Diesel emissions claim

[Grant Fondo]

Always thought the £20 a year road tax on my mk7 GTD was iffy?

 

[Drago]

I think emissions based vehicle tax should be based on actual emissions recorded at an MOT. That'd separate the bullpois from the reality.

My enormous great tower block on wheels would do nicely out of that. Currently its about £330 a year because its supposedly a filthy polluting behemoth, yet at the last MOT it was running so cleanly it wouldn't even trigger the testers machine.

Basing an emissions linked vehicle tax upon what some bulls******g German engineer with a vested interest in telling pork pies says is madness. Lets base it upon what actually comes out of the tailpipe (or 4 tailpipes, in my case).

 

[Deleted member 26715]

Or the mileage driven

 

[ianbarton]

I am very sceptical.
Any experience here of this?

Read ALL the small print VERY carefully. My wife had a VW that was supposedly eligible. If for some reason the claim failed the lawyers would charge you their exorbitant hourly rate for the time they spent on the case.

 

[keithmac]

I said right at the start of the VW scandal that if they struggled to meet emissions targets and supply a driveable car then surely the other manufacturers would be having exactly the same problems.

I believe BMW are on the chopping block now as well?.

Hey ho..

 

[Exlaser2]

I said right at the start of the VW scandal that if they struggled to meet emissions targets and supply a driveable car then surely the other manufacturers would be having exactly the same problems.

I believe BMW are on the chopping block now as well?.

Hey ho..

You could be right but I have engineer friend who is a expert in the injection/exhaust/gas flow in engines ( he has worked a lot of major manufactures and now he has retired he does research for a London uni ) and he explained there is something the about the vw engines that is different to the technology used by most other manufacturers. He did explain it to me, but it just went over my head and made my ears bleed 😀
That’s doesn’t mean the other manufacturers are not cheating too.

 

[Drago]

Indeed. A few times VW have ploughed their own furrow with stuff like Pump Duse and GDI technology. While they managed to make both work well in performance and economy terms, they could never solve the emissions problems that both technologies bring.

 

[gbb]

I think emissions based vehicle tax should be based on actual emissions recorded at an MOT. That'd separate the bullpois from the reality.

My enormous great tower block on wheels would do nicely out of that. Currently its about £330 a year because its supposedly a filthy polluting behemoth, yet at the last MOT it was running so cleanly it wouldn't even trigger the testers machine.

Basing an emissions linked vehicle tax upon what some bulls******g German engineer with a vested interest in telling pork pies says is madness. Lets base it upon what actually comes out of the tailpipe (or 4 tailpipes, in my case).

But thats exactly how the software cheated...at the MOT or point of test where engine revs, load etc are limited and the software could do it's cheating. 99.9% of the rest of the time (ie normal driving conditions) , the car couldnt meet the emissions it was stated to achieve.

 

[figbat]

But thats exactly how the software cheated...at the MOT or point of test where engine revs, load etc are limited and the software could do it's cheating. 99.9% of the rest of the time (ie normal driving conditions) , the car couldnt meet the emissions it was stated to achieve.

This is more about officially-claimed emissions than the MOT - the MOT emissions requirements for diesels are pretty easy to pass and nothing like as tough as the EURO emissions standards. And since VED is supposedly linked to CO2 emissions an MOT will be useless anyway because CO2 is not measured.

The "defeat device" essentially allowed the car's ECU to determine that it was being tested for emissions - this is because the emissions test protocol is very precise and requires inputs that will never occur in real life driving. For example the bonnet will be open, not all wheels will be turning (on a 2WD anyway), there are no steering inputs and the speed/time/gear inputs are precisely controlled to a known protocol. There are, no doubt, other ways the car will 'know' (I was talking to a chassis dyno testing expert a while ago and he said they had to override various windscreen light sensors on some cars in order to 'convince' it to run anything like normally).

So the car realises it's on test and has to be on its best behaviour. It puts in a good performance in terms of emissions at the expense of drivability, but on the chassis dyno test drivability is not tested and the acceleration curves are very undemanding. When the car is out in the wild, however, it switches to an operating mode that pleases the driver, at the expense of emissions. The chassis dyno test data is used for type approval and official claims but the car never achieves this unless under test on a chassis dyno (or in the unlikely event of you driving your car in a way that perfectly matches the test protocol).

 

[Tail End Charlie]

I regularly get the diesel scam emails and letters. I have owned a diesel VW van for the last 7 years and it's one covered by the scandal. But I have no intention of claiming the "thousands of pounds in compensation owed to you" as the van does what I want, is reasonably economical and I keep my vehicles until they are scrapped, so I don't see what I am being compensated for. As has been said, it would be hypocritical for me to do otherwise.

 

[gbb]

I regularly get the diesel scam emails and letters. I have owned a diesel VW van for the last 7 years and it's one covered by the scandal. But I have no intention of claiming the "thousands of pounds in compensation owed to you" as the van does what I want, is reasonably economical and I keep my vehicles until they are scrapped, so I don't see what I am being compensated for. As has been said, it would be hypocritical for me to do otherwise.

I'd claim, simply because VW and the like actively and deliberately cheated and cheated at a time when emissions were known to be causing excessive pollution and health problems. They deserve everything that comes their way...and if i could be a small part of that punishment, i'd happily do it.
Seriously though, this is the vehicle (the claims) chosen by the authorities to punish wrongdoing. If no-one claimed, manufacturers wouldnt fear anything and do as they pleased.

 

[Deleted member 26715]

Would it not just be better for HM Government to do this, then if proven charge VW for each vehicle registered within the period?

 

[Drago]

But thats exactly how the software cheated...at the MOT or point of test where engine revs, load etc are limited and the software could do it's cheating. 99.9% of the rest of the time (ie normal driving conditions) , the car couldnt meet the emissions it was stated to achieve.

Almost, you're on the right lines. It cheated the euro emissions test, which requires certain engine cycle for a precisely prescribed number of seconds - the software recognised the unique combination of throttle positions and timings, and activated the cheat mode. The testing cycle is quite convoluted and very unique, theres zero prospect of the conditions ever being encountered in real motoring and the mode being accidentally triggred.

On an MOT the diesel test consists of the tester giving it full throttle for a number of seconds, and thats it. That couldn't trip any cheat modes, otherwise we'd all have problems every time we tread down hard to overtake.

Ona petrol car its an idle and fast idle test. Ditto, that couldn't trip any cheat modes, else people would have problems stopped at the lights or trickling in traffic along at low RPMs.

When it comes to testing individual cars for an MOT it would not be possible to cheat the test in the same manner manufacturers cheated the official testing cycle.

It boils my pith a little bit when the emissions based vehicle tax on my Volvo is £330, yet was only £20 on my Smart car...yet in actual real life the Volvo is significantly cleaner at the tailpipe. Im being taxed on a mathematical formula calculated in a laboratory, not on the reality of the pollution I actually produce.

 

[mustang1]

Indeed, but what if you are just a little bit aware of and concerned about the issue and are persuaded by brochure data that it isn't as bad as is made out? This all happened back in the Day of the Diesel - when they were ubiquitous, snatching more sales in some countries than petrol because they offered big torque and big economy. FFS there were even diesel performance and sports cars - they won Le Mans 5 times.

I thought that was the government who were giving incentives to buy diesel cars, or at least promoting them as cleaner than petrol. Being a petrol head back then, I knew diesels were never going to be cleaner than petrol.

 

[Drago]

I don't think in NET terms one is any better than the other as regards pollution.

Diesel creates less CO2, but petrol less particulates.

Diesel worse for nitrous oxides, but the benzine used in petrol in place of lead is carconogenic - they've remove the chemical that makes people grow up dumb, and replaced ith one that makes people get cancer instead.

Taken on balance, theyre largely as bad for humanity as one another. Avoiding the car wherever possible, and driving sensibly and conservatively when you do, is liable to habe a far greater effect than simply the choice of car.

As aforementioned by myself, I found my 2.4 litre, 5 cylinder diesel to actually be cleaner than my 0.7 litre Smart car, yet how many people drive around in small cars basking in their own piety use it as a subliminal excuse to avoid using alternative transport? The correlation isn't as fixed and many folk would believe, so the only foolproof way around it is to drive less. A lot less.