VW Deisel

You've got a great van there. Hope you get your cheaper fuel. That would be great for the country too.

stan909 wrote:
Why do we care? Does VW sell a Diesel van rv I'm not aware of?

I have a 2004 Sportsmobile Sprinter 2500 with 240,000 miles and hope to keep it another 10 years. Understanding the VW diesel helps me know about issues for the future such as:

1. Will this scandal reduce the number of diesel cars and small trucks on American highways? If so, will diesel fuel then, be cheaper than gasoline?

2. How does the I5 engine in my van compare, pollution wise, with the VW engine and how likely is a recall?

Why do we care? Does VW sell a Diesel van rv I'm not aware of?

Massive NOx pollution from Direct Injection Gas engines

Shearwater wrote:
Diesels inherently generate o lot of NOx emissions. Commercial truck diesels and MB sprinters inject DEF (a concentrated solution of urea) into the exhaust system to react with and eliminate the NOx. They shouldn't have the same problems as VW.

This issue has opened a Pandora's box of issues and it has nothing to do with Diesels. Direct injection gas engines, have in the real world very high Nox levels

usually EGR itself won;t much affect MPG.
substituting exhaust gasses for fresh air reduces the combustion chamber temperatures which reduce oxides of nitrogen- essentially displacing air and fuel ( which burn hot, with exhaust gas which is not as hot) so that the cylinder burns less.

the egr is generally active at part-throttle cruising. not during warm up, acceleration or pulling up a hill- high demand.

I think the diff you see above is the 5 and 6 cylinder motors are completely different in design...add in weight, gearing etc.
if works from published figures rather than personal observation...the manufacturer could have changed testing method or forgotten to put tape over all teh door seams and remove the fan belt that turns the alt, water pump etc etc.

so apples to oranges

the more we look at this the more we see how they cheat.

mike

When the Mercedes Sprinter 2500 first went from the 5 cylinder turbo diesel to 6 cylinders with exhaust gas recirculation, miles per gallon went from 20 to 17. I that expect VW will change exhaust gas recirculation by updating the software and experience a similar reduction in efficiency.

n7bsn wrote:

kaydeejay wrote:

wildtoad wrote:
I think I'll wait a few more months and pick up a great deal on a new VW diesel. Good cars, great mileage. They'll fix the software and everything will be good. Reputation may take a while to fix though.

There is a very good chance that "fixing" the software is going to kill the fuel economy.
I guess we'll have to wait and see.

My understanding is not the fuel economy so much as performance.

I suspect both will be affected. Unless they are retrofitted with urea (DEF) injection, in which case performance may not be degraded. But the cost of doing that is going to be HUGE!
(But a lot less than the $37,500 fine per vehicle that the EPA could assess for non-compliance!)
Again, pure speculation, but I'm sure all will be revealed eventually.

if the 40 MPG car becomes an 32 mpg car and the 0~60 time goes from 11.1 seconds to 19 seconds the value is really gonna dive.

in addition most VW diesels are an average of $4000 more than a gas version of same model/trim.

so that is where the current owners paid a premium for a car which will be drastically affected for performance, fuel economy and resale.

aside from the lies.

as the share value of vw has declined by now 40%%...the value of these cars has declined.

Not the payments though

link to cartoon in the Guardian:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/picture/2015/sep/25/this-week-we-learned-how-vws-secret-extremely-clever-software-reduces-harmful-engine-emissions

other diesels which use the urea injection may be ok, Chevy uses that in the Cruze

mike

KD4UPL wrote:
I don't see why this would hurt sales. There wasn't a problem with the cars. They had good power, fuel economy, etc. They didn't break down or catch fire or wreck or anything like that.
I don't think the average consumer is going to not buy one because they cheated the EPA. Big deal, they probably saved some money, got better fuel economy, and made more HP because of it.

Do you have ANY IDEA how this will effect resale values on these cars if the "Fix" lessens performance of these cars? Do you know many consumers would rather not deal with a company THAT KNOWINGLY wrote software (think about the moral implications here) to defeat a test?

Think about what you just wrote......

I don't see why this would hurt sales. There wasn't a problem with the cars. They had good power, fuel economy, etc. They didn't break down or catch fire or wreck or anything like that.
I don't think the average consumer is going to not buy one because they cheated the EPA. Big deal, they probably saved some money, got better fuel economy, and made more HP because of it.