.1 million Audi A1, A3, A4, A5, A6, TT, Q3 and Q5 vehicles
> 
> http://www.bbc.com/news/business-34377443


Wow! That's a lot of VW's and Audi's that used defeat devices for the past 8 model years (2009-2016). Volkswagen is dragging down the price of BMW and Daimler with it. All three -- VW, Daimler and BMW -- made highs six months ago in March of this year and all three of them have dropped a lot since then. You can't blame all of that on VW but you can certainly blame the drop of the past 10 days or so on VW. That and that absurd article in AutoBild that caused BMW to drop more than 10% for a few hours before the magazine started walking back their story and admitting they didn't really know what they were talking about and had deliberately misrepresented the facts!

VW is now down 57% from it's share price in March, Daimler has dropped 43% and BMW has dropped 42%. That's on the German market denominated in euro. BMW's ADR is down 36% but that difference vs. the underlying German shares is due to fluctuations in the dollar-euro exchange rate.

Susanne Klatten and her brother, Stehpan Quandt, must feel like Bill Gates and Larry Ellison felt when the dot-com bubble burst 15 years ago. Just six months ago, Susanne, Stephan and their mother, Johanna Quandt, owned BMW shares worth more than $40 billion. Today those shares are owned by just Susanne and her brother because their mother died and left her shares to them, but their combined BMW shares today are worth only $23 billion. Susanne does own quite a few other business interests besides BMW but her brother's net worth is mostly in BMW. Nothing like dropping several billion dollars just in the past 10 days or so. Together, Susanne and her brother own more than 47% of BMW. BMW was worth more than $85 billion back in March. Today it is worth about $49 billion!


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## Mark K (Jun 5, 2010)

Ninong said:


> BMW was worth more than $85 billion back in March. Today it is worth about $49 billion!


OT, but we are already in the neighborhood anyway ... 

The above quote explains perfectly well why

a) I would NEVER allow my own company to go public

b) I always thought stock market is pure, unadulterated BS

Carry on now with more important things ...


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## regdfry (Mar 1, 2015)

Robert A said:


> Except that all the dealer test drives and magazine reviews that led to us purchasing the car were based on the faulty emission system. The newly reconfigured car is not the one we were sold.


Can you say Class Action Lawsuit?


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## Robert A (May 18, 2003)

I would be happy with a generous trade assist on a 2016 GSW.



regdfry said:


> Can you say Class Action Lawsuit?


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## Flyingman (Sep 13, 2009)

Robert A said:


> I would be happy with a generous trade assist on a 2016 GSW.


Just bring your VW TDI in for it's reprogramming, which I would assume would have to be approved by the EPA/CARB before VW is going to implement this, and your emissions now comply, and so what if your MPG drops from 46 to 42, if the original sticker said 40MPG Hwy and 30MPG City? I don't think you can sue them for that. If the MPG falls below advertised then you have an issue.

Don't get me wrong, no matter what VW Owners are going to be plenty pissed off and many will never buy another VW product because of this.

Maybe VW will throw in a $1,000 certificate towards a new VW?:thumbup:

It's all good!


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## Ninong (May 20, 2014)

Flyingman said:


> VW's Stock to Be Removed From Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes
> 
> Volkswagen AG's stock will be removed from the Dow Jones Sustainability indexes after the automaker cheated on emissions tests.
> 
> The carmaker's admission on Sept. 18 that it systematically manipulated U.S. emissions tests prompted a review of its status, S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and RobecoSAM said in a statement Tuesday. The stock will be pulled after the close of trading Oct. 5 from the DJSI World, DJSI Europe and all other related indexes, according to the statement.


Being removed from the sustainability indices will precipitate a wave of selling of VW's stock over the next several months by various mutual funds around the world that market themselves as holding only companies that are 'green' in their business practices. BMW, for example, makes a big deal about how 'green' the i3 and the plant that makes it are. That's the same claim they make for their new Rolls-Royce plant.

Some investment analysts have not only downgraded VW's stock, they have told their customers that they can no longer recommend holding it based on "moral grounds." VW's reputation is right down there with tobacco companies and gun manufacturers, two other types of holdings that many mutual funds refuse to hold.



tonyspumoni said:


> On a more serious note I hadn't seen the reports suggesting the German MoT knew of this. Wow. What a total sh*t sandwich for the Krauts. Maybe they can get invade by Greece? Oh wait a minute. I think that already happened. My bad.


They invaded Greece already and every time a new government takes over in Greece, they promise to make the Germans pay more in reparations. 

Apparently politicians in Germany are just like politicians in the US. They hold political office for a number of years and then go to work in private industry once their government career is over. In the US that usually means moving their office to K Street, or, if they're very lucky, they might end up as Chairman of Halliburton for a few years and rake in $50 million! :yikes:

In Germany, quite a few former government officials went to work in the auto industry after leaving government. It's a very cozy relationship, which explains why the German auto industry has not had to worry all that much about governmental intrusion. Of course, it doesn't hurt if you make a $750,000 contribution to Angela Merkel's CDU either. That was just chump change to BMW's Quandt family.

Check this out, it's VERY revealing and might explain why the German Ministry of Transport did nothing after a whistleblower _reportedly_ notified them two years ago that VW had rigged their cars' software to cheat the US EPA tests: http://www.ibtimes.com/volkswagen-scandal-exposes-cozy-ties-between-auto-industry-berlin-2115513



Robert A said:


> Except that all the dealer test drives and magazine reviews that led to us to purchasing the car were based on the faulty emission system. The newly reconfigured car is not the one we were sold.


There are already dozens of class-action lawsuits in the works. They usually get consolidated to make them easier to deal with. I can tell you what has happened historically. The manufacturer agrees to comply with the government's new instructions/rules and offers a cash refund to the affected customers. That's what happened with Oldsmobile customers who learned that their 350 cu in V8 was not an Oldsmobile engine (Olds stopped making their own V8 in 1990) but actually a Chevrolet engine. The Monroney sticker back then was not required to identify the source of the major parts. IIRC, the customers received a $700 refund from Oldsmobile, which was substantial at the time.  Today the Monroney sticker even tells you the percentage of components sourced from the US and Canada and the percentage from foreign countries. Canada is considered a suburb of the US.


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## totitan (May 11, 2013)

Heres the 16 GSW SE tsi that I just bought

Oops see next post


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## totitan (May 11, 2013)

Heres the 16 GSW SE tsi that I just bought. The new MQB platform is terrific


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## 335dFan (Nov 8, 2012)

totitan said:


> Heres the 16 GSW SE tsi that I just bought. The new MQB platform is terrific
> 
> View attachment 531898


Probably a good time to get a good deal on a VW. I've been eyeing the GSW since they arrived. But I did want a TDI.


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## Robert A (May 18, 2003)

We'd been planning to get a 2016 GSW TDI and sell our 2010 JSW TDI until all hell broke loose. Obviously, that's not possible right now. But if I were interested in a gasoline model, I'd wait until December in any event. VW isn't exactly contrite yet, but they might be soon. December is also a good time to buy anyway.



335dFan said:


> Probably a good time to get a good deal on a VW. I've been eyeing the GSW since they arrived. But I did want a TDI.


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## Kamdog (Apr 15, 2007)

regdfry said:


> Can you say Class Action Lawsuit?


I try, but all I get is A$$ Claction Lawsuit. :dunno:


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## totitan (May 11, 2013)

Robert A said:


> We'd been planning to get a 2016 GSW TDI and sell our 2010 JSW TDI until all hell broke loose. Obviously, that's not possible right now. But if I were interested in a gasoline model, I'd wait until December in any event. VW isn't exactly contrite yet, but they might be soon. December is also a good time to buy anyway.


I think I did pretty good. 14K trade in for my '12 JSW DSG with 41,000 miles, and 27,500 for the '16 GSW SE tsi that had a MSRP of a little over 30K. The hardest part was finding a '16 in stock in the color and with the equipment that I wanted. Since most of the sportwagens sold in the US were diesel the dealers inventories of tsi's are slim to none.

The 1.8 tsi really is a sweet motor....30 hp more, 40 ft lbs less, and 300 lbs than the tdi. Also it has timing chains instead of a belt, no DPF, HPFP, or Nox trap, and the cabin is noticeably larger. So far Im getting about 6-7 mpg less than the tdi.


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## Robert A (May 18, 2003)

300 lbs less than your '12 JSW, or the '16 diesel?

How is the 2016 nav/radio interface? The 2015s didn't look so hot and I'm told they upgraded it.



totitan said:


> I think I did pretty good. 14K trade in for my '12 JSW DSG with 41,000 miles, and 27,500 for the '16 GSW SE tsi that had a MSRP of a little over 30K. The hardest part was finding a '16 in stock in the color and with the equipment that I wanted. Since most of the sportwagens sold in the US were diesel the dealers inventories of tsi's are slim to none.
> 
> The 1.8 tsi really is a sweet motor....30 hp more, 40 ft lbs less, and 300 lbs than the tdi. Also it has timing chains instead of a belt, no DPF, HPFP, or Nox trap, and the cabin is noticeably larger. So far Im getting about 6-7 mpg less than the tdi.


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## totitan (May 11, 2013)

Robert A said:


> 300 lbs less than your '12 JSW, or the '16 diesel?
> 
> How is the 2016 nav/radio interface? The 2015s didn't look so hot and I'm told they upgraded it.


 300 lbs was incorrect. Curb weight of the '16 tsi is 3120, tdi 3246......2012 2.5 3256, tdi 3341. All weights are for cars equipped like mine, so my '12 tdi was 221 lbs heavier than my '16 tsi.

The 2016 infotainment system is all new and is by Fender. It is excellent. VW calls it the MIBII and you can check it out here. http://cars.reviewed.com/content/volkswagen-mib-ii-infotainment-system-first-impressions-review


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## tonyspumoni (May 23, 2010)

Is it my imagination or didn't VW already try a simple software fix as part of last year's recall of 2015 TDI's that, while improving the emissions profile somewhat, utterly failed to bring the TDI into compliance? It is naked conjecture on my part but I am dubious of VW's attempts to do so on two accounts: first, the very aggressive timeliine set for rolling out a fix, and second of the dim prospects that ANY fix can achieve compliance without yielding further problems irrespective of timelines.


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## Ninong (May 20, 2014)

tonyspumoni said:


> Is it my imagination or didn't VW already try a simple software fix as part of last year's recall of 2015 TDI's that, while improving the emissions profile somewhat, utterly failed to bring the TDI into compliance?


You are correct. VW assured the EPA and CARB that this entire situation was nothing more than a "technical glitch" that they could "fix" with a simple software patch. On that basis they were given permission to do a rolling recall in the state of California. The recall letters started going out in December 2014. Months later, some of the cars that had received the "fix" were retested but, according to a CARB official, they all failed.

It was at that point that the EPA and CARB began to doubt the truthfulness of the VW officials, so they began working on deciphering VW's proprietary code. They discovered the secret code that could detect when the engine was being tested on a dynamometer and when it was being driven. For one thing, if the steering wheel turned, it was being driven. If it was being driven, the engine was instructed to turn off all emission controls in order to achieve better performance and fuel economy. Apparently VW hoped that if they reprogrammed the cars to not turn off the emission controls all would be fine. I guess that didn't work for some reason. Or at least it didn't work on the cars that were recalled.

It was at that point that the EPA and CARB confronted VW with the fact that they had discovered the secret "defeat device," something that is specifically illegal. Shortly thereafter VW decided to confess, sort of, and admit that they actually did employ a "defeat device" but just on the 482,000 cars sold in the US. Days later they admitted that in truth the same "defeat device" was installed on more than 11 million cars worldwide.

Now that the German Transport ministry has given VW an ultimatum to come up with a solution before Oct. 7, the new CEO, Matthias Mueller has announced that VW will recall more than 11 million cars and correct the problem. I don't think he has disclosed yet exactly how that will be accomplished or why it wasn't done before if it's something they were able to solve just a few days after being given a deadline by the German government.


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## Robert A (May 18, 2003)

You have an automatic on that SE, correct? I don't think you can get a MT on this trim level. How dose it compare to the DSG you had?



totitan said:


> 300 lbs was incorrect. Curb weight of the '16 tsi is 3120, tdi 3246......2012 2.5 3256, tdi 3341. All weights are for cars equipped like mine, so my '12 tdi was 221 lbs heavier than my '16 tsi.
> 
> The 2016 infotainment system is all new and is by Fender. It is excellent. VW calls it the MIBII and you can check it out here. http://cars.reviewed.com/content/volkswagen-mib-ii-infotainment-system-first-impressions-review


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## totitan (May 11, 2013)

Robert A said:


> You have an automatic on that SE, correct? I don't think you can get a MT on this trim level. How dose it compare to the DSG you had?


Thats correct. So far Ive been surprised how well it works. In D it acts like any modern automatic, in Sport it holds each gear longer, shifts firmer, and downshifts when your slowing down. In manual using the paddle shifters its very close in feel to the DSG....shifts are instant and solid.


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## totitan (May 11, 2013)

tonyspumoni said:


> Is it my imagination or didn't VW already try a simple software fix as part of last year's recall of 2015 TDI's that, while improving the emissions profile somewhat, utterly failed to bring the TDI into compliance? It is naked conjecture on my part but I am dubious of VW's attempts to do so on two accounts: first, the very aggressive timeliine set for rolling out a fix, and second of the dim prospects that ANY fix can achieve compliance without yielding further problems irrespective of timelines.


Yes they did. As others manufacturers can attest, its impossible to have good power, economy, and legally pass emissions without a SCR system. VW was the ONLY one selling cars without SCR and now we know why. I often wondered why I had to use DEF in the 335d and not the VW. I also wondered why VW diesels dont have CBU issues like others.....if our EGR hardly ever turned on we wouldnt have CBU either.


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## tonyspumoni (May 23, 2010)

*VW & Audi Cheating on their emissions?*

I had zero CBU in either of my 335d's according to a trusted SA who had a way of indicating this without taking of the heads. What I did have was a whole slew of emissions problems with sensors and SCR, forcing me eventually to abandon them. At the time I too uttered more than one disparaging oath about the apparent inability of mighty BMW to properly engineer a well-controlled, minimally-polluting diesel and the evident ability of lowly VW to do the same without an SCR system. I have to say that schadenfredue pretty much absolutely describes my feelings towards VW as a company and pity my feeling for their effected customers.


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## totitan (May 11, 2013)

tonyspumoni said:


> I had zero CBU in either of my 335d's according to a trusted SA who had a way of indicating this without taking of the heads. What I did have was a whole slew of emissions problems with sensors and SCR, forcing me eventually to abandon them. At the time I too uttered more than one disparaging oath about the apparent inability of mighty BMW to properly engineer a well-controlled, minimally-polluting diesel and the evident ability of lowly VW to do the same without an SCR system. I have to say that schadenfredue pretty much absolutely describes my feelings towards VW as a company and pity my feeling for their effected customers.


I also have had no CBU issues or sensor issues in almost 90,000 miles. The SCR system was replaced under the CPO warranty. I do adhere to some strict usage rules for the 335d.

1. No short in town trips
2. Keep clean oil in it....changed every 6K
3. Keep the injectors clean...I add either Wurth diesel injector cleaner or Optilube XPD to every tank

Even though VW pissed me off I bought the '16 GSW tsi because theres nothing else like it on the market and VW was probably the only ones willing to take my tdi on trade.


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## Flyingman (Sep 13, 2009)

totitan said:


> I also have had no CBU issues or sensor issues in almost 90,000 miles. The SCR system was replaced under the CPO warranty. I do adhere to some strict usage rules for the 335d.
> 
> 1. No short in town trips
> 2. Keep clean oil in it....changed every 6K
> ...


'19 or '16?


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## BB_cuda (Nov 8, 2011)

chuck92116 said:


> Scapegoats.
> 
> Anyone that has worked in software development knows there are designers, coders, Q/A testers, project managers, etc.
> 
> ...


Chuck, I'm right there with you. QA has to sign off. I'm my years doing product development, QA was always a tough sale. Little people knew too and their suffering now presuming they own VW stock.


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## Kamdog (Apr 15, 2007)

Nah, it was only two guys. And they were interns, yeah, that's it, they were summer interns, and they did it during lunch break, when nobody could see 'em. Yeah, that's the ticket, summer interns. And it was all an accident. They didn't know what the coding could do. They thought it would make rude things appear on the display. That's what happened. Two guys. Interns. It was all an innocent mistake.


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## dunderhi (Dec 10, 2006)

So are you guys saying the U.S. Post Master General had known or hadn't known that Lance Armstrong was taking performance enhancing drugs while he was the centerpiece of their most successful advertising campaign? His performances were unbelievable, but many chose to believe anyway. 

Oops, wrong thread, let me start over. 

So, excellent fuel economy, excellent power, and excellent emissions all came together in the low cost package that none of their competitors could match. Those VW engineers/managers/executives must have been proud of themselves believing that they accomplished the unbelievable. Like performance enhancing drugs, the software didn't inject itself into the ECU, so who ordered it, who did it, and who looked the other way? The next couple of months should be interesting to see how this story unfolds.


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## totitan (May 11, 2013)

Great article from Ars Technica

http://arstechnica.com/cars/2015/10...impossible-how-pride-brought-vw-to-its-knees/


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## Flyingman (Sep 13, 2009)

Kamdog said:


> Nah, it was only two guys. And they were interns, yeah, that's it, they were summer interns, and they did it during lunch break, when nobody could see 'em. Yeah, that's the ticket, summer interns. And it was all an accident. They didn't know what the coding could do. They thought it would make rude things appear on the display. That's what happened. Two guys. Interns. It was all an innocent mistake.


Great impression of John Lovitz from SNL!:rofl:


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## Pierre Louis (Oct 23, 2011)

Interesting editorial in the WSJ: How to Settle the VW Scandal



> Volkswagen***8217;s behavior may have been bad, but did it ever make sense to mandate that passenger cars, after 2008, be restricted to 0.07 grams of nitrogen oxide output per mile?
> 
> This target of 0.07 grams is already about a 90% reduction from the NOX output of the average car on the road today, according to the EPA. It represents about 1/40th the output of the average full-size pickup (gasoline or diesel), of which more than 10 million are on the road.


An opinion backed up by some facts.

PL


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## Pierre Louis (Oct 23, 2011)

-


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## totitan (May 11, 2013)

Pierre Louis said:


> Interesting editorial in the WSJ: How to Settle the VW Scandal
> 
> An opinion backed up by some facts.
> 
> PL


Of course the redickulous restriction on Nox doesn't make sense. That's not really the problem here. The thing that has people around the world so riled up is the intentional deceit by Volkswagen especially with their commercials. I doubt that any of us who love driving and love cars bought tdi's because of their green aspect portrayed in the advertising, however hundreds of thousands of people who just think of a car as an appliance did. It must be remembered that us enthusiasts make up an extremely small percentage of vehicle owners. Most people could care less about the fantastic performance of 335d's and tdi's. In vw's case they want reliable transportation that gets very high miles per gallon while not polluting. In bmws case they want the emblem on the hood and the trunk as a way of showing everybody how successful they are. In my city Thousand Oaks California bmw's are everywhere but I'm willing to bet that I'm one of just a handful of BMW owners who enjoys the technical and performance aspect of their cars. Unfortunately that's just the way it is in our society today


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## tonyspumoni (May 23, 2010)

Pierre Louis said:


> From www.fuelly.com:
> 
> 2014 328d: 39.0 mpg
> 2014 328i: 28.5 mpg
> ...


Less CO2 but more NO and NO2. How to decide? NO2 has 200 - 300 times the global warming potential of CO2 normalized for mass. It sure would be interesting to understand the total global warming potential of a gallon of petrol run through a 328i and a gallon of diesel run through an uncorrected Jetta TDI. I have no basis for offering an opinion but I sure understand that the stronger the opinion and the narrower the viewpoint, the more I should be on my guard. Claiming that the standards are too stringent would have made a lot more sense pre-Dieselgate than post. Funny how the whining about 0.07 being just too tough didn't start til VW decided to throw a turd in the diesel punchbowl. I would drive a diesel again under a couple of conditions: (1) the car offered me the sort of performance I like, such as BMW's current offerings do not; (2) using my foot it would prove 14% more efficient than an equivalent petrol-powered car; and (3) pollutants other than CO2 were on par. Seems like a low bar but....

It'll sure be interesting to know the answers to two questions: did BMW need to resort to similar tricks to meet emissions standards on their diesel offerings and did VW and others, including BMW, need to do this for petrol cars as well? An argument can certainly be made that standards for NO and NO(2) are too strict but that is an entirely separate one from whether VW intentionally decided to cheat in order to avoid any attempt at compliance. As one of the world's largest car manufacturer's and the world's largest seller of diesel cars, VW certainly had a strong voice at the table when these rules were crafted. There are numerous news reports of such. But the fact that VW went as far as using their political muscle to subvert stronger European standards while at the same time cheating on even complying with the weaker ones they expressed favor for is criminal.


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## bjbolduc (Dec 19, 2012)

Not quite. N2O is a strong GHG but NO2 is a weak GHG that normally returns to earth as nitric acid.


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## tonyspumoni (May 23, 2010)

"Nitrous oxide gives rise to nitric oxide (NO) on reaction with oxygen atoms, and this NO in turn reacts with ozone. As a result, it is the main naturally occurring regulator of stratospheric ozone. It is also a major greenhouse gas and air pollutant. Considered over a 100-year period, it is calculated to have between 265 and 310 times more impact per unit mass (global-warming potential) than carbon dioxide.[3] [4]"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrous_oxide


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## tonyspumoni (May 23, 2010)

Nitrous oxide is one of the two components commonly referred to as "NOX", the other being nitric oxide. Both are bad and should be minimized to the extent possible in air pollution.


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## Pierre Louis (Oct 23, 2011)

Well-to-Wheels Emissions Analysis of 2015 Volkwagen Passat - Gas vs. Diesel



> As can be seen, "clean diesel" vehicles are generally no "worse" with respect to total well-to-wheels emissions than the cleanest gasoline vehicles due to the nature of the very low volatility of diesel fuel and overall lower emissions in the WTP phase, even though the Passat TDI is "only" certified T2B5/ULEV II, while the 1.8T gasoline version is certified PZEV. In fact, based on these EPA emission factors, the Passat TDI has lower WTW criteria pollutant emissions across-the-board than the PZEV version of the gasoline Passat.


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## Pierre Louis (Oct 23, 2011)

Here is an article written by UC Davis professors in 2001 declaring NOx standards needed reform:
View attachment Are diesel engines part of the problem or part of the solution? .pdf




> Regulatory reform is also needed to reflect the mixed energy and environmental impacts of diesel engines, and the rapid progress being made with emission reduction. As previously noted, California and the US have adopted new particulate and NOx standards that are so stringent that they could eliminate the use of diesel in light-duty vehicles. This seems problematic.
> It is important to note that light-duty emission standards were structured for gasoline cars. They are not based on a scientific formula; rather, they are based in part on how much reduction is needed to bring polluted areas into compliance with air quality standards and in part on determinations of what is deemed economically viable. For instance, standards for CO and HC have been more aggressively tightened than for NOx over the years in large part because it was judged easier and cheaper to accomplish. To maintain the spirit of the rules and goals, but recognizing diesel's superior efficiency (and lower CO2 emissions), it would seem appropriate to explore ways of making the standards more flexible. This should not be done in a way that compromises air quality, but that provides more options for companies to expand their suite of products. And perhaps some means could be created to link the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) program with emissions regulations. The ultimate goal should be design of a regulatory approach that allows manufactures to supply a mix of vehicles, fuels, and technologies that attain social goals at less overall cost.


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## ard (Jul 1, 2009)

So what VW cheating wasnt their fault, it was the regulations being too tight?


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## Pierre Louis (Oct 23, 2011)

ard said:


> So what VW cheating wasnt their fault, it was the regulations being too tight?


No, of course not. No excuse for cheating. Most of us would like the EPA to be more fair to diesels, while feeling betrayed by VW. Others believe the EPA is doing a good job.

PL


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## Pierre Louis (Oct 23, 2011)

Here is a report from 2012 by the European Commission which goes into many important topics and comparisons:
View attachment More efficient less polluting.pdf


> The Diesel route, thanks to progressive improvements in CRI technology, was able to significantly reduce NO x while maintaining lower CO2 emissions (25% better) in terms of the gasoline engine. The introduction of catalytic converters for diesels and the improved combustion technologies developed under NICE further reduced NOx emissions, but came with a moderate loss in the CO2 advantage.


..also stating the future development of portable emissions measurement systems:


> 7. Future Integrated legislation
> In order to avoid this effect, a new test cycle for passenger cars, the Worldwide Light-duty Test Procedure (WLTP), is now under development as part of an integrated legislation approach (Fig. 7.2), while one for trucks, the Worldwide Heavy Duty Certification (WHDC), has recently been adopted. The Portable Emissions Measurement Systems (PEMS) programme recently began development of a system to measure exhaust gases at the tail pipe. PEMS is intended to serve as a basis for testing and maintaining compliance with emission standards throughout the typical duration of an engine's life, thus helping to close the gap between test cycles and real emissions.
> These developments are taken into account in the most recent FP7 projects such as POWERFUL, and will no doubt strongly influence all future engines, together with the expected tightening of CO2 targets from the current 130 g/km to the 95 g/km expected by 2020. At the same time, CO2 targets are being developed for LD and HD freight vehicles (where PEMS is already being applied to keep pollution in check), driving engine research further in these sectors.
> perspectives
> Despite the efforts of so many stakeholders to reduce ICE emissions over the years, EU policymakers recognise that air quality has not improved as much as had been expected. One explanation is the difference between emissions results obtained during type- approval testing and those under real operating conditions (Fig. 7.1).


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## Pierre Louis (Oct 23, 2011)

Delphi has put out a comprehensive document for 2015/2016 discussing World Wide Testing Standards:
View attachment delphi-worldwide-emissions-standards-pc-ldv-15-16.pdf


Lots of information on future standards. Interesting.


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## Ninong (May 20, 2014)

VW has withdrawn its application for EPA certification of its 2016 models with 2.0-liter diesel engines. Michael Horn, President of VW of America, will appear before Congress tomorrow and admit that he knew about their emission problems early last year. That should be interesting. 

Meanwhile, Sen. Orrin Hatch announced that his Senate Finance Committee is opening an investigation into Volkswagen for possible fraud and abuse related to tax credits for lean-burn technology motor vehicle tax credits. Hmm... "fraud and abuse" sound like a potential criminal offense.

VW has repeatedly certified that their models qualified for the tax credits because they met fuel economy and emissions requirements. Sound like fraud right there. I guess they will have to pay back all of those credits. 

Unsurprisingly some people are now questioning whether VW has been truthful in reporting their death and serious injury rates over the past decade. The rate per million vehicles on the road for the 11 largest auto manufacturers is 9 times higher than Volkswagen's reported rate. VW's rate is so astoundingly low that some people have questioned it for years, now those same people are speculating that it's just part of a pattern of deception.


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## Ninong (May 20, 2014)

http://www.hybridcars.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/volkswagen-jetta-tdi-clean-diesel.jpg
Time for a new paint job?


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## dunderhi (Dec 10, 2006)

Ninong said:


> http://www.hybridcars.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/volkswagen-jetta-tdi-clean-diesel.jpg
> Time for a new paint job?


Is that going to be part of VW's fix for their TDIs? :yikes:

On nice days, the Mrs & I take our convertible for a drive. During each trip we encounter a large oversized diesel pick-up, an old dump trick, or a old gasser car that it is painfully obvious that it is polluting 100's, if not 1000's, of times greater than what is currently allowed in the regulations. I would think if VW did a cash for clunkers aimed directly at these vehicles they could easily offset all of the additional pollution caused by their TDIs with only a couple thousand of these super-polluters vehicles purchased. That, along with fixing their TDIs, would make a difference to me.


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## Pierre Louis (Oct 23, 2011)

dunderhi said:


> Is that going to be part of VW's fix for their TDIs? :yikes:
> 
> On nice days, the Mrs & I take our convertible for a drive. During each trip we encounter a large oversized diesel pick-up, an old dump trick, or a old gasser car that it is painfully obvious that it is polluting 100's, if not 1000's, of times greater than what is currently allowed in the regulations. I would think if VW did a cash for clunkers aimed directly at these vehicles they could easily offset all of the additional pollution caused by their TDIs with only a couple thousand of these super-polluters vehicles purchased. That, along with fixing their TDIs, would make a difference to me.


Exactly why I am not enamored by the enviro's on putting the screws to the easy targets like auto manufacturers and oil companies. But lets give credit where it is due: NOx is more a political issue. While the EPA is probably looking at all aspects of pollution, their bias works against those with different points of view, and is influenced by lawmakers and other moneyed interests. My mobility is part of my freedom as well as my freedom to choose what I do with my money etc. Consumers are the losers here.

Cheers.

PL


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## MSY-MSP (Aug 14, 2009)

Ninong said:


> VW has withdrawn its application for EPA certification of its 2016 models with 2.0-liter diesel engines. Michael Horn, President of VW of America, will appear before Congress tomorrow and admit that he knew about their emission problems early last year. That should be interesting.


I think the withdrawal of the application is very telling. Probably the biggest answer to the question as to how VW will fix this. If the fix in the newer cars was simply a software fix or could be done with little modification, they wouldn't have withdrawn the application. This tells me that in the month or so since this hit the fan VW figured out that they cannot get the cars to meet the requirements all of the time and have the vehicles function in an acceptable manner.

If i were to guess it is the Ad-Blue consumption rate that is the problem, and the current tank is just too small to allow the vehicles to operate on an acceptable basis. VW looked at the vehicles and determined that there is no easy location to add a bigger tank and adding the tank will take significant engineering work on the cars to function properly. VW may be able to software tweak the cars in Europe to meet European standards, but the stricter US standards may not be meetable. Hence why VW offered a software fix for Germany but has remained quiet on what it will do in the US.

That being said, it looks to me as though VW is probably looking at having to *****back all of the non-compliant diesels in the US. Likely this *****back is going to be mandatory and not optional, as VW has almost admitted that it cannot be fixed timely.


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## Robert A (May 18, 2003)

It is very telling and I was disappointed to hear they pulled their '16 diesel lineup. My original assumption was that the newer motor would be much easier to fix. Before all this happened, we were planning on trading up to the '16 GSW diesel. Now I don't know what we're going to do.



MSY-MSP said:


> I think the withdrawal of the application is very telling. Probably the biggest answer to the question as to how VW will fix this. If the fix in the newer cars was simply a software fix or could be done with little modification, they wouldn't have withdrawn the application. This tells me that in the month or so since this hit the fan VW figured out that they cannot get the cars to meet the requirements all of the time and have the vehicles function in an acceptable manner.


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## Autoputzer (Mar 16, 2014)

MSY-MSP said:


> I think the withdrawal of the application is very telling. Probably the biggest answer to the question as to how VW will fix this. If the fix in the newer cars was simply a software fix or could be done with little modification, they wouldn't have withdrawn the application. This tells me that in the month or so since this hit the fan VW figured out that they cannot get the cars to meet the requirements all of the time and have the vehicles function in an acceptable manner.
> 
> If i were to guess it is the Ad-Blue consumption rate that is the problem, and the current tank is just too small to allow the vehicles to operate on an acceptable basis. VW looked at the vehicles and determined that there is no easy location to add a bigger tank and adding the tank will take significant engineering work on the cars to function properly. VW may be able to software tweak the cars in Europe to meet European standards, but the stricter US standards may not be meetable. Hence why VW offered a software fix for Germany but has remained quiet on what it will do in the US.
> 
> That being said, it looks to me as though VW is probably looking at having to *****back all of the non-compliant diesels in the US. Likely this *****back is going to be mandatory and not optional, as VW has almost admitted that it cannot be fixed timely.


The smaller VW-Audi diesels in question don't use DEF. These engines can pass without DEF. But, their performance and efficiency will suffer. Adding a DEF system to the cars would be very expensive. By the time the class-action lawyers get finished with them, adding a DEF system might be a follow-on option later, thought.

The EPA requires a vehicle's DEF tank to be large enough to go to the next oil change before a DEF refill.


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## veery (Feb 25, 2015)

Robert A said:


> It is very telling and I was disappointed to hear they pulled their '16 diesel lineup. My original assumption was that the newer motor would be much easier to fix. Before all this happened, we were planning on trading up to the '16 GSW diesel. Now I don't know what we're going to do.


What you CAN do is be very grateful you found out now rather than after buying the '16.


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## Robert A (May 18, 2003)

No, because then I would have been rid of our '10. Now we're stuck with it, with no diesel options.



veery said:


> What you CAN do is be very grateful you found out now rather than after buying the '16.


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## Doug Huffman (Apr 25, 2015)

Autoputzer said:


> [ ... ]The EPA requires a vehicle's DEF tank to be large enough to go to the next oil change before a DEF refill.


DEF consumption rates are typically 2% - 6% of fuel rate.


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## wxmanCCM (Feb 17, 2010)

All areas of the U.S. are well below the National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) for NO2 (NOx = NO + NO2) based on EPA monitoring data.










The ambient NO2 levels continue to decline.


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## Autoputzer (Mar 16, 2014)

Doug Huffman said:


> DEF consumption rates are typically 2% - 6% of fuel rate.


Here's some bureaucratic gobblty-**** about how EPA came up with the one-oil change rule, circa 2009:

http://www.federalregister.com/Browse/Document/usa/na/fr/2009/11/9/e9-26924

Maybe they relaxed the DEF range requirement in subsequent years as the emission standards got tighter.


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## Ninong (May 20, 2014)

MSY-MSP said:


> I think the withdrawal of the application is very telling. Probably the biggest answer to the question as to how VW will fix this.


Michael Horn, the President of VW of America, testified this morning that a software fix won't be enough to bring most of the 482,000 vehicles involved in its emissions violations scandal into compliance with EPA standards.

When Horn was asked specifically what sort of compensation VW intended to offer to Americans who purchased VW diesels if the "fix" didn't provide them with the same performance and fuel economy they were promised on the Monroney label when they purchased the car, he said that it is his understanding that VW hoped to be able to achieve results close to the fuel economy and performance originally promised but "maybe a little off the top end." Whatever that means. As far as compensation for that, if necessary, and compensation to the US for the extra NOx pumped into the atmosphere over the past seven years, he went into the same sort of defense others have offered in this thread by explaining just how tiny that quantity is in the grand scheme of things. However, he said that all of that is being discussed with the appropriate US authorities as part of the final settlement agreement.

I think it's obvious that most VW diesel owners would prefer to ignore the recall notice and just keep their cars the way they are without getting "the fix." No doubt CARB will come up with a way to defeat that option by requiring on-the-road testing of those vehicles prior to renewal. You either get "the fix" or you don't get your car's registration renewed. I'm sure they will be testing dozens of VW diesels that have already gotten "the fix" to see if they are in compliance.

In other news, three German prosecutors, accompanied by 50 police officers, raided VW headquarters in Wolfsburg and several private residences this morning confiscating records and computer storage devices.


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## Ninong (May 20, 2014)

Audi: Truth in Engineering
Truth Leaves Others Behind

Hmm... might be time for a new slogan?


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## Pierre Louis (Oct 23, 2011)

Sort of reminds me of Toyota's past slogan: "Moving Forward" and it's unintended acceleration.

http://lifebent.blogspot.com/2013/04/toyotas-legacy-moving-forward.html


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## dunderhi (Dec 10, 2006)

wxmanCCM said:


> All areas of the U.S. are well below the National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) for NO2 (NOx = NO + NO2) based on EPA monitoring data.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


So our air quality is good (or at least EPA approved?) but analysis shows that VW's emissions directly caused the deaths of 16-94 people?










Should we also know how many people die from our "good air" from other sources to help put this into perspective? Maybe Google can help. Ah there it is. 200k/year in the U.S. So by the AP estimate, VW's cheating accounted for 5 to 20 additional air pollution related deaths out of a total of 200k. Okay, maybe I can stop holding my breath when I see a TDI. :rofl:

Air Pollution Causes-200,000 Early Deaths Each Year-in-the U.S.

Looking at the pollution maps below, moving West might be a good idea for when I retire. :dunno:


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## Flyingman (Sep 13, 2009)

Doug Huffman said:


> DEF consumption rates are typically 2% - 6% of fuel rate.


More like 1-3%, unless you're buying the DEF that has been double cut with distilled water!:rofl:

I've done the math several times for my 335d.

I go 13,000 miles between OCI, I get 29.1mpg so I consume a total of 446.7 gals of Diesel per OCI. My DEF Tank lasts at least the 13k, so lets say I use 6 gals of DEF, 6 gals/446.7 gals X 100 = 1.343% of Def to Diesel, every time, and I drive a varied mix of hwy and city and spirited.:thumbup:

As advertised! Why cant VW figure this out?:yikes:


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## Flyingman (Sep 13, 2009)

Listening to the VW US CEO give testimony to Congress Yesterday, I couldn't help myself!:rofl:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=34ag4nkSh7Q


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## Flyingman (Sep 13, 2009)

*2016 VW Diesel Lineup Withdrawn: Jetta, Passat, Golf, Beetle TDI Models May Be Modifi*

So,

It appears that the 2016 models, even with the DEF, had software that defeated the emission controls when not being tested. That is at least my take on their pulling their 2016 request for emission certificates.

This brings into serious doubt "if" their full blown emission controls will ever work!

I'm going to go on record saying that they better also check their other diesel models as well, as I suspect this is being used throughout their diesel line up.:yikes:

I predict this will be revealed in short order.


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## henrycyao (Oct 23, 2012)

Flyingman said:


> So,
> 
> It appears that the 2016 models, even with the DEF, had software that defeated the emission controls when not being tested. That is at least my take on their pulling their 2016 request for emission certificates.
> 
> ...


If they don't come clean with the other diesel, the fine will go up and closer to max limit.


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## wxmanCCM (Feb 17, 2010)

dunderhi said:


> So our air quality is good (or at least EPA approved?) but analysis shows that VW's emissions directly caused the deaths of 16-94 people?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I saw that too, but I haven't seen exactly how that figure was derived.

Again, the extra NOx emissions from the non-compliant TDI vehicles are offset about every 4 days by replacing 1990s-era Class 8 trucks with 2010-compliant Class 8 trucks according to EPA emission factors.


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## MSY-MSP (Aug 14, 2009)

Flyingman said:


> So,
> 
> It appears that the 2016 models, even with the DEF, had software that defeated the emission controls when not being tested. That is at least my take on their pulling their 2016 request for emission certificates.
> 
> ...


That is exactly what i was saying with regards to the pulling of the 2016 certification requests for the TDI. It tells me that a software fix isn't going to work and it is likely because they sized the tanks too small and they have no where to put a larger tank system. When you aren't running the emissions system very long or often, you don't need that big of a tank. My guess is that the engineers went back to the drawing board and very quickly came to the realization that it cannot be done in any reasonable time period. The likely answer is that the cars need a full redesign to comply with the US standards. Euro standards could be met with software alone, but US could not.

This also tells me that for the existing cars with DEF that the software won't work to fix them either. The cars without DEF are in worse shape. Realistically, I am not sure how VW comes out of this without having to buy back all of the cars. If they cannot be brought into compliance in any reasonable fashion, I don't think they have any other option.

Again the decision to pull the 2016 request indicates that VW cannot fix the issue. If they could fix the issue then there would be no reason to cancel the request.


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## dunderhi (Dec 10, 2006)

Ninong said:


> That same CR article also claimed that VW said most of its cars could be fixed with a simple software upgrade. They don't say who at VW told them that.
> 
> I will link to this article from Automotive News for the third time in this thread in case some people didn't see it. According to Michael Horn, President of VW of America, only about 67,000 of the 482,000 cars in the US can be fixed with just a software upgrade, the rest will require hardware and software changes. He said that under oath in testimony before Congress.


I submit that all VW's will pass the emissions test and would have been considered road legal with just a software patch, but the new concept of real-world in-motion testing means some vehicles on the fringe of compliance will not meet this new testing methodology. This in-motion testing could hit other diesel models from other brands. So don't be surprised if the list of noncompliant diesel grows, but once the diesel phobia subsides, they'll start testing gassers only to find out some of them fail the new testing protocol. I suspect that the EPA already knows this likely outcome, but in logical prioritization of their limited funding they implemented this in-motion testing was first for the biggest polluters: commercial trucks.


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## MotoWPK (Oct 5, 2012)

dunderhi said:


> I submit that all VW's will pass the emissions test and would have been considered road legal with just a software patch, but the new concept of real-world in-motion testing means some vehicles on the fringe of compliance will not meet this new testing methodology.


Yes, but the VW's in question, indeed all vehicles (diesel and gas) that have been and are currently being sold are not required to meet 'in-motion testing' - the requirements are based on dyno tests. In-motion testing may become the requirement, and I believe it is either set or about to be set to become the requirement in the EU in 2017, but not today or in the past.

Which comes back to why won't a software patch resolve the problem since the vehicles in question did meet the emissions limits on test and the compliance problem is that they were configured differently off test? Logically it would seem that trying to operate the vehicles on the road with the 'test configuration' will create other problems. The CR test would seem to indicate the problem operating them on road in the test configuration is not a short term problem - they ran with only modest performance degradation. Therefore, some other, long term problem must exist trying to operate the vehicles in test mode.


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## Flyingman (Sep 13, 2009)

Yes, but the key here is that VW defeated the emission controls without advising the authorities. Of course they are allowed to adjust their emissions controls for those times when it is warranted and necessary, i.e. like pulling a heavy load up a hill for example, or perhaps during a regen of the DPF, but they must advise about these features.

VW just completely ignored all of that and defeated their emission controls in all but "Test" mode. Basically rendering their emission controls as null and void at all other times.

Oh, and they failed to mention that little details to the EPA when they submitted their emission approval request.

I'm pretty certain that VW is totally screwed on this one. It will be back to the drawing board.

Meantime all of those VW TDI owners are totally screwed, and those of us with "proper" diesels will also suffer as the entire diesel sector is left with a major black eye.


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## madhotm3 (Aug 14, 2011)

Flyingman said:


> Meantime all of those VW TDI owners are totally screwed, and those of us with "proper" diesels will also suffer as the entire diesel sector is left with a major black eye.


I agree, for the most part ... It doesn't really effect those of us that have leased our diesels. We may even get a better purchase deal at the end of the lease.


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## Robert A (May 18, 2003)

The topic may be getting more attention for VW owners than the car buying public at large. Jon Shafer told me that his BMW diesel sales are unaffected so far, though that was two weeks ago.



madhotm3 said:


> I agree, for the most part ... It doesn't really effect those of us that have leased our diesels. We may even get a better purchase deal at the end of the lease.


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## Pierre Louis (Oct 23, 2011)

*Its only NOx that is higher in diesels, everything else may be better*

In this very recent study, Gaseous and Particulate Exhaust Emissions of Hybrid and Conventional Cars over Legislative and Real Driving Cycles, diesel vehicles are significantly better at small particulates (PN) than compressed natural gas (CNG) and gasoline hybrids, better at hydrocarbon (HC) and also for carbon monoxide (CO).
View attachment Gaseous and Particulate Exhaust Emissions of Hybrid and Conventional Cars over Legislative and R.pdf


This is not news, but from what the hysteria suggests, diesels are severe polluters while most don't even bother looking at hybrid/gasoline emissions.

The study, unfortunately, uses similar displacement engines to make comparisons with, something that many commonly do. In reality, an equivalently powered engine, at least torque-wise, is a smaller displacement diesel and will be better in CO2 and fuel economy than an equivalently powered gasser.

Here is the data showing a) gasoline-hybrid particulates are not even measured under one column, and b) when they are, they exceed DPF-diesel particulate emissions by an order of magnitude (CNG is even worse than hybrid):








Comparing graphs of other pollutants, diesel does quite well and is better than CNG and hybrid:








Only when it comes to CO2 and fuel economy is the similar displacement, but likely more powerful diesel slightly worse:








To me, there is a witch hunt going on against diesel. Nothing new there either. From the beginning, diesel emissions were forced into regulations originally designed for gasoline cars. The carcinogenic effects related to emissions are, to my knowledge, almost entirely studied in the particulate matter, often with unrealistic direct measurements in pre clean-diesel exhaust pipes instead of ambient air. Gasoline cars are not evaluated for their PM pollution most of the time even though the data shows they are much worse than DPF diesels. NOx is more responsible for visible smog and ozone, a problem also, but which gets worse as compression is increased in all engines.

Once reality sets in, the next step might be SCR/DPF for gasoline cars, if there is to be any fairness in regulations. If gasoline cars are also to become extinct, let see how electric vehicles do, with most areas of the world producing excess electrical capacity by burning hydrocarbons. Lets see how that will work!

PL


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## glangford (Dec 11, 2013)

Robert A said:


> The topic may be getting more attention for VW owners than the car buying public at large. Jon Shafer told me that his BMW diesel sales are unaffected so far, though that was two weeks ago.


There are alot of diesel heads driving VWs out there. I'm surprised that there hasn't been an ad campaign from BMW, Mercedes, and even Chevy with the Cruze touting the 'real' clean diesel technology.


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## dunderhi (Dec 10, 2006)

glangford said:


> There are alot of diesel heads driving VWs out there. I'm surprised that there hasn't been an ad campaign from BMW, Mercedes, and even Chevy with the Cruze touting the 'real' clean diesel technology.


They're probably all in a panic retesting their own cars with the in-motion procedure. :rofl:


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## dunderhi (Dec 10, 2006)

Pierre Louis said:


> In this very recent study, Gaseous and Particulate Exhaust Emissions of Hybrid and Conventional Cars over Legislative and Real Driving Cycles, diesel vehicles are significantly better at small particulates (PN) than compressed natural gas (CNG) and gasoline hybrids, better at hydrocarbon (HC) and also for carbon monoxide (CO).
> View attachment 533607
> 
> 
> ...


The European diesel tested in the report would not meet EPA standards, so our cars are actually cleaner than the one that was tested.


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## henrycyao (Oct 23, 2012)

MotoWPK said:


> Yes, but the VW's in question, indeed all vehicles (diesel and gas) that have been and are currently being sold are not required to meet 'in-motion testing' - the requirements are based on dyno tests. In-motion testing may become the requirement, and I believe it is either set or about to be set to become the requirement in the EU in 2017, but not today or in the past.
> 
> Which comes back to why won't a software patch resolve the problem since the vehicles in question did meet the emissions limits on test and the compliance problem is that they were configured differently off test? Logically it would seem that trying to operate the vehicles on the road with the 'test configuration' will create other problems. The CR test would seem to indicate the problem operating them on road in the test configuration is not a short term problem - they ran with only modest performance degradation. Therefore, some other, long term problem must exist trying to operate the vehicles in test mode.


This is my gut feeling. I read that VW uses a NOX capture technology. If that is the case, it is possible there is a maximum saturation of the NOX. They basically slow down the engine generation of NOX and allow the capture to work during the test. I have a feeling a much longer test cycle will show it fail eventually.

This is only speculation. There must be something physical that is not there.


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## henrycyao (Oct 23, 2012)

Robert A said:


> The topic may be getting more attention for VW owners than the car buying public at large. Jon Shafer told me that his BMW diesel sales are unaffected so far, though that was two weeks ago.


This won't be reflected about a month later. This is because I believe most families takes more than a month to decide on a car. I know that is for my case. I am purely guessing on the time table. We will know by December to see how much this affect not just diesel but gas sales for BMW and Mercedes. Will this affect the view of BMW/Mercedes in US market? The stock market seem to bet on it for global sales. I am not sure I am willing to bet against them.


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## Ninong (May 20, 2014)

Dozens of VW managers were involved in emissions scandal and will be suspended: http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/comp...-suspected-in-vw-emissions-scandal/ar-AAfrdEg

P.S. -- VW claims "this number is completely unfounded." http://www.autonews.com/article/20151014/OEM02/151019948/1221


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## Flyingman (Sep 13, 2009)

NPR stated that VW was cutting a third shift and put up a hiring freeze at Wolfsburg engine plant. Locals are worried about the soon to come layoffs.

Debate is what affect will it have on the overall German Economy.

It's gonna continue to get worse before it will ever get better.:tsk:


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## Flyingman (Sep 13, 2009)

*VW to Switch to a Costlier Diesel Technology*

Like we didn't see this coming!:tsk:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/vw-to-cut-investment-by-1-billion-a-year-1444728786

BERLIN- Volkswagen AG 's largest business by revenue, its namesake passenger-car brand that originated the Beetle, on Tuesday pledged a package of cost cuts and sweeping changes to its model and diesel strategy in the wake of the emissions scandal that has gripped the company.

The Volkswagen brand, which sold 4.6 million cars in 2014 and generated nearly €100 billion ($113.76 billion) in revenue, will slash its annual capital spending by €1 billion as part of the company's broader cost-reduction plans. Volkswagen has said it will accelerate cost-cutting efforts and likely will scrap some projects it no longer considers a priority.

The moves come as Europe's largest auto maker has promised to slash its overall costs by at least €10 billion a year by 2018. Volkswagen is expecting massive costs from regulatory fines, law suits and new diesel technology in the wake of its admission last month that it cheated on emissions tests.

In response, Volkswagen is ramping up plans to develop electric vehicles and is scrapping existing emissions technology in its diesel engines in favor of more expensive AdBlue and selective catalytic reduction, or SCR, technology to reduce nitrogen oxide emissions.

"It was decided to switch over to installing only diesel drives with SCR and AdBlue technology in Europe and North America as soon as possible," the company said in a statement. "Diesel vehicles will only be equipped with exhaust emissions systems that use the best environmental technology," it added.

Volkswagen's admission that it used software to manipulate the results of emission testing to sidestep pollution standards in millions of cars has rocked the automaker. And the figures involved are pretty staggering. WSJ's Dipti Kapadia explains the scandal in numbers. Photo: Getty Images
. 
AdBlue is a fluid based on urea that is injected into the exhaust pipeline where it vaporizes and neutralizes the nitrogen oxide in the catalytic converter.

In 2007, Volkswagen scrapped a similar technology called BlueTec that was licensed from rival Daimler AG in favor of a less expensive system. Last month, Volkswagen admitted that its EA 189 diesel engine with that less costly system didn't meet U.S. emission standards, so the company installed software on the engine's controller to deceive emissions testers.

The AdBlue and SCR procedure is considered the best way to reduce toxic tailpipe emissions, but it is more expensive than the method Volkswagen chose in the past for its TDI diesel engines.

The switch to AdBlue and SCR is a major change for Volkswagen and would appear to be an acknowledgment that its existing so-called lean nitrogen trap technology can't meet strict U.S. restrictions on tailpipe emissions.

The scandal also is forcing Volkswagen to accelerate plans to develop battery-driven and hybrid electric vehicles.

The company announced it will develop a common platform for sharing electric vehicle components across its various models and brands and offer a new generation of all-electric cars that can travel over 300 miles on a single charge.

In a move designed to challenge U.S. electric-car maker Tesla Motors Inc., Volkswagen will reposition its Phaeton sedan as an ultraluxury high-tech ride that "features a pure electric drive with long-distance capability, connectivity and next-generation assistance systems as well as an emotional design."

The Phaeton, a pet project of former Supervisory Board Chairman Ferdinand Piëch, has been a loss-maker and it was widely expected that the expensive model would be scrapped. It isn't currently sold in North America.

The decision shows that Volkswagen will retain to the symbolic high-tech projects crucial to its branding, despite last week's decision to slash costs and focus on necessary projects in light of still unforeseeable costs related to the scandal.

"We are very aware that we can only implement these innovations for the future of the Volkswagen brand effectively if we succeed with our efficiency program and in giving our product range new focus," said Volkswagen brand chief Herbert Diess in a statement.


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## The Pope (Oct 14, 2015)

Just thinking out loud....... could this VW situation lead to a "Global Standardization" for the emissions? If so, it "migh" be a good thing. :dunno:

Think about it...... if BMW only build one configuration of each of their deisel engines, it would make it much easier for those of us in the USA. Say, if we wanted an F31 with the N57(I think I have that right??? 3.0L I6 Deisel) and 6M(if this is a combination that they even offer elsewhere), we might be able to order it or any other configuration that BMW is already selling elsewhere. Dealers would not have to stock as many units as well and there would be less new prior year models on the dealers lots come model year change time.

Well ..... I can dream, right?


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## finnbmw (Jul 6, 2008)

Globally, no. At least not in our life time.

Between US and EU, possibly.


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## Flyingman (Sep 13, 2009)

The Pope said:


> Just thinking out loud....... could this VW situation lead to a "Global Standardization" for the emissions? If so, it "migh" be a good thing. :dunno:
> 
> Think about it...... if BMW only build one configuration of each of their deisel engines, it would make it much easier for those of us in the USA. Say, if we wanted an F31 with the N57(I think I have that right??? 3.0L I6 Deisel) and 6M(if this is a combination that they even offer elsewhere), we might be able to order it or any other configuration that BMW is already selling elsewhere. Dealers would not have to stock as many units as well and there would be less new prior year models on the dealers lots come model year change time.
> 
> Well ..... I can dream, right?


Maybe in the New World Order!

Meantime economics, regulations and politics remain at play. Cars that are not made for the US Market (think DOT and EPA) are actually quite different than those for all the other markets. From outside appearances it may not seems so, but when you get into the structure, body panels, safety issues, etc... it is quite a bit different. That is why it is like next to impossible to import a non-US car to the USA.

I had bought my car in the USA and then took it out of the country for (13) years and when I went to bring it back in I had to go through a major inspection to have it verified it was still in compliance with DOT, EPA and that I hadn't stolen it!

Silly things like seatbelts, airbags, etc... are different in other countries. I am also told that doors for US have added stiffeners for collision safety.

I had a BMW Z-3 that was manufactured in South Carolina, was Shipped to Germany, then Shipped to Central America where I was. One feature for sure that was different than the US model was it had no roll bar behind the seat which I think US cars had to have. And to get that added after the fact was a major issue to do.


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## Ninong (May 20, 2014)

Daimler has agreed to VW's request to help them out of this mess by allowing one of their top executives to join VW in a new Board of Management position to oversee "compliance and integrity." Daimler said they are doing it in the interests of the German auto industry. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...-chief-from-daimler-in-wake-of-diesel-scandal

P.S. -- Automotive News has a much better article on this here: http://www.autonews.com/article/201...ers-compliance-chief-to-manage-diesel-scandal Oops! It may not be available without subscription. Sorry. Anyway the most interesting addition to her background is that prior to joining Daimler in 2011, she was a judge for 11 years on Germany's Constitutional Court. She will be in charge of compliance, integrity and legal affairs at VW starting Jan. 1, 2016 as a member of its Board of Management.

In other news, the WSJ reported today that another very senior executive at VW has been suspended. VW refused to comment.


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## The Pope (Oct 14, 2015)

Flyingman said:


> Maybe in the New World Order!
> 
> Meantime economics, regulations and politics remain at play. Cars that are not made for the US Market (think DOT and EPA) are actually quite different than those for all the other markets. From outside appearances it may not seems so, but when you get into the structure, body panels, safety issues, etc... it is quite a bit different. That is why it is like next to impossible to import a non-US car to the USA.
> 
> ...


Ummmmm..... oooookkkkkkkkkkk....... I never said the *Entire Vehicle*, just the deisel engines, but thanks anyway.


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## Flyingman (Sep 13, 2009)

I know, you all thought this topic would die a slow death!

I was listening to NPR yesterday and they had an interesting article about the VW Diesel Scandal and they pointed out the whole after market tune aspect.

I can see it coming now!

http://www.npr.org/sections/alltech...vw-a-robust-market-for-reprogramming-vehicles


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## Jamolay (May 11, 2014)

Flyingman said:


> I know, you all thought this topic would die a slow death!
> 
> I was listening to NPR yesterday and they had an interesting article about the VW Diesel Scandal and they pointed out the whole after market tune aspect.
> 
> ...


I wonder what percentage of diesel vehicles tune. I bet it is a small number and therefore it may not be worth challenging


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## Hoooper (Jun 17, 2013)

They are saying they need to look at whether tuners are legal? Really? They're clearly not legal to use and have always been illegal to use. There are plenty of states and locations that will look the other way, but that doesn't change the legality. I think the real question they are posing is whether it is legal for companies to sell tuners. It will be a sad day in America when it is illegal for a company to sell a product because the average consumer decides to use it illegally.


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## bjbolduc (Dec 19, 2012)

Well if you check other threads in the diesel forum, there are many people looking to tune their cars. There is a big difference between an individual owner bypassing emission controls and the same act done by the OEM.


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## Jamolay (May 11, 2014)

Hoooper said:


> They are saying they need to look at whether tuners are legal? Really? They're clearly not legal to use and have always been illegal to use. There are plenty of states and locations that will look the other way, but that doesn't change the legality. I think the real question they are posing is whether it is legal for companies to sell tuners. It will be a sad day in America when it is illegal for a company to sell a product because the average consumer decides to use it illegally.


If a product is illegal to use, how can a consumer do anything but use it illegally. If there are no legal uses, how could it be legal to sell it? I don't understand your concern.


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## Flyingman (Sep 13, 2009)

The debate was over the OEMs copy rights of their own software and if one can tap in and modify this legally, then the aspect of actually changing the emissions with a tune, rendering them out of specification, i.e. increasing pollution, and the difficulty in actually detecting if a vehicle has been tuned or not.

They actually named a number of tune manufacturers, mostly related to large trucks, and only one responded, which interestingly enough was a British Tune, who said they had only done one test of their tune and it had "improved" emissions.

As long as you live in a state that doesn't check emissions, like here in Florida, no one will ever know.


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## Hoooper (Jun 17, 2013)

Jamolay said:


> If a product is illegal to use, how can a consumer do anything but use it illegally. If there are no legal uses, how could it be legal to sell it? I don't understand your concern.


Though they might not be as numerous as the opportunities to use tunes illegally, there are plenty of opportunities to use tunes legally.


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## bjbolduc (Dec 19, 2012)

The qualification for tuning products is typically for off road use and not for use in the peoples republic of California


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## floydarogers (Oct 11, 2010)

Don't think I've seen this posted. Scroll down to the bottom - VW is in a really, really, really bad place.

https://www.bmwcca.org/news/bmw-ceo-discusses-future-diesel

"The Volkswagen Group***8217;s latest estimate of the cost of the scandal will exceed $33,100,000. The Group says the Volkswagen division will take the hit, leaving the Audi and Porsche divisions intact. Outside analysts say that figuring in the recalls, the fines, and the lawsuit awards and settlements, the total bill could run as high as $97,000,000,000. Yes, that***8217;s almost a tenth of a trillion dollars. Not even Volkswagen has that kind of jack laying around. It will have to tighten its belt."


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## ddeliber (Jan 31, 2013)

floydarogers said:


> Don't think I've seen this posted. Scroll down to the bottom - VW is in a really, really, really bad place.
> 
> https://www.bmwcca.org/news/bmw-ceo-discusses-future-diesel
> 
> "The Volkswagen Group's latest estimate of the cost of the scandal will exceed $33,100,000. The Group says the Volkswagen division will take the hit, leaving the Audi and Porsche divisions intact. Outside analysts say that figuring in the recalls, the fines, and the lawsuit awards and settlements, the total bill could run as high as $97,000,000,000. Yes, that's almost a tenth of a trillion dollars. Not even Volkswagen has that kind of jack laying around. It will have to tighten its belt."


Interesting.... VW says the cost will exceed $$33 mil. Analysts say it can be as high as $97 billion. That is a pretty big difference.

Another thing I saw in the article that was also mentioned a few other times that has me confused:



> "Let's sum up what we already knew. To keep from putting more expensive urea-based emission control systems on some of their diesel cars, Volkswagen instead installed software that would activate its emission control system only when the vehicle was being tested on a dynamometer. When the car was traveling on the highway, *the emission control system was switched off*.


Where was the bold part from? Anyone see this in the VW's admission or is this simply an assumption? There is a big difference IMO between making sure the full emissions control system is on and running full blast during tests vs taking things the extra step and shutting them all the way off everywhere else.

Now I am not trying to defend VWs actions, I just want to know if this is what they admitted to or is this just some journalistic liberties taken at the expense of a caught cheat while he is lying on the floor tied up getting ready to be roasted.


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## Pierre Louis (Oct 23, 2011)

BMW CCA is not full of diesel haters, just people who don't understand them very well. Certainly its believable that VW "switched off all" pollution controls if "diesel is dirty" falls into the assumed belief. 

We don't really know, but those of us that follow diesel emissions equipment and their challenges might assume that increasing NOx emissions would decrease particulates and soot.

PL


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## Ninong (May 20, 2014)

ddeliber said:


> Interesting.... VW says the cost will exceed $$33 mil.


Volkswagen did not say that.



> Analysts say it can be as high as $97 billion.


That's the very worst case scenario and assumes the highest possible fines (e.g, $37,500 per car in the US) and most expensive estimates on fixing the cars and highest possible legal settlements. That's not really a serious estimate. VW has so far set aside only 6.7 billion euro but that's just in this quarter and not the full amount that they expect this to cost them. No one can really estimate what the final bill will be but not many people seriously expect it to exceed $25 billion.



> Where was the bold part from? Anyone see this in the VW's admission or is this simply an assumption?


Well, once again, that's just the way the author of this blog post/article on BMWCCA expressed it. Maybe he didn't word it as well as he could have. What VW has admitted is that they deliberately employed an illegal "defeat device" that could detect when the car was being tested and switch to "testing mode." Their cars were designed with two different modes. Driving mode and testing mode. Testing mode maintained NOx emissions within legal limits but fuel economy and performance would suffer. Once the car was no longer being tested (e.g., once the steering wheel had been turned), it switched from testing mode to driving mode. Driving mode gave it better fuel economy and better performance but NOx emissions were much higher than allowed by government regulations, especially in the US but even in the UK. I'm not sure about the EU because their emissions limits don't become all that strict until 2017. However, VW has admitted that the defeat device was installed on more than 11 million vehicles, not just the 480,000 cars in the US.



> Now I am not trying to defend VWs actions, I just want to know if this is what they admitted to or is this just some journalistic liberties taken at the expense of a caught cheat while he is lying on the floor tied up getting ready to be roasted.


It's something you read on BMWCCA. Maybe it had a few misstatements? Matthias Mueller said on a conference call today that they would be "ruthless in their punishment" of all those involved in this deception. VW almost immediately asked the State of Lower Saxony to open a criminal investigation. The conflict of interest there is that Lower Saxony owns 9% of VW stock and holds 20% of the voting rights and VW is by far the largest contributor to their economy. No way do they want to harm Volkswagen.

AFAIK, only Martin Winterhorn, the former CEO, has been forced to resign. Another four or five very senior executives have been placed on indefinite suspension and at least a couple dozen more executives were reportedly aware of what was going on according to leaks from the law firm conducting the investigation for VW.

The German stock market is probably the best barometer for weighing the current estimates of the damage and at the beginning of October it had VW at 95 euro, then two weeks later it was 134 euro and today it was at 124 euro. Of course that's down from 255 euro in March. All three of them (VW, Daimler and BMW made highs in March) and all three of them are down but VW is down the most.

This scandal broke six weeks ago and so far it has had little impact on VW's sales worldwide. Even though they will be showing a loss, as expected, due to the huge reserve they set up in Q3 for this diesel emissions mess, their results are coming in better than expected and sales are still holding up. It appears that the way they handled it has helped them with the buying public. Stuff like this that may be important to car buffs is apparently not all that important to buyers, especially since it involved cheating on government regulations in order to provide better fuel economy and better performance. Weird, I know, but that seems to be the way it's being received. In other words, it wasn't a cheapy ignition switch defect that killed more than a hundred people, and that was known about for a decade, or exploding rear-mounted gas tanks or exploding hand-grenade type airbags, something scary like that that people might pay more attention to. And with the Takata airbags, because it affects more than a dozen different manufacturers, nobody knows who to blame because they never heard of Takata before.


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## ddeliber (Jan 31, 2013)

Ninong said:


> Volkswagen did not say that.


I figured. I suppose that something like "costs will exceed $0.25" is also true.



Ninong said:


> That's the very worst case scenario and assumes the highest possible fines (e.g, $37,500 per car in the US) and most expensive estimates on fixing the cars and highest possible legal settlements. That's not really a serious estimate. VW has so far set aside only 6.7 billion euro but that's just in this quarter and not the full amount that they expect this to cost them. No one can really estimate what the final bill will be but not many people seriously expect it to exceed $25 billion.
> 
> Well, once again, that's just the way the author of this blog post/article on BMWCCA expressed it. Maybe he didn't word it as well as he could have. What VW has admitted is that they deliberately employed an illegal "defeat device" that could detect when the car was being tested and switch to "testing mode." Their cars were designed with two different modes. Driving mode and testing mode. Testing mode maintained NOx emissions within legal limits but fuel economy and performance would suffer. Once the car was no longer being tested (e.g., once the steering wheel had been turned), it switched from testing mode to driving mode. Driving mode gave it better fuel economy and better performance but NOx emissions were much higher than allowed by government regulations, especially in the US but even in the UK. I'm not sure about the EU because their emissions limits don't become all that strict until 2017. However, VW has admitted that the defeat device was installed on more than 11 million vehicles, not just the 480,000 cars in the US.


I hear you. It is just that I have heard statements to the "off otherwise" point a lot and I thought that it would be appropriate to clarify/ask who said that. Also, I heard that VW claims the vehicles in Europe are not affected by the SW the same as those in the US. Not sure if this means it is "off" but present or if it means that because the limit isn't as strict in Europe so it isn't really needed there.



Ninong said:


> It's something you read on BMWCCA. Maybe it had a few misstatements? Matthias Mueller said on a conference call today that they would be "ruthless in their punishment" of all those involved in this deception. VW almost immediately asked the State of Lower Saxony to open a criminal investigation. The conflict of interest there is that Lower Saxony owns 9% of VW stock and holds 20% of the voting rights and VW is by far the largest contributor to their economy. No way do they want to harm Volkswagen.
> 
> AFAIK, only Martin Winterhorn, the former CEO, has been forced to resign. Another four or five very senior executives have been placed on indefinite suspension and at least a couple dozen more executives were reportedly aware of what was going on according to leaks from the law firm conducting the investigation for VW.
> 
> The German stock market is probably the best barometer for weighing the current estimates of the damage and at the beginning of October it had VW at 95 euro, then two weeks later it was 134 euro and today it was at 124 euro. Of course that's down from 255 euro in March. All three of them (VW, Daimler and BMW made highs in March) and all three of them are down but VW is down the most.


Yep, VW will probably find a couple fall guys and then step back and point the finger there. Focusing culpability on specific people is a way of diverting attention. We will never really know what really happened, but I agree, watching the money is the way to go.



Ninong said:


> This scandal broke six weeks ago and so far it has had little impact on VW's sales worldwide. Even though they will be showing a loss, as expected, due to the huge reserve they set up in Q3 for this diesel emissions mess, their results are coming in better than expected and sales are still holding up. It appears that the way they handled it has helped them with the buying public. Stuff like this that may be important to car buffs is apparently not all that important to buyers, especially since it involved cheating on government regulations in order to provide better fuel economy and better performance. Weird, I know, but that seems to be the way it's being received. In other words, it wasn't a cheapy ignition switch defect that killed more than a hundred people, and that was known about for a decade, or exploding rear-mounted gas tanks or exploding hand-grenade type airbags, something scary like that that people might pay more attention to. And with the Takata airbags, because it affects more than a dozen different manufacturers, nobody knows who to blame because they never heard of Takata before.


I am not so sure about the limited sales impact so far part. Sure, here in the US last month didn't show much of a drop, but 0 diesel sales world wide (well, mostly) is significant. I am very interested to see what they report for October. However, I agree, this is not the same as a covered up severe safety issue in terms of public outcry. Many people feel it is their duty/right to try to cheat the govt


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## Ninong (May 20, 2014)

ddeliber said:


> Also, I heard that VW claims the vehicles in Europe are not affected by the SW the same as those in the US. Not sure if this means it is "off" but present or if it means that because the limit isn't as strict in Europe so it isn't really needed there.


Volkswagen's explanation of exactly how their non-American 10.5 million cars are affected has "evolved" over the past several weeks. You might remember that originally they claimed that only 482,000 diesels in the US were affected. Then a week or so later they admitted that the total number of diesels with the "defeat device" exceeded 11 million worldwide. They have been vague about how this affects each of their different markets. It was only in the past week or so, in sworn testimony in the London, that VW admitted that their diesels there have been violating the UK's NOx emissions limits.

It's quite possible that all 11 million diesels operate in "driving mode" thanks to the "defeat device" and that the only difference from one market to another is how much the NOx emissions violate the emissions limits in each market and therefore how much it will cost to bring those engines into compliance. Obviously VW's diesels will need to be redesigned to meet the 2017 European Union standards anyway.



> Yep, VW will probably find a couple fall guys and then step back and point the finger there. Focusing culpability on specific people is a way of diverting attention. We will never really know what really happened, but I agree, watching the money is the way to go.


There are probably a few dozen, or more, engineers who were aware of what was going on but they were in no position to say anything about it if they wanted to remain employed in the auto industry. The Supervisory Board forced Martin Winterhorn's resignation but they issued a statement saying they believed that he was personally not aware of the deception. That's difficult to accept considering how Winterhorn always described himself as "an engineer's engineer" and how involved he was in the details of the design and development of VW's products.

However, that same September 25th meeting of the board that accepted Winterhorn's resignation also demanded the resignation of three very senior executives. All three refused to resign and were immediately placed on indefinite suspension. A fourth executive was suspended a week or so later. Unconfirmed insider reports claim that as many as 30 executives are in jeopardy of losing their jobs but VW has refuted those claims as nothing more than uninformed speculation. I guess they should have added "at the present time" like most other companies in that position do.



> I am not so sure about the limited sales impact so far part. Sure, here in the US last month didn't show much of a drop, but 0 diesel sales world wide (well, mostly) is significant. I am very interested to see what they report for October.


Diesels represented only 6% of their vehicle sales in the US, so even though they cannot yet sell those cars, the impact will not be nearly as severe as it could be in Europe where diesels represent 70 or 80 percent of their total sales. Some countries, like Switzerland, banned the sale of VW diesels entirely. I'm another one who finds it hard to believe that their "worldwide sales are holding up" but that was the reporting following yesterday's telephone conference call with Matthias Mueller before he had to rush off to get onboard Angela Merkel's version of Air Force One to accompany her on a "sales" trip to Beijing promoting German enterprise.

What if some people who were thinking about buying a VW diesel sometime in the near future have now decided that this would be a good time to buy one before they mess up the performance and fuel economy? In other words, what if this story is pulling sales forward? Maybe they're hoping to get a better deal now and hoping that they won't be "forced" to bring their car back to be "fixed?" Along a similar vein, how will the US, and especially states like California, force a VW diesel owner to bring his car in for "fixing" after he receives the recall notification?


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## henrycyao (Oct 23, 2012)

Ninong said:


> What if some people who were thinking about buying a VW diesel sometime in the near future have now decided that this would be a good time to buy one before they mess up the performance and fuel economy? In other words, what if this story is pulling sales forward? Maybe they're hoping to get a better deal now and hoping that they won't be "forced" to bring their car back to be "fixed?" Along a similar vein, how will the US, and especially states like California, force a VW diesel owner to bring his car in for "fixing" after he receives the recall notification?


In Germany, recall must be proven to be done in order to get their registration. Their compliance rate is 100%. It is more likely to be in US than in major European countries. They tend to be more nanny state than even California :bigpimp:


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## tonyspumoni (May 23, 2010)

Meanwhile, BMW embraces their diesel strategy even more closely.

http://www.bmwblog.com/2015/10/27/bmw-expands-diesel-engine-production-at-steyr/


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## Ninong (May 20, 2014)

henrycyao said:


> In Germany, recall must be proven to be done in order to get their registration. Their compliance rate is 100%. It is more likely to be in US than in major European countries. They tend to be more nanny state than even California :bigpimp:


Germany ordered Volkswagen to recall 2.4 million vehicles in that country after concluding that VW had installed "an illegal shut-off mechanism" in their cars. On the same day that Germany announced that order, Volkswagen announced plans to recall 8.5 million vehicles in all 28 European Union member states. That was two weeks ago. http://www.dw.com/en/vw-announces-europe-wide-mass-recall-over-emissions-fix/a-18785596


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## finnbmw (Jul 6, 2008)

*EPA violation now extending to VW Group SUV's*

EPA has issued today a notice of violation where they allege that certain Touareg, Cayenne and Q5 TDI's have the "cheat software" installed. Affected diesel models include:

-- 2014 VW Touareg
-- 2015 Porsche Cayenne
-- 2016 Audi A6 Quattro, A7 Quattro, A8, A8L, and Q5

http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/0/4A45A5661216E66C85257EF10061867B


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## henrycyao (Oct 23, 2012)

finnbmw said:


> EPA has issued today a notice of violation where they allege that certain Touareg, Cayenne and Q5 TDI's have the "cheat software" installed. Affected diesel models include:
> 
> -- 2014 VW Touareg
> -- 2015 Porsche Cayenne
> ...


Wow, those are the 6 cylinder. This is very bad. It's better for VW to come clean at once instead of this. The US government usually increase fine if they found the company uncooperative. This is what happened to fines to US Bank vs EU bank regarding the lending practice.


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## Pierre Louis (Oct 23, 2011)

We still don't know the whole story: "What Were They Thinking???"


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## Dean_S (Mar 31, 2015)

They only tested those model years. I would expect the pain to be deeper than that.


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## henrycyao (Oct 23, 2012)

Pierre Louis said:


> We still don't know the whole story: "What Were They Thinking???"


The question should be what are they thinking now? Come clean before EPA and CARB find more vehicles in violation. Then the penalty will be minimize. Help identify the decision makers and let the authority charge them with what they want. Otherwise, $18 billion is going to be a certainty.


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## tonyspumoni (May 23, 2010)

If only those pesky meddling bureaucrats at the EPA would stop testing this would all go away. LOL


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## firstbimmer (May 25, 2006)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...got-emission-standards-cheating-software.html

As stated above, not just limited to VW cars anymore. If the 3.0 liter diesel engine cars are universally cheating as well, expect porsche and audi to take a hit as well. The article says they are still testing cars but so far they found the defeat programming in multiple vehichles running the 3.0 diesel engine. Yikes!


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## Robert A (May 18, 2003)

Until now, the narrative focused on VW selling diesels at a price point that others couldn't match. Now that we're in the realm of [the 3.0 motor, the argument no longer holds since BMW and MBZ are operating in that space just fine.

QUOTE=firstbimmer;9366241]http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...got-emission-standards-cheating-software.html

As stated above, not just limited to VW cars anymore. If the 3.0 liter diesel engine cars are universally cheating as well, expect porsche and audi to take a hit as well. The article says they are still testing cars but so far they found the defeat programming in multiple vehichles running the 3.0 diesel engine. Yikes![/QUOTE]


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## Ninong (May 20, 2014)

Matthias Mueller, who replaced Martin Winterhorn as CEO of Volkswagen Group in September, was previously CEO of Porsche since 2010 and for 15 years prior to that he was chief of product development at Audi, but he knew nothing of this cheating. In fact, Volkswagen Group's supervisory board said they believed Winterhorn knew nothing of this cheating either. 

Apparently it was all the fault of two techies who came in on H1-B visas from Bangalore in 2007.


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## regdfry (Mar 1, 2015)

^^^

Actually, it was remotely coded by the help desk in Bangalore


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## tonyspumoni (May 23, 2010)

I've got it! Valeant Pharma and Volkswagen can merge creating ValeantWagen. Think about it: two crappy, cheater companies all rolled into one huge litigation cluster. "We Do Drugs and Diesels," could be their corporate motto. That way we can bash the EPA and the FDA at the same time too.


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## Robert A (May 18, 2003)

Do you really believe upper management knew nothing of this?



Ninong said:


> Matthias Mueller, who replaced Martin Winterhorn as CEO of Volkswagen Group in September, was previously CEO of Porsche since 2010 and for 15 years prior to that he was chief of product development at Audi, but he knew nothing of this cheating. In fact, Volkswagen Group's supervisory board said they believed Winterhorn knew nothing of this cheating either.
> 
> Apparently it was all the fault of two techies who came in on H1-B visas from Bangalore in 2007.


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## Ninong (May 20, 2014)

Robert A said:


> Do you really believe upper management knew nothing of this?


I don't but the supervisory board issued a statement saying that they believed Martin Winterhorn was not involved in any wrongdoing. Winterhorn himself issued a public statement saying he was unaware of any wrongdoing on his part. He was asked to resign because that's what they do in Germany. It's Japan where they are expected to fall on their sword.

At the same board meeting where they accepted Winterhorn's resignation, they requested the resignations of three more very senior executives but all three refused and were placed on indefinite suspensions instead. Then, about a week later, a fourth senior executive was placed on indefinite suspension.

A published leak from the law firm that is conducting an internal investigation on behalf of Volkswagen claimed that approximately 30 more executives were at risk of losing their jobs but Volkswagen immediately refuted that report as untrue. Two days before Winterhorn was forced to resign, Volkswagen denied published reports that he would be forced to resign and called them "ridiculous and unfounded."


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## glangford (Dec 11, 2013)

firstbimmer said:


> http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...got-emission-standards-cheating-software.html
> 
> As stated above, not just limited to VW cars anymore. If the 3.0 liter diesel engine cars are universally cheating as well, expect porsche and audi to take a hit as well. The article says they are still testing cars but so far they found the defeat programming in multiple vehichles running the 3.0 diesel engine. Yikes!


VW is so screwed....


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## Ninong (May 20, 2014)

Robert A said:


> If the 3.0 liter diesel engine cars are universally cheating as well, expect porsche and audi to take a hit as well. The article says they are still testing cars but so far they found the defeat programming in multiple vehichles running the 3.0 diesel engine. Yikes!


A "defeat device" is a named violation of the Clean Air Act. The EPA alleges that they discovered the same "defeat device" on the 3.0 liter diesel engines they tested. That alone is a criminal act.

Now, Volkswagen has announced that they will fight the EPA on these new charges because just because they failed previously to "adequately describe" this technology to regulators, it was not installed "in a forbidden manner." This is getting hilarious. They now admit they lied about their technology and maybe they forgot to report that they had installed an illegal "defeat device" in those cars but they didn't do it "in a forbidden manner." I guess they will claim that they didn't do it to cheat on emissions. Maybe it was because they decided to use the same software code that was laying around the lab without realizing it was specifically forbidden by US law.

VW claims that "no software was installed in the 3-liter V6 diesel engines to change emission results in an inadmissible manner." In other words, they will now claim that just because the defeat device was part of the design, and just because they forgot to "adequately describe" it to regulators, doesn't mean they did it with the intention of exceeding legal limits on NOx emissions. They said they have asked the EPA to "clarify" its new questions.


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## finnbmw (Jul 6, 2008)

Remember that VW fought EPA for a year before all this became public. So them fighting these new charges just follows a pattern of denial and diversion. Just like some of our politicians...


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## finnbmw (Jul 6, 2008)

*Diesel - toxic death?*

Interesting article from May 2015

http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto...e?shareToken=f4eeff383e9b34735aec44dacf434200


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## ddeliber (Jan 31, 2013)

Ninong said:


> A "defeat device" is a named violation of the Clean Air Act. The EPA alleges that they discovered the same "defeat device" on the 3.0 liter diesel engines they tested. That alone is a criminal act.
> 
> *Now, Volkswagen has announced that they will fight the EPA on these new charges because just because they failed previously to "adequately describe" this technology to regulators, it was not installed "in a forbidden manner.*" This is getting hilarious. They now admit they lied about their technology and maybe they forgot to report that they had installed an illegal "defeat device" in those cars but they didn't do it "in a forbidden manner." I guess they will claim that they didn't do it to cheat on emissions. Maybe it was because they decided to use the same software code that was laying around the lab without realizing it was specifically forbidden by US law.
> 
> VW claims that "no software was installed in the 3-liter V6 diesel engines to change emission results in an inadmissible manner." In other words, they will now claim that just because the defeat device was part of the design, and just because they forgot to "adequately describe" it to regulators, doesn't mean they did it with the intention of exceeding legal limits on NOx emissions. They said they have asked the EPA to "clarify" its new questions.


I believe what VW meant here is that the cars were coming up to temperature and thus were not yet ready to test. Now there could be some truth here because diesels are allowed to perform differently (including non-compliance in emissions) in order to come up to operating temp faster. However, if this is in fact VWs claim, why they always seem to change to "normal" mode 1 second after the test is complete is something I'd like to hear explained.


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## Robert A (May 18, 2003)

I don't know much about how large German auto manufacturing companies are run, but it's difficult to believe that such a key decision could take place without the knowledge of key personnel.



Ninong said:


> I don't but the supervisory board issued a statement saying that they believed Martin Winterhorn was not involved in any wrongdoing. Winterhorn himself issued a public statement saying he was unaware of any wrongdoing on his part. He was asked to resign because that's what they do in Germany. It's Japan where they are expected to fall on their sword.
> 
> At the same board meeting where they accepted Winterhorn's resignation, they requested the resignations of three more very senior executives but all three refused and were placed on indefinite suspensions instead. Then, about a week later, a fourth senior executive was placed on indefinite suspension.
> 
> A published leak from the law firm that is conducting an internal investigation on behalf of Volkswagen claimed that approximately 30 more executives were at risk of losing their jobs but Volkswagen immediately refuted that report as untrue. Two days before Winterhorn was forced to resign, Volkswagen denied published reports that he would be forced to resign and called them "ridiculous and unfounded."


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## Ninong (May 20, 2014)

finnbmw said:


> Interesting article from May 2015
> 
> http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto...e?shareToken=f4eeff383e9b34735aec44dacf434200


Yes, they have a serious respiratory health problem in London due to their normal weather patterns most of the year and their heavy adoption of diesel engines. That's why it's much better to live at the top of the hill rather than the bottom of the valley. Just ask the people in Los Angeles. I always drive through there as quickly as possible without stopping just so I can breathe again.


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## Ninong (May 20, 2014)

ddeliber said:


> I believe what VW meant here is that the cars were coming up to temperature and thus were not yet ready to test.


No, I don't think that's what they meant. The EPA testing procedures describe in excruciating detail exactly how many seconds must elapse between each testing procedure and there are tests for cold starts and tests for normal operating conditions, plus a whole slew of tests designed to mimic various driving conditions.

When VW admits that they "failed to adequately describe" their technology to regulators, they are _ipso facto_ admitting they violated the law. The law specifically bans any engine design that incorporates "strategies that reduce emission control effectiveness exhibited during the applicable Federal emissions test procedures when the vehicle is operated under conditions which may reasonably be expected to be encountered in normal operation and use." In addition, the law also requires that: "The manufacturer will provide an explanation containing detailed information regarding test programs, engineering evaluations, design specifications, calibrations, on-board computer algorithms, and design strategies incorporated for operation both during and outside of the applicable Federal emission test procedure."

A careful parsing of the vocabulary used in Volkswagen's non-denial statement leads me to believe that they admitted to violating both of those provisions of the law. Their software was designed to operate differently when being tested compared to normal driving conditions and they failed to "adequately describe" their technology to regulators. So now they have asked the EPA to please "clarify their questions" so that their legal department can come up with additional explanations to mitigate the possible fines they could face.



> However, if this is in fact VWs claim, why they always seem to change to "normal" mode 1 second after the test is complete is something I'd like to hear explained.


This was explained in off-the-record conversations with a select group of favored reporters immediately after the news broke on Friday, September 18, that VW had finally admitted to the EPA that all of their denials over the previous 18 months were a bunch of lies. They said it was done without the authorization or knowledge of top management by a few rogue engineers who were fearful of not meeting the demands placed on them by management to cut costs while improving both performance and fuel economy in spite of stricter emissions standards. The way they put it, it was because everyone lived in fear of their new top boss, Martin Winterhorn.

Not to worry, VW was in the process of identifying the guilty parties and they would be dealt with severely. Herr Doktor Winterhorn, of course, was totally innocent and unaware of any wrongdoing and he was shocked to learn that cheating was going on in this establishment. He had called for a full investigation to root out the guilty parties and see to it that they were punished severely.


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## Pierre Louis (Oct 23, 2011)

Ninong said:


> Yes, they have a serious respiratory health problem in London due to their normal weather patterns most of the year and their heavy adoption of diesel engines. That's why it's much better to live at the top of the hill rather than the bottom of the valley. Just ask the people in Los Angeles. I always drive through there as quickly as possible without stopping just so I can breathe again.


I've read the studies they use and they are seriously flawed. They take the rate of respiratory illness in cities with more automobile traffic and areas near highways etc.

They do not control for particulates from gasoline cars (the majority in the US - they instead just blame diesels) and tire wear, nor do they look at the fact that city dwellers stay indoors more, exposing them to indoor pollution. Indoor pollution from dust, animal and plant airborne particulates, as well as smoke and particulates from cooking are considered worse than outdoor pollution.

PL


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## Ninong (May 20, 2014)

Pierre Louis said:


> I've read the studies they use and they are seriously flawed. They take the rate of respiratory illness in cities with more automobile traffic and areas near highways etc.


Would it be safe to say that London has a more serious respiratory health problem today than they did 20 years ago and that particulates and NOx emissions from diesel engines contribute to that problem? What about the claim that diesel engines put out much more pollution going uphill than they do otherwise? Obviously that's true and it was one of the main points of that article.

The point the reporter wanted to make was that diesel engines produce more pollution that could be dangerous to respiratory health going uphill than the public has been led to believe by their public officials. It's not a surprise to anyone in the car business but I guess it was a surprise to that reporter and therefore he figured it would be a shock to those folks who bought pricey hillside homes in the suburbs.


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## Pierre Louis (Oct 23, 2011)

Lets see the logic. Diesels go uphill just like gassers, but only diesels pollute more going up hill. Tires get worn going up (and down) hills more, but the dust/carbon emissions/particulates of tires aren't diesel related, so only diesel is to blame. So people who live near roads that go up and down hill should expect that if diesel cars go away, they should do better. Uh huh.

PL


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## Pat_X5 (Aug 23, 2008)

Ninong said:


> Would it be safe to say that London has a more serious respiratory health problem today than they did 20 years ago and that particulates and NOx emissions from diesel engines contribute to that problem? What about the claim that diesel engines put out much more pollution going uphill than they do otherwise? Obviously that's true and it was one of the main points of that article.
> 
> The point the reporter wanted to make was that diesel engines produce more pollution that could be dangerous to respiratory health going uphill than the public has been led to believe by their public officials. It's not a surprise to anyone in the car business but I guess it was a surprise to that reporter and therefore he figured it would be a shock to those folks who bought pricey hillside homes in the suburbs.


Nope, London now has much cleaner air than 35 years ago when I was last there in 1980s (mad cow disease was the concern then)....

Back then the air was so bad, you can smell the sweet smell of lead in the air due to leaded gasoline. Even from the outer M4 ring road, the pollution was awful.

Just returned from London this past spring and have to say the air was amazingly clear, clean and better than Southern California.

Diesel soot is better than CO2, NO, CO, NO2, etc..


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## Ninong (May 20, 2014)

Pierre Louis said:


> Lets see the logic. Diesels go uphill just like gassers, but only diesels pollute more going up hill.


Do diesel engines put out more particulates and NOx emissions than gasoline engines going uphill or not? Would the respiratory health problems for people living on the hillside be greater if 400,000 diesel engine vehicles and 100,000 gasoline engine vehicles drove by daily compared to 500,000 gasoline engine vehicles or not?

Your argument is that there is no difference between the prevalence of asthma and other respiratory problems caused by 500,000 gas engine vehicles compared to 400,000 diesel engines and 100,000 gas engines. Diesel vehicles in the UK and Europe now account for approximately 80% of BMW's sales. In the US, diesels account for only 6% of BMW's sales.

P.S. -- My last personal experience with a diesel engine car was a 1967 Mercedes-Benz 200D that we took as a trade-in at a very good price from someone who had owned it for less than a year and needed to get rid of it because it didn't have automatic transmission, or power steering, or power brakes, or air-conditioning and his wife refused to drive it. I didn't need it but I bought it anyway because it was a steal at $2,200 (he paid about $4,700 for it 10 months before). I sold it about a year later for $2,900. It was a tank, but it was fun in it's own way and no one tailgated me, especially going uphill.


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## Pierre Louis (Oct 23, 2011)

Ninong, as you choose to frequent this thread with argument after argument against diesel, even if you own an M3 which arguably pollutes much more, I find your posts wanting in many ways. If you actually could understand the logic, and had the data to back up your arguments, things would be quite a bit better.

Yes, 500,000 gassers would be worse than 100,000 gassers and 400,000 clean diesels with SCR, EGR, and DPF. The data is clear. An order of magnitude fewer particulates, likely about the same or better CO2, an order of magnitude better CO and Hydrocarbons. NOx not so much. Indoor pollution: no difference. Tire wear particulates: well, it depends on how you drive your M3, ha ha.

PL


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## Ninong (May 20, 2014)

Pierre Louis said:


> Ninong, as you choose to frequent this thread with argument after argument against diesel, even if you own an M3 which arguably pollutes much more, I find your posts wanting in many ways. If you actually could understand the logic, and had the data to back up your arguments, things would be quite a bit better.
> 
> Yes, 500,000 gassers would be worse than 100,000 gassers and 400,000 clean diesels with SCR, EGR, and DPF. The data is clear. An order of magnitude fewer particulates, likely about the same or better CO2, an order of magnitude better CO and Hydrocarbons. NOx not so much. Indoor pollution: no difference. Tire wear particulates: well, it depends on how you drive your M3, ha ha.


My comments have been almost exclusively about Volkswagen's deception, not about whether diesels are worse than gasoline engines. However, I am glad that you clarified that for me as far as the effects of a current model diesel engine compared to a current model gasoline engine because virtually all of the media reports do lean towards the impression that diesel engines would have more impact on respiratory illnesses than gasoline engines. That is probably due to the greater NOx emissions from diesel engines.

Thanks!


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## Pierre Louis (Oct 23, 2011)

*Volkswagen Understated Carbon Dioxide Emissions on its Gasoline Cars!*

I knew it! What a soap opera this is turning into. Sheesh.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/volkswagens-shares-take-tumble-after-epas-fresh-allegations-1446559388



> Updated Nov. 3, 2015 3:10 p.m. ET
> 
> Volkswagen AG said it understated the level of carbon dioxide emissions in its past certifications for about 800,000 cars, an admission that broadens the scope of the German auto maker's emissions-cheating scandal.
> 
> ...


What a disaster!

PL


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## Pierre Louis (Oct 23, 2011)

Ninong said:


> My comments have been almost exclusively about Volkswagen's deception, not about whether diesels are worse than gasoline engines. However, I am glad that you clarified that for me as far as the effects of a current model diesel engine compared to a current model gasoline engine because virtually all of the media reports do lean towards the impression that diesel engines would have more impact on respiratory illnesses than gasoline engines. That is probably due to the greater NOx emissions from diesel engines.
> 
> Thanks!


Thanks for your response.

I do feel there is a lot of hysteria, but the latest news above, with gasoline cars being involved, is "the gift that keeps on giving."

PL


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## Ninong (May 20, 2014)

Pierre Louis said:


> Thanks for your response.
> 
> I do feel there is a lot of hysteria, but the latest news above, with gasoline cars being involved, is "the gift that keeps on giving."
> 
> PL


Actually that's not the end of "the gift that keeps on giving." VW is now reluctantly admitting that they may have forgotten to report a few deaths and serious injuries involving their cars in the US as required by US law. The truth is that they have been grossly understating those reports for years! It was so obvious it was laughable. All of the other manufacturers pointed that out years ago.

What other manufacturers have always claimed is that Volkswagen vehicles are not nearly as safe as Volkswagen claimed because VW's numbers were not to be taken seriously. That is the subject of a current ongoing investigation by the Feds and could result in new fines.


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## Ninong (May 20, 2014)

I had to Google for the exact numbers and here they are: http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2015/10/08/384259.htm

The average rates of deaths and serious injuries reported by 11 other major manufacturers was *9 times higher* than the rates reported by Volkswagen!

BMW reported more than 300 incidents per million vehicles on the road. General Motors reported more than 500 incidents per million vehicles on the road. VW reported 34 per million! That laughable! They lied!


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## Ninong (May 20, 2014)

Stuff is hitting the fan faster than Volkswagen can clean it up right now. :yikes:


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## finnbmw (Jul 6, 2008)

*Stop-sale on Parsche Cayenne diesels*

Porsche has just issued a voluntary stop-sale on the 2015 Cayenne TDI. The plot thickens...


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## Ninong (May 20, 2014)

finnbmw said:


> Porsche has just issued a voluntary stop-sale on the 2015 Cayenne TDI. The plot thickens...


Actually Porsche issued the stop-sale for all 2014-2016 models of the Cayenne Diesel.


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## Ninong (May 20, 2014)

One more point that most of you probably already know. Violations of the Clean Air Act carry fines but no criminal penalties. The law was written that way because that's the way the automakers wanted it written and they paid a lot of money to their lobbyists to make sure there would be no criminal penalties for violations.

However, the Feds can and will find other laws to use to prosecute them, just as they did with General Motors and Toyota. Making false statements to a Federal official is always a top choice whenever they want to hold a company or an executive responsible for their criminal actions. Both GM and Toyota lied to Federal officials. Volkswagen has already admitted they outright lied to Federal officials for 18 months before finally coming clean on the defeat devices in their diesel engines but they pretended they had only discovered this themselves very, very recently -- like just about the time they realized the gig was up and that CARB and the EPA had already figured out how they did it and were about to lay it all out.

The truth has been dribbling out of Wolfsburg one drop at a time. The supervisory board still insists nobody knew about any of this before and they were shocked to learn that cheating was going on in this establishment. They will get to the bottom of this and the guilty two or three (or three hundred) people will be "punished severely."

The Feds can also hit VW with fraudulent claims to the public, which caused people to purchase their cars thinking they were much, much safer than other cars, much cleaner than other cars and more fuel efficient than other cars. Deceptive business practices. Filing of false and fraudulent government reports. Lying to government officials.


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## tonyspumoni (May 23, 2010)

When investigations are concluded I am confident it will be revealed that the highest levels of VW management were not only aware of their malfeasance but actively condoned cheating as a viable strategy to "achieve" efficiency and emissions targets. Much has been uttered here on behalf of VW and its management team. Martin and his buddies are not idiots, that much is clear. Idiots don't run one of the world's top automakers. And, since there are only a very few ways to increase efficiency and decrease emissions, wouldn't it have struck MartinW and his senior management team and extraordinarily odd to have engineers so darn good that they could craft a powerplant and emissions setup that, unlike, say, Mazda or, say, BMW or Mercedes, could simultaneously offer excellent power, fuel economy, and low emissions without the extensive engineering tricks these others either did or would have had to resort to? How fortunate, eh? Wouldn't Martin, an engineer himself who, as head of the then World's largest automaker, had a well known penchant for being detail oriented, have wondered just how the heck these VW engineers were doing this?

So, Winkerhorn has a choice. He can choose to be a fool, in which case he did not know what he would have been obligated to know, as managing risk is at the root of his damn job, or he can be a liar.


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## tonyspumoni (May 23, 2010)

robert a said:


> i don't know much about how large german auto manufacturing companies are run, but it's difficult to believe that such a key decision could take place without the knowledge of key personnel.


+1


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## ddeliber (Jan 31, 2013)

Now this is a meeting I would love to be broadcast somewhere!

http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2015/11/volkswagen-meeting-epa-discuss-diesel-emissions-program/


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## tonyspumoni (May 23, 2010)

VW is clearly in full-crisis mode. That wad of Euros they had set aside to account for this won't be nearly big enough it seems. It wouldn't take much for them to lose half their market value, instead of just a third or so.


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## Doug Huffman (Apr 25, 2015)

I doubt VWAG has a set amount set aside for legal liabilities. 

I suspect that the finances of the largest auto manufacturer little resembles a consumer's finances. A corporation consumes nothing, it 'consumes' no value. It's profits are reinvested. Its losses will be covered by the other companies that it controls as investments, covered as return on investment. VW marque will be damaged, VWAG will just move on.


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## tonyspumoni (May 23, 2010)

As a public company VW has an obligation to inform shareholders in their quarterly regulatory filings of material facts that either are or are suspected to impact their financial health. VW has already set aside as a contingincy something like 7bn euros. That number will now go up. VW's brand, as measured by the amount of goodwill on their balance sheet will also be adjusted downwards. If VW has ADARs then this would be reflected on their Q3 10q filing with the SEC. I will have a look as this would look fascinating. 

You are quite right in noting that this is likely to come from one pot of money or another but come from a pot it will and that number will exceed what was originally pledged to clean this up.


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## Ninong (May 20, 2014)

tonyspumoni said:


> As a public company VW has an obligation to inform shareholders in their quarterly regulatory filings of material facts that either are or are suspected to impact their financial health.


Absolutely and this is the avenue the Feds (US Feds) are pursuing right now to be able to file criminal charges against Big Oil and also against VW. VW knew, or should have known, about their cheating device on their diesel engines and that discovery of that cheating by the EPA would result in a serious negative impact on their financial health. They knew, or should have known, this for years. Exxon knew about the potential effects of global warming back in the late 1970's from their own internal research but chose to suppress that research and pursue a path of deliberately misleading the public and their shareholders. VW has a liability in that they knew about the potential risks to the company posed by cheating on emissions standards.



> VW has already set aside as a contingincy something like 7bn euros.


They set aside 6.7 billion euro in Q3. Then they announced that they will now have to set aside an additional 2 billion euro to cover liability resulting from the recent disclosure that even some of their gasoline engines are involved. That's just the down payment and nowhere near their full potential liability. They know it and the market knows it. 



> That number will now go up. VW's brand, as measured by the amount of goodwill on their balance sheet will also be adjusted downwards. If VW has ADARs then this would be reflected on their Q3 10q filing with the SEC. I will have a look as this would look fascinating.


Look at it this way. VW's market cap was 112 billion euro back in March of this year. Yesterday it's market cap was 54 billion euro, that's down 52% from March. But that's not nearly as bad as where they were five weeks ago when their market cap was only 41 billion euro. In other words, their stock (VOW:GR) hit a high of 255 euro back in March and then it dropped all the way down to 95 euro in early October. Yesterday it closed at 122.20 euro.

So it's currently down 52% from it's March high but in early October it was down 63%. It's market cap today represents a loss of 58 billion euro from what it was in March. We could say forget about March and just look at where it was on Sept. 17, the day before the sh!t hit the fan. Okay, fair enough, it was 167.60 euro before the announcement compared to 122.20 euro today -- it's down 27% today (yesterday) from where it was the day before the news broke, which is better than being down 43% in early October when it was only 95 euro.

Yes, VW has an ADR. Naturally its performance has been similar but you have to allow for the fluctuation in the dollar-euro conversion rate during that time period.

In any case, the market valued VW at 74 billion euro the day before this news broke and yesterday it was valued at 54 billion euro -- down 20 billion euro. They were down 33 billion euro from Sept. 17 to Oct. 2 when it was trading at 95 euro a share, 122.20 euro yesterday is a lot better than 95 euro the beginning of October.

All three of them -- Daimler, BMW and VW -- peaked in March of this year. It was an all time peak for BMW but VW spiked up into the stratosphere back in 2007 when short-sellers were trapped by Porsche SE's secret move to acquire control of the company. That was Ferdinand Piech's way of getting even with the board for choosing Martin Winterhorn instead of Matthias Mueller, his protégé. Mueller went to Porsche instead and now he's heading VW Group, for the time being anyway.

BMW has a limited public float but VW has an extremely limited public float. So much of both of those companies are in the hands of the family or institutions controlled by the family or influenced by the family. The percent of total shares that actually trade is very small.


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## Ninong (May 20, 2014)

Oops!

Volkswagen says whistle-blower forced it to admit broader cheating -- one of their engineers started giving truthful answers to the investigators. The 2 billion euro they set aside is to pay back European CO2 credits the company and customers earned under false pretenses. :tsk:

http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/comp...it-broader-cheating/ar-CC6yME?ocid=spartanntp


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## wxmanCCM (Feb 17, 2010)

*U.S. approves 2016 BMW diesel X5 for sale after EPA review*



> December 10, 2015 - 5:51 pm ET
> 
> WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- The EPA and California Air Resources Board approved the sale of the new 2016 BMW diesel X5 after government testing found no evidence of software to evade emissions standards, the government said Thursday.
> 
> ...


http://www.autonews.com/article/201...-2016-bmw-diesel-x5-for-sale-after-epa-review


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## Pat_X5 (Aug 23, 2008)

Isn't the majority of VW 2L affected TDI located in the Pacific Northwest ???


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## Ninong (May 20, 2014)

Pat_X5 said:


> Isn't the majority of VW 2L affected TDI located in the Pacific Northwest ???


If you're asking why they chose the Northern District of California in San Francisco, it may be because that's where the first Volkswagen case in the country was filed. Also, nearly a fifth of the cases filed so far were brought in California and, in addition, CARB played a key role in uncovering VW's cheating and they're located in Sacramento, which is only about 88 miles away.


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## listerone (Jul 21, 2009)

Robert A said:


> They may well be more liberal, but who cares? This is a business case, not a social policy decision.


Of course it's social policy.How do you think the EPA and CARB came to be in the first place! :tsk:


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## Ninong (May 20, 2014)

Let's put it this way. From the point of view of the defendant (Volkswagen), Detroit was definitely their first choice with Northern Virginia as their second choice. For reasons known only to them, San Francisco was their last choice. :bawling: 

Of course, we shouldn't read anything into that, just because Detroit has a reputation for being the home of the auto industry in this country, where just about everybody is related to somebody who works in that industry. It's also a court with a lot of experience dealing with complicated issues relating to the auto industry. 

San Francisco, on the other hand, is known as an area that produced the current governor of California, as well as the current lieutenant governor of California, as well as the current attorney general of California, all of whom are considered strongly consumer-friendly.

So for whatever reasons, Detroit is considered a place that is more friendly to the auto industry than a place like San Francisco, which some might consider less friendly to the auto industry and more friendly to consumers. Just an impression people have, not that there's anything wrong with that.


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## floydarogers (Oct 11, 2010)

An interesting article that I haven't seen posted about here:

http://www.seattletimes.com/nation-...ing-the-rules-led-to-scandal-volkswagen-says/

There are two very interesting paragraphs in this article:
1) "Mueller and Potsch conceded the deception reflected organizational shortcomings. For example, the people who developed software were the same ones who approved it for use in vehicles. At other companies, it is standard practice for one team to develop components and another to check them for quality. Volkswagen said it would correct those procedures."

As a software engineer, I can tell you that VW's software engineering practices were/are incredibly bad; I can't believe that their controls and testing were so primitive.

2) It appears that many of us have been breaking the law by refilling our DEF tanks ourselves: "In addition, the tank that holds the chemical must be refilled periodically. That creates an inconvenience and expense for customers, especially in the U.S. Until this year, U.S. regulations barred drivers from refilling the tanks themselves. They had to go to a dealer or service station."

Anyone know something about this? I've been refilling myself for 3 years or so, since my 335d went out of warranty/maintenance.


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## Robert A (May 18, 2003)

Both came about as a result of the legislative process, not through the courts. It's worth noting that the EPA was Richard Nixon's doing.



listerone said:


> Of course it's social policy.How do you think the EPA and CARB came to be in the first place! :tsk:


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## ZoomZorch (Sep 21, 2015)

I was ready to order my 2015 XDrive35d TDI when news broke that Volkswagen had installed dubious code into some of their diesel vehicles in order to circumvent emissions testing. I was concerned (and heard rumors in the press) that BMW also installed dubious code. Wanting to determine if I should cancel my order, I searched & learned how the Volkswagen emissions noncompliance program was discovered. I was pleased to discover the X5 Diesel was used in the same, highly publicized, independent diesel emission tests as the VW Passat & Jetta. I came across references to US & European tests. Read on, the X5 did very well.

"The diesel vehicles chosen for the West Virginia study were the VW Passat, the VW Jetta and the BMW X5. Unlike the VW vehicles, Carder said the BMW vehicle "performed very nicely - at, or below, the certification emission levels."" Excerpt found here: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/...0RM2D720150924

"Discrepancies in the European tests on the diesel models of the VW Passat, the VW Jetta and the BMW X5 last year &#8230; On the open road, the Jetta exceeded the U.S. nitrogen oxide emissions standard by 15 to 35 times. The Passat was 5 to 20 times the standard. It was shocking, &#8230; The BMW X5 passed the road test." Excerpts found here: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articl...lean-air-group

"The ruse began to unravel for Volkswagen when independent parties looked into how European-manufactured diesel vehicles performed in U.S. driving conditions. The International Council on Clean Transportation, an independent nonprofit organization, partnered with the UWV's CAFEE to test three vehicles: a BMW, a VW Passat, and a VW Jetta. According to Thiruvengadam, who was directly involved in the research, the point was actually to prove that it was possible for diesel cars to run clean." Excerpt found here: http://thinkprogress.org/climate/201...ered-questions

"The International Council on Clean Transportation, a nonprofit research group asked WVU to test NOx and other emissions on three cars: a BMW X5 SUV, a VW Jetta, and a VW Passat." Excerpt found here: http://wvpublic.org/post/wvu-researc...ion-violations

CAFEE Final Report "In-Use Emissions Testing of Light-Duty Diesel Vehicles in the United States." <http://www.theicct.org/sites/default/files/publications/WVU_LDDV_in-use_ICCT_Report_Final_may2014.pdf>
(You can find images of a BMW X5 (Vehicle C/X5 by deduction) fitted with testing equipment on pages 38 & 41 of the CAFEE Final Report)

ICCT White Paper "Real-World Exhaust Emissions From Modern Diesel Cars": http://www.theicct.org/sites/default...s_20141013.pdf


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## ZoomZorch (Sep 21, 2015)

*X5 Diesel Passed Same Real World Emission Test That Volkswagen Failed*

I was ready to order my 2015 XDrive35d TDI when news broke that Volkswagen had installed dubious code into some of their diesel vehicles in order to circumvent emissions testing. I was concerned (and heard rumors in the press) that BMW also installed dubious code. Wanting to determine if I should cancel my order, I searched & learned how the Volkswagen emissions noncompliance program was discovered. I was pleased to discover the X5 Diesel was used in the same, highly publicized, independent diesel emission tests as the VW Passat & Jetta. I came across references to US & European tests. Read on, the X5 did very well.

"The diesel vehicles chosen for the West Virginia study were the VW Passat, the VW Jetta and the BMW X5. Unlike the VW vehicles, Carder said the BMW vehicle "performed very nicely - at, or below, the certification emission levels."" Excerpt found here: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/...0RM2D720150924

"Discrepancies in the European tests on the diesel models of the VW Passat, the VW Jetta and the BMW X5 last year &#8230; On the open road, the Jetta exceeded the U.S. nitrogen oxide emissions standard by 15 to 35 times. The Passat was 5 to 20 times the standard. It was shocking, &#8230; The BMW X5 passed the road test." Excerpts found here: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articl...lean-air-group

"The ruse began to unravel for Volkswagen when independent parties looked into how European-manufactured diesel vehicles performed in U.S. driving conditions. The International Council on Clean Transportation, an independent nonprofit organization, partnered with the UWV's CAFEE to test three vehicles: a BMW, a VW Passat, and a VW Jetta. According to Thiruvengadam, who was directly involved in the research, the point was actually to prove that it was possible for diesel cars to run clean." Excerpt found here: http://thinkprogress.org/climate/201...ered-questions

"The International Council on Clean Transportation, a nonprofit research group asked WVU to test NOx and other emissions on three cars: a BMW X5 SUV, a VW Jetta, and a VW Passat." Excerpt found here: http://wvpublic.org/post/wvu-researc...ion-violations

CAFEE Final Report "In-Use Emissions Testing of Light-Duty Diesel Vehicles in the United States." <http://www.theicct.org/sites/default/files/publications/WVU_LDDV_in-use_ICCT_Report_Final_may2014.pdf>
(You can find images of a BMW X5 (Vehicle C/X5 by deduction) fitted with testing equipment on pages 38 & 41 of the CAFEE Final Report)

ICCT White Paper "Real-World Exhaust Emissions From Modern Diesel Cars": http://www.theicct.org/sites/default...s_20141013.pdf


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## Ninong (May 20, 2014)

ZoomZorch said:


> I was ready to order my 2015 XDrive35d TDI when news broke that Volkswagen had installed dubious code into some of their diesel vehicles in order to circumvent emissions testing. I was concerned (and heard rumors in the press) that BMW also installed dubious code. Wanting to determine if I should cancel my order...


First, they're no longer building the 2015 X5 35d. They switched over to 2016 once they received official approval from EPA/CARB. That happened a few weeks ago.

Second, BMW did not install "dubious code." Only VW/Audi/Porsche did that. https://www.press.bmwgroup.com/usa/...d=9&id=T0235786EN_US&left_menu_item=node__803

You should be more skeptical of your sources. Some of that was propaganda coming from certain quarters in Germany. Not from Munich. From a different city in Germany.


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## Doug Huffman (Apr 25, 2015)

ZoomZorch said:


> I was ready to order my 2015 XDrive35d *TDI*]


!!!!!!!


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## ZoomZorch (Sep 21, 2015)

Post moved ...


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## ZoomZorch (Sep 21, 2015)

"First, they're no longer building the 2015 X5 35d." - Order placed October - yep it was a 2015.

"BMW did not install "dubious code."" - Exactly the point of my post. 

I'm not skeptical of my sources. I am, however, skeptical of a press release.


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## Ninong (May 20, 2014)

ZoomZorch said:


> "First, they're no longer building the 2015 X5 35d." - Order placed October - yep it was a 2015.


Of course it was for a 2015 if you placed the order in October. That's because they held back the 2016's waiting for official approval from EPA/CARB. In fact, they had already started producing the 2016's for Canada and then after a few weeks of production, halted even the Canadian cars and reverted to 2015 models.

They had not yet made a single 2016 for the US market when they made the decision to convert all pending orders from 2016 to 2015 with the customer having the option to cancel the order. They made some minor tweaks to the engine from the 2015, which is why they were waiting for official approval, which was held up by CARB.

Production of the 2016 model was originally delayed until November because they thought they would have approval by then but they didn't because CARB was slow. If you check the BMWUSA.com website you will see that they switched over from 2015 (as previously shown) to 2016 in their build-your-own feature.

The point is, you can't order a 2015 now because they're not making them anymore.



> I'm not skeptical of my sources. I am, however, skeptical of a press release.


I thought you said you were basing your concerns on articles you read in the media? A certain source in Germany put out some false accusations to try to implicate others (as in everybody does it) in their own mess. There was also an online German auto magazine that put out a distorted article making certain false accusations against BMW. Within 24 hours of being challenged by BMW on those accusations, the article was revised and then, 12 hours later, revised a second time. It was baseless!

I'm convinced that BMW and Daimler are clean and neither did what VW did. VW did it because that's the way they do things.


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## wxmanCCM (Feb 17, 2010)

It should be noted that EPA explicitly stated that it performed additional testing on the 2016 X5 35d in the certification process to verify the certified emission results and that it had no "defeat code". The certified emissions of both the 2015 and 2016 X5 35d technically meet SULEV, the most strict emission category (even though it's only officially certified as "ULEV").


2016 X5 35d (Certified Emissions (FTP @ 120,000 miles) vs. SULEV LT3 Standard)

(Grams/Mile)

Emission.........................Cert....................SULEV LT3 Standard

NMOG (FTP)...................0.009......................0.010 (meets)
CO (FTP)........................0.2….......................1.0 (meets)
NOx (FTP)......................0.02.......................0.02 (meets)
NOx (HWY).....................0.00.......................0.03 (meets)
PM (FTP)........................0.00….....................0.01 (meets)
NMOG+NOx (US06)…......0.13........................0.37 (meets)
NMOG+NOx (SC03)........0.05..…....................0.15 (meets)
CO (US06).....................0.0.........................10.5 (meets)
CO (SC03).....................0.0…........................3.5 (meets)


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## Ninong (May 20, 2014)

*US sues VW in federal court in Detroit*

The US Justice Department has filed suit against VW in federal court in Detroit alleging cheating on emissions standards on nearly 600,000 vehicles: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...ed-by-u-s-for-cheating-on-emissions-standards

The US says VW and the EPA have failed to agree on terms of a recall.


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## Ninong (May 20, 2014)

VW may buy back 115,000 of the 580,000 "Dieselgate" cars in the US: http://www.autonews.com/article/201.../vw-may-*****back-115000-u-s-cars-report-says

VW expects to be able to repair 8.5 million "Dieselgate" cars in Europe by the end of 2016 but the US cars will be much more difficult and expensive to bring into compliance and many of them can't be fixed.


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## dunderhi (Dec 10, 2006)

*48 Billion Dollars* :yikes:


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## Ninong (May 20, 2014)

dunderhi said:


> *48 Billion Dollars* :yikes:


That's just the maximum allowed by the Clean Air Act if you multiply 580,000 cars times the maximum allowed per car if they were to fine VW the maximum per car. That never happens. VW knows it, the EPA knows it and the DOJ knows it. 

Regardless of the final agreement, the fine will be the largest ever.

P.S. -- To put everything into perspective, the best consensus estimate seems to be $25 billion +/- $10 billion as the total worldwide cost of all fines in all jurisdictions, settlement of all lawsuits in all jurisdictions and all related recall costs worldwide. In other words, the total hit from Dieselgate.


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## Robert A (May 18, 2003)

Ours is a 2009 JSW TDI. I'm hoping we're in that 115k.



Ninong said:


> VW may buy back 115,000 of the 580,000 "Dieselgate" cars in the US: http://www.autonews.com/article/201.../vw-may-*****back-115000-u-s-cars-report-says
> 
> VW expects to be able to repair 8.5 million "Dieselgate" cars in Europe by the end of 2016 but the US cars will be much more difficult and expensive to bring into compliance and many of them can't be fixed.


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## Ninong (May 20, 2014)

Robert A said:


> Ours is a 2009 JSW TDI. I'm hoping we're in that 115k.


You probably will be *if* VW decides to do that. Apparently that is what the EPA wants them to do but VW has not yet agreed with the EPA's proposals. I'm sure you understand how a buy back works, right? They don't give you what you paid for the car when new (unless the buy back happens quite soon, say within the first six months); they give you its current fair market value. Think of it this way. When a car is in a wreck but the total amount of the repair bill would get to the point where it approaches the current fair market value of the vehicle, the insurance company would probably total it, pay you the money, and then they would wholesale the car for whatever they can get for it _as is_ to the guys who want to scavenge it for usable parts.

If the difficulty and/or cost of repairs to the older models approaches the point where most reasonable people would consider it absurd, then maybe VW will agree to a buy back. If they can't even bring it into acceptable compliance, then the EPA will probably force their hand. Fair market value in this instance would have to be a number unaffected by the vehicle's diminished worth due to the manufacturer's defect. It would have to be a number that most reasonable people would consider more than the car is worth. There would almost certainly be an option to trade it in on a new, fully compliant VW, at a generous trade-in value that may be appealing to some customers, but that wouldn't be mandatory. I'm assuming that the EPA would agree to this sort of arrangement and not insist on something more ridiculous, like anything approaching the car's price when new. Maybe one of the sticking points right now is that VW and the EPA can't agree on the buy back price? Another sticking point could be that the EPA won't accept the fix VW is proposing to the older models because it won't bring them into original compliance?


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## Robert A (May 18, 2003)

My hope is that they would offer something along the lines of an assisted or lemon law buyback. In other words, original cost less some deduction for miles or perhaps full used car retail value before the news broke.


Ninong said:


> You probably will be *if* VW decides to do that. Apparently that is what the EPA wants them to do but VW has not yet agreed with the EPA's proposals. I'm sure you understand how a buy back works, right? They don't give you what you paid for the car when new (unless the buy back happens quite soon, say within the first six months); they give you its current fair market value. Think of it this way. When a car is in a wreck but the total amount of the repair bill would get to the point where it approaches the current fair market value of the vehicle, the insurance company would probably total it, pay you the money, and then they would wholesale the car for whatever they can get for it _as is_ to the guys who want to scavenge it for usable parts.
> 
> If the difficulty and/or cost of repairs to the older models approaches the point where most reasonable people would consider it absurd, then maybe VW will agree to a buy back. If they can't even bring it into acceptable compliance, then the EPA will probably force their hand. Fair market value in this instance would have to be a number unaffected by the vehicle's diminished worth due to the manufacturer's defect. It would have to be a number that most reasonable people would consider more than the car is worth. There would almost certainly be an option to trade it in on a new, fully compliant VW, at a generous trade-in value that may be appealing to some customers, but that wouldn't be mandatory. I'm assuming that the EPA would agree to this sort of arrangement and not insist on something more ridiculous, like anything approaching the car's price when new. Maybe one of the sticking points right now is that VW and the EPA can't agree on the buy back price? Another sticking point could be that the EPA won't accept the fix VW is proposing to the older models because it won't bring them into original compliance?


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## Ninong (May 20, 2014)

Robert A said:


> ... perhaps full used car retail value before the news broke.


That's what I would expect, too.

Maybe VW wants to fix them but they don't want to do it the way the EPA wants them to do it because that would be too expensive?


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## FredoinSF (Nov 29, 2009)

Rather, the bean counters determined it would be more expensive to engineer, test, certify, produce, and install than buying off the remaining older cars. There would be fewer of them on the road and value of each car would be lower than newer cars.


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## Robert A (May 18, 2003)

We would be happy to use the money to buy a new VW GSW.



Ninong said:


> That's what I would expect, too.
> 
> Maybe VW wants to fix them but they don't want to do it the way the EPA wants them to do it because that would be too expensive?


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## wxmanCCM (Feb 17, 2010)

This is something that I've hesitated to post, because I don't know if I believe it myself, but according to an industry-standard "marginal damage" assessment model ("APEEP" - https://sites.google.com/site/nickmullershomepage/home/ap2-apeep-model-2), there are two counties in the U.S. that actually get a net *benefit* from incremental increases in NOx emissions - Orange County, CA, and Cook County (Chicago), IL. There are over 8 million people that live in those two counties according to the latest census that I could find.

I inquired by email to the developer of the model asking if I was interpreting the "marginal damage" maps correctly, and I received a rather terse response that "NOx titration reduces ozone. It is a well-know phenomenon", which I knew, but didn't expect that it would more than offset the higher levels of NO2 and nitrate PM from NOx emissions.


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## wxmanCCM (Feb 17, 2010)

One other point, according to that same APEEP model, marginal damages from NH3 (ammonia) are generally much higher than NOx (up to $302,000/ton for NH3 compared to up to $5300/ton from NOx - worst case).

From what I understand, gasoline engines with three-way catalysts "over-reduce" NOx into NH3. EPA emission factor from gasoline cars with TWC have a NH3 emission factor of 101.117 mg/mile while diesel cars have an NH3 emission factor of 6.7 mg/mile. A diesel car could have NOx emissions of 4.5 gram/mile (far higher than the Jetta TDI in the ICCT/WVU study in the worst-case test (uphill-downhill test cycle)), and still produce less damage from nitrogen emissions than a modern gasoline car. It would also be better to have higher NOx emissions than ammonia slip from SCR diesel cars (i.e., over-dose DEF), according to that model.

For some reason, the regulators are still obsessed with reducing NOx emissions, but have not (yet) regulated NH3 emissions from light-duty vehicles at all.


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## Pierre Louis (Oct 23, 2011)

We need politicians that don't politicize public health and are willing to work with all different people and their needs/interests.


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## regdfry (Mar 1, 2015)

Sorry Pierre,

Politicians "politicize" everything. . . It's what they do. Please advise if AND when that is no longer the case.


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## regdfry (Mar 1, 2015)

duplicate. . . Oops


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## Pierre Louis (Oct 23, 2011)

regdfry said:


> Sorry Pierre,
> 
> Politicians "politicize" everything. . . It's what they do. Please advise if AND when that is no longer the case.


Countries with good health care systems don't. Its what they don't. Sorry regdfry.

PL


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## FredoinSF (Nov 29, 2009)

Something must be wrong with my iPad. Expected to read about VW, emissions scandal, or BMW diesel. Going to Apple Store tomorrow for troubleshooting.


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## Pierre Louis (Oct 23, 2011)

FredoinSF said:


> Something must be wrong with my iPad. Expected to read about VW, emissions scandal, or BMW diesel. Going to Apple Store tomorrow for troubleshooting.


While you are at it, try and fix the politicians that put diesels in the precarious place they are now. They are in your district, no?

PL


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## Robert A (May 18, 2003)

You mean the non-elected individuals who developed a set of rules that enhance the quality of our air?


Pierre Louis said:


> While you are at it, try and fix the politicians that put diesels in the precarious place they are now. They are in your district, no?
> 
> PL


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## FredoinSF (Nov 29, 2009)

Pierre Louis said:


> While you are at it, try and fix the politicians that put diesels in the precarious place they are now. They are in your district, no?
> 
> PL


I came from a country with socialized medicine (since this seems to be the new thread topic), became a U.S. Citizen so I could vote and stop the taxation without representation. I vote. Every time there is an election I vote; not by mail, the old fashioned show up and cast ballot method. You know nothing about me so keep these types comments to yourself.

My post was a tongue in cheek way of expressing my amazement at having gone this far off topic and trying to get back on, but having seen how deep into s rabbit hole this forum can get I should have know these expectation were too lofty.

Last off topic post from me on this subject, I'm not going to get any deeper into a word exchange contest about politics or medicine in a thread about the VW scandal on a BMW forum.


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## totitan (May 11, 2013)

Robert A said:


> We would be happy to use the money to buy a new VW GSW.


As soon as dieselgate broke I decided to try and trade in my 12 JSW tdi for a fair value on a 16 GSW SE tsi. Fortunately on Sept 30 I was able to do so. Since then the value of tdi's has dropped and GSW SE tsi's have become hard to find. Many told me that I was jumping the gun to soon and that I should wait and see how the situation played out. Im glad I did not listen to them. The MQB platform based 16 GSW is a fantastic car that makes me smile every time I drive it. The only problem is that my wife loves it too and more often than not takes it and leaves the 335d in the garage.....


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## wxmanCCM (Feb 17, 2010)

Robert A said:


> You mean the non-elected individuals who developed a set of rules that enhance the quality of our air?


I don't see how the approach CARB has taken can be explained other than from political influence.

It's been known for decades that California's South Coast Air Basin (SoCAB) typically had higher max ozone levels on weekends than weekdays even though O3 precursors were significantly lower on weekends ("weekend ozone effect"). Through a series of studies, it was determined that NOx emissions were reduced relatively more than VOC emissions on weekends (mostly because of a very large decrease in diesel truck traffic). Thus, the recommendations were that CARB concentrate more on reducing VOC emissions than NOx emissions.

However, since those studies were conducted in the early 2000s, CARB has actually been more focused on reducing NOx emissions. The result has been that many areas of SoCAB remain in non-attainment with the O3 NAAQS (air quality standards). That area has been in attainment with the NO2 NAAQS since before 1998, when Tier 1 regulations were in effect, so there was no compelling reason to dramatically reduce NOx emissions for that.

There's a monitor in the EPA AQ monitoring system in San Bernardino that shows that NO2 levels (a surrogate for NOx) in 2014 decreased by over 41% since 2000, but the O3 levels are exactly the same (~100 ppb, well above the 70 ppb NAAQS).

An new study was just published that projects that ambient NOx levels will have to be reduced by another 90% from 2008 levels in order to meet the O3 NAAQS (Fujita et al., "Projected ozone trends and changes in the ozone-precursor relationship in the South Coast Air Basin in response to varying reductions of precursor emissions." _J Air Waste Manag Assoc._ *2016 Feb*;66(2):201-14. doi: 10.1080/10962247.2015.1106991, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26514212). That means that ambient NO2 levels would have to be reduced from ~48 ppb in 2008 to 4.8 ppb in 2030. I'm not sure that's possible even if all anthropogenic sources of NOx are eliminated (there are large natural sources of NOx from, e.g., agricultural soils - up to 10 ppb in those areas).


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## Pierre Louis (Oct 23, 2011)

Thank you again, wxman.


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## regdfry (Mar 1, 2015)

Pierre Louis said:


> Countries with good health care systems don't. Its what they don't. Sorry regdfry.
> 
> PL


PL, hey no apology necessary.

This "air quality" stuff does become political, actually*. Countries can and do have good health care (and health care systems), and at times less then "ideal or target" air quality. Just because VW cheated on their "qualification" of cars with the US and other governments, does not mean those countries provide less than "good" healthcare.

*Air quality regulations attempt "government control" of manufacturers and consumers. In this case the governments failed to control VWs behavior for a period of time and will now attempt to retroactively correct their failure.

Government control is always open to political influence. (My opinion) :thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:


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## wxmanCCM (Feb 17, 2010)

Pierre Louis said:


> Thank you again, wxman.


You're welcome, PL.

In related news, light-duty gasoline vehicles (LDGV) still are the main source of ambient VOCs in SoCAB.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1352231015304350


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## bmw325 (Dec 19, 2001)

Pierre Louis said:


> Its an apology site for the EPA. Not one poster is trying to get VW off the hook. Amazing how unqualified the arguments are. Statism and centralized planning is somehow supported by these flawed arguments.
> 
> The EPA favors gasoline vehicles over anything diesel. BMW being the exception is interesting, given the vitriol against its pollution control equipment on this board and the enthusiasm for removing it.
> 
> The emperor has no clothes.


So cheating is ok?


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## Pierre Louis (Oct 23, 2011)

bmw325 said:


> So cheating is ok?


No. Please find a post that says cheating is OK. I can't find one. Perhaps my reading ability is off.


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## Pierre Louis (Oct 23, 2011)

Directly due to EPA bungling and ineptitude, and dishonesty/corporate mismanagement at VW, we will no longer have a diesel marketplace in North America.

As a result, gasoline tech will continue until coal and natural gas powered electric cars become more prevalent, given the hope that battery technology lowers its reliance on rare earth heavy metal strip mining.

We will get an order of magnitude of small particulates, CO, CO2, Hydrocarbon and yes, dirtier air, since arguably even cheating VW TDI diesels are cleaner.

NOx no longer has the urgency for environmental cleanup, as it is so low now that current and further strict regulations are counter-productive. Lowering NOx produces more of other pollutants with current and near future technology.

This is our EPA, and you didn't vote for it, did you?

Cheers.

PL


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## Ninong (May 20, 2014)

The title of the thread is: *VW and Audi Cheating on Their Emissions?* Some of us want to talk about that topic and others want to talk about the EPA. Maybe there should be a separate thread about the EPA?

The fact that VW and Audi cheated on their emissions is now established because they have admitted as much. They keep putting off their announcement of the conclusions reached by their own internal investigation and my personal opinion is that they are waiting for the German prosecutors to announce their criminal charges, if any. That investigation has expanded from the initial six individuals under investigation to more than twice that number. Leaks allegedly from the law firm VW hired to conduct their internal investigation have been quoted as saying dozens of individuals had knowledge of and participated in this deception.

All of the pending lawsuits, including the charges filed by the FTC alleging consumer fraud and fraudulent advertising of "clean diesels" in the U.S. will take on new meaning if it can be proven that senior management knew of and approved this scheme. It is difficult to imagine that they didn't know about it even if there is nothing in writing with their signature approving it.

It's complicated by the fact that the family that owns a majority of the voting rights to VW's stock has publicly proclaimed that they knew nothing of this and that their new hand-picked CEO, who was previously running Audi for several years, had no knowledge of it. Furthermore, the current Supervisory Board declared that the previous CEO, who was forced to resign, had no personal responsibility for it. If the German prosecutors reach a different conclusion, that will be interesting, to say the least.


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## Pierre Louis (Oct 23, 2011)

VW and Audi Cheating on Their Emissions has everything to do with CARB/EPA and Euro emissions rules that were broken, apparently. The information we have about the litigation is little. Its easy to read what limited information the press publishes with no need for discussion if that is all that matters.


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## Ninong (May 20, 2014)

Pierre Louis said:


> VW and Audi Cheating on Their Emissions has everything to do with CARB/EPA and Euro emissions rules that were broken...


Why? The discussion is whether they cheated and, if so, what are the consequences for them and the customers affected.


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## tonyspumoni (May 23, 2010)

ninong said:


> why? The discussion is whether they cheated and, if so, what are the consequences for them and the customers affected.


+1


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## Pierre Louis (Oct 23, 2011)

Ninong said:


> Why? The discussion is whether they cheated and, if so, what are the consequences for them and the customers affected.


Really?! I've read the entire thread so far and don't know of anyone who doesn't think they "cheated" at least from the EPA's point of view. Its highly likely, and I don't know of anyone that disagrees with this.

For me to make a final judgement would require technical information which is not being revealed much about how this cheating came about.

As for consequences, it is my impression that sentencing and damages are mitigated by current circumstances involving the crime, which perhaps CARB/EPA rules and behavior have a little to do with.

On the other hand, I wonder if you can see the forrest for the trees.

Regards.

PL


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## Ninong (May 20, 2014)

Pierre Louis said:


> On the other hand, I wonder if you can see the forrest for the trees.


Here are some more "trees" for our viewing pleasure. *Volkswagen, Opel, Mercedes-Benz and Porsche will recall 630,000 vehicles to fix diesel engine management software, a German government official said, Friday, April 22, 2016:* http://europe.autonews.com/article/...to-recall-630000-diesel-cars-to-fix-emissions

"BMW, which invested in fuel-saving technologies earlier than most rivals, was not part of the recall, the official said."

Yesterday was a particularly bad day for the German stock market with the German automakers leading the way down. Daimler fell 4.86%, VW fell 1.26% and BMW fell only 0.52%. I believe yesterday was the first time Mercedes was named by a German government official in a recall related to diesel emissions.


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## Pierre Louis (Oct 23, 2011)

Yeah, I read the article too.


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## Ninong (May 20, 2014)

Adding to VW's problems, now that European news media has been saturated with reports of VW's "generous offer" to American customers with recalled diesel engines, Europeans want the same deal. They have heard that VW has offered to buy back the affected cars and they have heard something about a "cash benefit up to $5,000." I'm not sure the details have been released yet on that but I suspect it will amount to a voucher good on the purchase or lease of a new VW and the value will vary depending on the new model in question.

There are a total of about 580,000 recalled diesels in the U.S., including the 3-liter V6 diesels. There are an estimated 8.5-11 million affected diesels over there.


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## Flyingman (Sep 13, 2009)

Can you say $30 billion!:yikes:


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## tonyspumoni (May 23, 2010)

Pierre Louis said:


> VW and Audi Cheating on Their Emissions has everything to do with CARB/EPA and Euro emissions rules that were broken, apparently. The information we have about the litigation is little. Its easy to read what limited information the press publishes with no need for discussion if that is all that matters.


This is indeed a complicated case Pierre, but you can't seriously be suggesting that the lack of information on a civil settlement is owing to some nefarious press plot to suppress it are you? And by "apparently", what exactly do you mean? VW has admitted guilt. What part of that is "apparently"?

We live in a civil society. This means we agree collectively on how laws are made, make them, and then equally obey them all. Some we like - others not so much. But if we break the ones we don't like and get caught, we have no justification to claim that the source of law-breaking is lawmakers and not law breakers, as you seem perpetually to do with VW.

The they-made-me-do-it argument hasn't held water for about 20 centuries and the I-had-no-choice argument got shredded when it was revealed that BMW had managed to master solutions enabling this great company to fully comply.

Does it stink that VW screwed the pooch for clean diesel in the U.S. (and quite possible Europe too)? It does. But it only leaves me with the feeling that if VW had had as much corporate integrity and design ingenuity as BMW, they wouldn't be in this mess in the first place.


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## tonyspumoni (May 23, 2010)

Flyingman said:


> Can you say $30 billion!:yikes:


Yup. That sounds about right. The Porsche family must be seething at the ineptitude and stunning lack of integrity over at VW. To say that this debacle will cost them a fortune is an understatement.


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## Ninong (May 20, 2014)

Flyingman said:


> Can you say $30 billion!:yikes:


Most estimates have the total in a range of $20-$30 billion, so that would be at the high end of that range. Volkswagen has now raised their charge for this on their financials to $18 billion, but that's subject to go up, if necessary. Only 9.3% of VW's stock is in the hands of private investors. The Porsche and Piech families own about 34% of it but they own 51% of the voting rights.

BP's total cost to date of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill is $23.5 billion. It's looking more and more like VW's total cost could exceed that amount.


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## tonyspumoni (May 23, 2010)

I have made a couple of references to this article and am posting it for those who might've missed. Forgive me if it has been posted already and I overlooked that post.

http://www.i4u.com/2016/04/109101/bmw-only-german-car-brand-offering-clean-diesel-engines


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## bmw325 (Dec 19, 2001)

tonyspumoni said:


> Yup. That sounds about right. The Porsche family must be seething at the ineptitude and stunning lack of integrity over at VW. To say that this debacle will cost them a fortune is an understatement.


Although arguably it was one of them that set the stage for this (Piech and autocratic rule-by-fear style)


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## Pierre Louis (Oct 23, 2011)

tonyspumoni said:


> This is indeed a complicated case Pierre, but you can't seriously be suggesting that the lack of information on a civil settlement is owing to some nefarious press plot to suppress it are you? And by "apparently", what exactly do you mean? VW has admitted guilt. What part of that is "apparently"?
> 
> We live in a civil society. This means we agree collectively on how laws are made, make them, and then equally obey them all. Some we like - others not so much. But if we break the ones we don't like and get caught, we have no justification to claim that the source of law-breaking is lawmakers and not law breakers, as you seem perpetually to do with VW.
> 
> ...


Admitted guilt? How if they also said at the time they didn't know how it happened. We still don't really know a lot of details, but "admitting guilt" to the EPA may have been thought of as an inevitability. How do you know they had a choice, given the EPA's power to make the rules, interpret them, and enforce them?

No-one is making the straw argument (to make your point I suppose) of "they made me do it." This is your fabrication, I guess, to prove some point, but I can't understand why unless we are somehow on a childhood playground.... VW is at fault. They will be, however, destroyed it seems beyond any sensible punishment to fit the crime, as will many innocent workers and consumers.

Yes, BMW is so far unscathed, but I wouldn't put it past such regulatory zeal, which BTW created the problem with unnecessary and backward regulation of pollution (remember, decrease NOx increase other pollutants engineering reality I mentioned??).

And don't get me started about the apish, scientifically ill equipped press corps. No nefarious plot here, just incompetence.

PL


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## Pierre Louis (Oct 23, 2011)

Engineering is a compromise. It is not unusual for companies to come out with products that are less than ideal but marketable (read: Microsoft). Its clear that the EPA wants both low emissions and low CO2 - the two are opposing requirements when designing internal combustion engines.

VW leadership has been arrogant, condescending, and reckless without even looking at diesel-gate. Examples: Winterkorn's reckless maneuvers that nearly bankrupted Porsche trying to buy VW. Piech's apparent megalomania with the car market, VW/Bosch design of exploding fuel pumps, etc. This is not new to corporate culture, however, and may have been worse at VW for a variety of reasons.

Also, anyone who thinks that there is no anti-diesel agenda, or anti-automobile sentiment in our society, perhaps no less in the press and political spheres, is living under a rock.

Emission regulations put on diesel cars were originally designed for gasoline cars. This resulted in engineering hurdles that gasoline design did not face. Diesel smoke is still thought of as "black" and "bad" while invisible small particulates which gassers emit much more of, are relatively ignored, as is CO and HC emissions. A BMW clean diesel is not just "OK" with NOx, but beats equivalent gasoline vehicles by a lot. 

As many recall, the 335d is criticized for its lack of high fuel economy associated with diesels of recent vintage. It is accepted that this is at least partly from the emission equipment and engineering. We emit more CO2. But comparing a cheating VW TDI to currently compliant gasoline cars wouldn't work when VW is to be demonized, does it. Is there an agenda? It would be surprising that the VW scandal didn't have what most other social and political endeavors all have. I will spare you from speculation of what other agendas might be.

PL


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## tonyspumoni (May 23, 2010)

Pierre Louis said:


> Admitted guilt? How if they also said at the time they didn't know how it happened. We still don't really know a lot of details, but "admitting guilt" to the EPA may have been thought of as an inevitability. How do you know they had a choice, given the EPA's power to make the rules, interpret them, and enforce them?
> 
> No-one is making the straw argument (to make your point I suppose) of "they made me do it." This is your fabrication, I guess, to prove some point, but I can't understand why unless we are somehow on a childhood playground.... VW is at fault. They will be, however, destroyed it seems beyond any sensible punishment to fit the crime, as will many innocent workers and consumers.
> 
> ...


Well, for one thing, VW falsified their EPA regulatory documents. This is a fact. The regulations clearly state that all devices that influence emissions need to be disclosed - I have read them myself. These regulations clearly specific that a device can be hardware or software. VW did not disclose the defeat device upon registration of ANY of their TDI's which - and I am kinda tired of repeating this - they have admitted they did NOT do and which is called fraud.

You are quite right on one point - I cannot recall VW making the they-made-us-do-it excuse. That was you.


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## Flyingman (Sep 13, 2009)

In actuality, perhaps it would be best to just let the unknowing owners keep their Diesels for as long as they want. VW can of course buy them back, and offer a credit for a new vehicle, but if an owner is happy with his car, let him keep it.

Fine the heck out of VW so there will be no doubt they or any other OEM would attempt to do something so foolish again, but why penalize the buyer?

I'm just wondering what would they do with a 1/2 million used but good Diesel VWs that pollute more than they are supposed to?

I'm sure they could easily sell them in developing countries ( I doubt many have any pollution requirements based on what I see). I bought a used but very good Japanese Blue Bird that was (10) years old. Apparently in Japan you have to get rid of older cars for some reason, I thought it was by law? They imported them by the boat load to Central America and you could pick one up for about $2k-$3k, then spend about $500 having the steering wheel swapped over to the left side.:rofl:

All the Taxi drivers have them. It's a win/win!:thumbup:


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## Flyingman (Sep 13, 2009)

Found this article which helps explain why Japanese unload their cars before 10 years of age:

The Japanese car industry is very unique. Unlike many countries around the world, a Japanese vehicle is driven for about 10 years only. Most Japanese prefer to buy the latest model to stay in fashion, so they quite of ten change their vehicles every 5 or 7 or 9 years. A used vehicle in Japan does not have much appeal as most Japanese prefer to buy brand new vehicles. Therefore a used car dealer can only sell his stock at cheap prices in order to attract buyers.


There are over 72 million vehicles registered on the roads in Japan at any one time. There are over six million vehicles traded each year. Of this figure, just over 1 million used vehicles are exported from Japan. The rest are either sold in the domestic market, or scrapped for recycling. What a waste to scrap a vehicle that is only 10 years old. That is the main reason the used Japanese vehicle export industry started. Initially, a small group of wise people realised it was better to export the used vehicles to countries where the life of the vehicle could last for another 10 to 20 years. In other words, a complete recycle of the used vehicle.


A Japanese vehicle must be re-registered after the first three years of purchase, then every two years after that. The cost of re-registration is approx. US$1,500. To most Japanese, this cost is a waste when the vehicle is 7 or 9 years old, so a new vehicle is preferred over registration as a result. Since it is difficult to re-sell a 7 or 9 year old vehicle in Japan, the exporters can pick them up for very cheap prices. The cars are then sold at cheap prices to overseas buyers via the internet, or in bonded yards set up in different countries.


Most Japanese travel to work by train due to a very efficient rail system in Japan. One can set their watch by the train timetables because they are so efficient. Also, most Japanese people work very late hours of ten resulting in returning home around midnight. Therefore most Japanese only get to drive their vehicles on weekends. This is why Japanese vehicles have low kilometers. A Japanese passenger vehicle travels an average of 8,000km a year. I’m sure many of you travel this much in one month. On top of this, the roads in Japan are in great condition and very smooth. The kilometers travelled in Japan are called "soft kilometers". Compare a used Japanese vehicle that has travelled 50,000km in Japan to one that has travelled the same distance in Africa. The difference is obvious. Also, other reasons why train travel is preferred to a car are the high cost of road tolls, high cost of parking fees, and 72 million vehicles on the road causing huge traffic jams.


Japanese look after their vehicles very well. It is said that the Japanese male treats his car better than his wife (I wouldn’t say that for fear of reprisal from my wife). When the Japanese buy a new car they are locked into a maintenance program which ensures the vehicle is serviced every year and parts and repairs are guaranteed. The new car dealers send out letters every year to remind the drivers to bring their vehicles in for a service, whether it needs it or not. It’s all covered under the maintenance program.


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## henrycyao (Oct 23, 2012)

Flyingman said:


> Found this article which helps explain why Japanese unload their cars before 10 years of age:
> 
> The Japanese car industry is very unique. Unlike many countries around the world, a Japanese vehicle is driven for about 10 years only. Most Japanese prefer to buy the latest model to stay in fashion, so they quite of ten change their vehicles every 5 or 7 or 9 years. A used vehicle in Japan does not have much appeal as most Japanese prefer to buy brand new vehicles. Therefore a used car dealer can only sell his stock at cheap prices in order to attract buyers.
> 
> ...


So why does Japanese taxi looks so old when I went to Kyoto a few years ago? They looked they were designed in the 80s.


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## Autoputzer (Mar 16, 2014)

Flyingman said:


> Found this article which helps explain why Japanese unload their cars before 10 years of age:
> 
> The Japanese car industry is very unique. Unlike many countries around the world, a Japanese vehicle is driven for about 10 years only. Most Japanese prefer to buy the latest model to stay in fashion, so they quite of ten change their vehicles every 5 or 7 or 9 years. A used vehicle in Japan does not have much appeal as most Japanese prefer to buy brand new vehicles. Therefore a used car dealer can only sell his stock at cheap prices in order to attract buyers.
> 
> ...


There's also a mandatory inspection there every three years that costs around $1000, not including required repairs. Acquiring a parking space in the cities is also expensive. Fuel is expensive there, too.


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## BobBNY (Sep 2, 2011)

henrycyao said:


> So why does Japanese taxi looks so old when I went to Kyoto a few years ago? They looked they were designed in the 80s.


The ones that look like the old Corona? They are actually new... or sort of new... and made specifically for the taxi market. Remember the Checker? They have the same car in Hong Kong. I like them. I am always surprised at how big they are inside when I get in one. I am seeing more camry's now though.

BB


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## tonyspumoni (May 23, 2010)

Every day some new revelation. Why is the VW scandal so newsworthy compared to, say, the mortgage securities scandal. I am mystified by VW management's unwillingness to try to strike an early deal once it became obvious that regulators would wventually figure this out


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## bmw325 (Dec 19, 2001)

tonyspumoni said:


> Every day some new revelation. Why is the VW scandal so newsworthy compared to, say, the mortgage securities scandal. I am mystified by VW management's unwillingness to try to strike an early deal once it became obvious that regulators would wventually figure this out


I think VW has some serious company culture issues that will take a long time to fix (if they ever do)


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## floydarogers (Oct 11, 2010)

*Europe's regs and testing is laughable*

http://www.msn.com/en-us/autos/news...missions-cheating-scandal-since-vw/ar-BBtwbMO

I thought the EPA's testing was bad, but EU regs allow automakers to cheat with no consequences. From the beginning of the article:
"Opel

General Motors' German brand came under fire in mid-May of 2016, after a joint investigation by German news magazine Der Spiegel, ARD television program Monitor, and the environmentalist group Deutsche Umwelthilfe discovered software on diesel-powered Zafira minivans and Insignia sedans that turns off emissions controls during real-world driving. Opel CEO Dr. Karl-Thomas Neumann released an initial statement denying "any illegal software" and insisting that "our engines are in line with the legal requirements;" later, Opel published a lengthy and in-depth statement explaining why the software discovered by the investigation is technically legal.

And astoundingly, while the software does indeed turn off the affected vehicles' emissions controls in most real-world driving scenarios, as Bertel Schmitt points out at Forbes, the software is likely to be found 100-percent compliant with European Union laws.

That's because E.U. law allows automakers to program their emissions controls to deactivate when necessary to protect the engine from harm. And it allows the automakers to define for themselves what counts as a protective shutdown. So Opel's affected diesel vehicles shut off all emissions controls at ambient temperatures below 20C (68F), or above 30C (86F), or at speeds over 145 km/h (90 mph), or engine speeds more than 2400 RPM, or at elevations higher than 850 meters (roughly 2800 feet). As Schmitt points out, Opel has a plausible-sounding explanation for each of these parameters-but coincidentally, Opel and every other automaker knows that E.U. emissions testing occurs at ambient temperatures between 20C and 30C, at speeds below 145 km/h, with engine speed never exceeding 2400 RPM; they also know that the highest elevation of an E.U. testing facility is at roughly 800 meters."


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## whatnxt (Apr 10, 2011)

Flyingman said:


> In actuality, perhaps it would be best to just let the unknowing owners keep their Diesels for as long as they want. VW can of course buy them back, and offer a credit for a new vehicle, but if an owner is happy with his car, let him keep it.
> 
> Current poll on one of the VW TDI sites:
> 
> ...


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## tonyspumoni (May 23, 2010)

I've been wondering what VW will do with any re-purchased vehicles. It would make sense for them to resell them in markets with laxer standards and surely help recoup some of the buyback costs. Still, letting owners keep them might be troublesome, at least in states where emissions testing is gating for continued legal registration.


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## Robert A (May 18, 2003)

I've wondered myself. There will be several 100,000 vehicles to transport and possibly destroy. I don't see them shipping the cars overseas for resale, but the parts could be reconditioned and resold.



tonyspumoni said:


> I've been wondering what VW will do with any re-purchased vehicles. It would make sense for them to resell them in markets with laxer standards and surely help recoup some of the buyback costs. Still, letting owners keep them might be troublesome, at least in states where emissions testing is gating for continued legal registration.


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## tonyspumoni (May 23, 2010)

You could be totally right, Robert A. Here in SoCal the last home for serviceable vehicles that can no longer pass smog or are too expensive to repair is Mexico, which got me to wondering if a fair few *****backs would end up there as very nice used cars. VW sure has an incentive to minimize the bottom line impact a widespread buyback program would have. Dunno but whatever they come up with will be interesting to see implemented. Maybe a buyback is an original value trade on a new VW or, like tire warranties, some kind of pro-rated deal?


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## Robert A (May 18, 2003)

My guess is that they'll farm the entire operation out to another firm that handles transporting, parting-out and destroying what's left of the vehicles. I cannot imagine that VW is going to deal with it themselves.

QUOTE=tonyspumoni;9698533]You could be totally right, Robert A. Here in SoCal the last home for serviceable vehicles that can no longer pass smog or are too expensive to repair is Mexico, which got me to wondering if a fair few *****backs would end up there as very nice used cars. VW sure has an incentive to minimize the bottom line impact a widespread buyback program would have. Dunno but whatever they come up with will be interesting to see implemented. Maybe a buyback is an original value trade on a new VW or, like tire warranties, some kind of pro-rated deal?[/QUOTE]


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## Ninong (May 20, 2014)

*VW accused of deleting harmful data for a week prior to admitting they cheated!*

Two German broadcasters and one newspaper are reporting exactly that. They say German prosecutors are uncovering evidence that VW deliberately removed data harmful to the company for a week before finally admitting to the EPA and CARB that they had been deliberately cheating by designing a defeat device into their diesel engines. Some of that removed data was transferred to data sticks that have since been recovered.

That same media group reported back in March that an ex-employee of VW's US unit was suing the company for damages, claiming he had been unlawfully fired for flagging internally what he alleged was illegal deletion of data.

German prosecutors are investigating but it may be difficult for them to determine the extent of the data removed or whether they have recovered all of it.

http://www.autonews.com/article/201...gators-probe-vw-over-deleted-data-reports-say


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## tonyspumoni (May 23, 2010)

This just gets better and better doesn't it? Someone will write a good book about this and I will buy it and read it.


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## Flyingman (Sep 13, 2009)

Actually, a common practice is to cut the cars in half, legally they are now destroyed, then they sell those parted halves to developing countries as "parts" and not as complete cars, then they weldthem back together again.

Think I'm kidding?:eeps:http://todayilearned.co.uk/2011/08/03/ukrainians-cut-cars-in-half-to-reduce-import-tax-at-customs/

I drive by a few auto lots here in Miami that sell car halves. I assume these were cars that totaled one end or the other and weren't halved prior to an accident, but folks are buying the halves and putting them together.

They can get a whole car for a fraction of the cost this way.

I have a classic 1979 US Army Jeep that was purchased at a US Govt Surplus auction. Because it was to be exported overseas it was sold whole, if not they were required to cut them in half and could then sell them as parts because these vehicles are not street legal here in the US, don't meet DOT, EPA, etc...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M151_Truck,_Utility,_1/4-Ton,_4×4

"In the late 1980s the M151s began being phased out of service in favour of the HMMWV. A few (perhaps 1,000) were sold via Government Surplus auctions, and those that were not sold via Foreign Military Sales (FMS) overseas were cut into four pieces and scrapped. However some individuals were able to buy these "quartered" M151s and simply weld the four sections back together, and rebuilt them into drivable condition. Some vehicles sold in the United States were simply cut in half, some of which were simply welded back together and driven. Additionally, beginning in the late 1990s a few companies dealing in Military surplus items bought M151s from some of the foreign governments that received the vehicles via FMS for reconditioning and further sales.[citation needed]"

http://todayilearned.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/cars-cut-in-half-for-lower-import-tax-7.jpg


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## finnbmw (Jul 6, 2008)

*VW not alone*

Diesel is taking a hit in EU http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/10/b...=WhatsNext&contentID=WhatsNext&pgtype=article


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## Doug Huffman (Apr 25, 2015)

Link above mentions a -3% sales rate change in 1Q 2016 but without a standard deviation with which to compare previous observations.


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## wxmanCCM (Feb 17, 2010)

Why does there appear to be no concern in Europe of the 65% of petrol cars tested by one organization exceeding the regulatory limits for carbon monoxide (CO)?

http://tinyurl.com/jf4osrw

CO is "poisonous" and is an ozone precursor also.


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## henrycyao (Oct 23, 2012)

wxmanCCM said:


> Why does there appear to be no concern in Europe of the 65% of petrol cars tested by one organization exceeding the regulatory limits for carbon monoxide (CO)?
> 
> http://tinyurl.com/jf4osrw
> 
> CO is "poisonous" and is an ozone precursor also.


There is a good reason why European cars get heavier when they get to the us. I suppose we are starting to see the true picture of European cars.

I believe this is treated equally serious by the EU. However, majority cars in Europe are diesel. I believe that they focus on that because it is the biggest effect.


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