Volkswagon: Das Screwed

I just read that it isn't only Volkswagen. All of the European car diesel manufacturers are being investigated, and includes Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Peugeot, Renault..... pretty much all diesel car brands. There are going to be some major fines in the US, but if the EU decides to come down on them full force, that will be the bigger problem, as there are a lot more diesel cars in Europe than there are in the US, or all of North America for that matter.
 
On the news here tonight they interviewed a local dealer, and he said they have had almost no foot traffic. Compared to selling 13 VW's in the last month, he has now only sold 1 since their dirty little secret got out.
 
Its going to be a major problem for not just VW corporate with the fines ($7.2B-$18B in fines, depending on who is doing the calculations), but even more of a problem for the dealers. I think that some of the relatively decent performance of the VW diesels (both the power/acceleration and fuel mileage standpoints) are going to take serious hits when the bypass/defeat is removed during the recall. The reason the bypass was put in place was to make the cars at least somewhat comparable to the gas powered cars. When the retrofit goes in, I'm willing to bet that the power will go down (most likely, way down) and the fuel mileage will as well, and with it, any real reason to own a diesel powered car. The loss of consumer trust is already setting in.

Environmentalists need to take note of what is going on as well. Push technology to meet your own objectives regardless of what is actually technically feasible, and this is the end result. I will sit back now amusedly and await the environmental disaster that comes about when all of these "hybrid" and full on electric cars start to need new battery packs in volume. Let us see how environmentally friendly these cars are when hundreds of pounds per car of nickel-metal hydride or lithium batteries need to be recycled.
 
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as the man who owns one, i will offer this :
i have a 2009 jetta tdi tiptronic dsg automatic.
its 1 of the best cars i have ever had.
fun to drive, handles great, build quality is good, has 110k kms / 68 k miles and nothing has gone wrong and at 6 years old it looks pretty fresh. it does not get parked under cover, its outside all year long in the west coast rain forest climate.
a friend of mine says it reminds him of his bmw with an inline 6, it pulls smoothly and strongly and it feels like a gas motor.
sometimes its not the smoothest pulling away from a stop n a hill but thats ok.
my overall fuel mileage (mainly in town) is about 6.8 lit per 100 /34.5 us mpg / 41.5 cdn mpg and on long highway trips i have averaged about 4.5 lit per 100 / 52 us mpg / 62 cdn mpg.
i would absolutely buy another.
next time i will go for a passat tdi.
i would imagine vw canada will probably do a watered down version of whatever vw usa does.
if they offer to reprogram my car i will probably say no thanks !
 
Marko:

I thnk the cars, as they currently are, are fine. Problem is that the reason that they are as good as they are is that they are actually bypassing the pollution equipment. If/when they are recalled and retrofitted, some of that goodness will go away. How much of an impact the retrofit will have will depend on what they do to fix the problem. If they just retrofit a DEF system and recalibrate the ECU/ECM, it may be just fine. If they decide to simply delete the bypass software and have the pollution equipment engaged all the time, there may be some impact (to a greater or lesser extent) to fuel economy and/or engine power.

I don't know if you will be allowed to not update/retrofit your car. It will depend on what the DOT does with regards to the recall. You can always not bring the car in, but anytime you bring the car in for service to the dealer, it will have the retrofit performed, as it will be a mandatory retrofit, and any dealer not performing it can get into legal problems.
 
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yeah, i think its going to be a long time before anything gets resolved about it in canada; i had an email from vw canada about it that basically says they only know what the press releases say.
if i have to get it reflashed i will stall it as long as possible - my extended warranty ran out 2 weeks ago so i don't really see how they can make make me.
ive just had a service done at the dealer while still under warranty so, won't be due for for 1 for another 10-15k.
hopefully whatever they come up with won't take away too much performance or economy.
at least they can't take away the handling and the other good things !
 
It is a direct attack on anything Diesel in a passenger car. I applaud the OEM for simply gaming the "SYSTEM". Vehicle emissions are always put out there as the big polluters and it is actually less than 1%. I am actually going out and trying to buy the Passat Diesel this weekend. I think of it as a big F U to the MAN. Plus I want to get the permit to run used Veggie oil (Untaxed motor fuel).... HINT HINT WINK WINK. SCREW THEM TREE HUGGIN NAZIs....... It has been a tough week for me at work, can ya tell......
 
I'm no organic chemist, but I have always thought that diesels will alwats be dirtier than gasoline engines, based on the higher concentration of heavier/nigher percentage of big carbon
molecules. When a barrel of oil is refined, the first things to come out are asphalt, then bunker oil (the stuff that is burned by ships, and needs to be heated to flow), then diesel and heating oil (kerosene) in the middle, and gasoline near or at the top. Diesel fuel's bigger, higher carbon content molecules will be harder to durn completely, and the carbon content comes out as soot (particulates in the pollution expert's language). They now have traps/filters to prevent the soot from coming out the tailpipe, and chemicals to treat/reduce it, but diesels still generate soot.

I don't think that a diesel engine can be made that will burn as clean as the cleanest gasoline engine.
 
Newer diesels with particulate filters emit very little, if any, soot and all it really takes to eliminate NOX is the urea injection system (diesel exhaust fluid) that injects it in front of the catalyst. If I heard the VW thing right, the ones they cheated with are the 2.0 TDI in the Jetta's which don't have DEF injection. I haven't really read any articles or heard details so I'm kind of assuming here. If I'm wrong,,,,,,,,,,,,oh well.

Know what the worst part about it is? The Environ-MENTAL-ists will have a field day. Wish they'd all go hug some trees and stay there.
 
Actually, it looks like the Nazi's aren't tree huggers.lol
slant6billy said:
It is a direct attack on anything Diesel in a passenger car. I applaud the OEM for simply gaming the "SYSTEM". Vehicle emissions are always put out there as the big polluters and it is actually less than 1%. I am actually going out and trying to buy the Passat Diesel this weekend. I think of it as a big F U to the MAN. Plus I want to get the permit to run used Veggie oil (Untaxed motor fuel).... HINT HINT WINK WINK. SCREW THEM TREE HUGGIN NAZIs....... It has been a tough week for me at work, can ya tell......
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Mush like the ol'smog pumps...lets just pump air into the exhaust that makes it cleaner...lol tree huggers
 
kkritsilas said:
Environmentalists need to take note of what is going on as well. Push technology to meet your own objectives regardless of what is actually technically feasible, and this is the end result. I will sit back now amusedly and await the environmental disaster that comes about when all of these "hybrid" and full on electric cars start to need new battery packs in volume. Let us see how environmentally friendly these cars are when hundreds of pounds per car of nickel-metal hydride or lithium batteries need to be recycled.
Click to expand...

Spot on.
The tree huggers doing their part yet again.
 
The tree huggers are a big reason a base model sub compact car costs $20,000. Well that and all the other government mandated equipment. Cars and trucks run so clean and efficient with current standards, I don't understand why they can't draw the line and leave it be. Government wants cars to get 60 mpg with exhaust you can breathe and for passengers to survive a 70 mph crash into a concrete wall. It's just not physically possible. There's the problem,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,tree huggers don't know what the term "physics" means,,,,,,,,,,,,or "logic",,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,or "mind your own business",,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,or "go away".....................................
 
The passenger car emission laws are too strict.
Pretty much impossible to do what they want and have
Any reliability and performance.
 
As a guy who was an Audi/VW tech for 5 1/2 (miserable) years, VW's are decent cars, drive nice, hold up very well, don't tend to rot as fast as a lot of other cars BUT they are an SOB to work on and parts can get pricey. Audi's are the same way only a couple steps higher on the quality and longevity chart. Nice cars, awesome to drive, etc. as long as you can pay someone else to work on them. About the only nice thing about working on them is they use really, really good fasteners. Where a lot of cars you have the heat wrench out on a 3 year old car to get bolts loose, Audi's and VW's come apart no problem even after 10 or 15 years or more. Other than that, no thank you!

Going off the topic a tad, I also worked on a couple Ferrari's, some Porsche's and BMW's at the Audi dealer and honestly,,,,,,I wasn't all that impressed with any of them. People thought since we Audi was European that we could fix ANY European car. Ferrari,,,,,,,not what they're hyped up to be IMO. Don't even get me started on Land Rover or Jaguar,,,,,,,,,,,,,OMFG, just shoot me now! lol The British have a "unique" way of doing things.
 
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Other car makers are already under investigation. Wonder if the big diesel pickups (3/4-1 ton Cummins, Powerstoke and Duramax) have the same problem. I know they all use DEF because we refill the ones at work all the time. We get the stuff in 40 Gallon drums.

L
 
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