Bonneville America Forums Forums Off Topic Discussion Forums Lounge VW revisited

It wasn't the EPA that caught the VW emission problems, it was the West Virginia University CAFEE program under contract with a European environmental lobbying group.

Interesting read,

http://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that-think...ght-vw-cheating

That was a good overview of the story. Don't remember any mention in the "TV news" of what was really being done. And even though my Audi is an older gasoline model, it likely took another hit in it's already disappointing resale value by association.

This isn't the first time this has happened. 2 decades ago the EPA had to deal with diesel engine manufacturers who did the same thing. CLICK HERE to read the article. The EPA sued Cat, Cummins, Detroit, Mack, etc etc for 1 billion dollars. 20 years ago, that was and still is a lot of moola. What do you think VW will be fined???

I want one of those VWs.

The process VW used to reduce NOx has been superseded by the use of DEF fluid. It was called the Lean NOx process which relied on heating the catalytic converter at times by spraying the exhaust gas with raw fuel, kind of like an afterburner but it didn't help move the vehicle, only heat up the exhaust enough to address the NOx being generated. Wasteful. Diesels using DEF or Urea injection only cost the price of the DEF fluid along with the dosing system and converters. Still expensive, but they done waste fuel. Wait till Diesel Particulate Traps are mandatory. The exhaust system will cost almost as much as the engine.

That DEF is a huge PITA and can be deleted. Have to stop and regenerate the system or the truck goes into limp mode causing all kinds of problems requiring dealer reset. I run our oldest truck with no DEF system and that truck can run circles around the others and runs more efficiently using less fuel per mile. To regenerate you have to leave the truck run at high idle until the process has finished then you have to rev the engine at a high RPM to blow the ash out or it hardens and clogs the exhaust, so environmentally sound, must be much less pollution letting those trucks idle for extended periods then revving to blow the ash out.

Thanks for the explanation, though I think the link explains it.

Not a diesel guy or engineer. So the crap my brother has to put in his new Ford is DEF?

Yep, and DEF fluid is actually cow pee.

I wrote VW off a long time ago. I bought a new 1600TL in 1966, big mistake. Seems they had a problen cooling #3 cylinder because the crank mounted fan twisted the air away from that corner. They could have changed the shrouding to use the air under the engine which would be twisting up around that corner of the engine, but they couldn't be bothered. Instead, they retarded the #3 lobe in the distributer cam to make that cylinder run cooler than the other 3. They didn't seem to care that this set up a rotary vibration that unscrewed all the left side of the engine. The left head had to be retorqued at least once a month and twice a week the idle mixture screws had to be run in on the left carb and out on the right. The floor pan was so thin, the brake pedal stop tore out at around 30K miles even though I'm not in the habit of dropping the brake pedal. The last straw was when the head fell off one of their wonderful innovative spin welded valves and punched a hole in the piston. I gave the POS to my brother-in-law. He and some friends rebuilt the engine and it lasted a whole 23 miles.

I've only owned one VW, I think it was a 1970 Bug convertible. Got it for $200, it was a trade-in to a friend in the auto business. It already had a new top, but the front seats needed replaced, which I did for $30 at an import salvage yard. Then $75 for retread tires.

Used for around town in Topeka, Ks, drove it and left the BWW in the garage. Lots of fun with the top down, my dog and ex loved it. The pan started to leak so I sold it for $1300 to a collector.

I liked the Bugs, my dad brought a gray market one over from Germany in the 50s. He got tired of my mom putting dents in his Lincoln while trying to park it.

I don't see an environmental gain with all the extra idling, burning extra fuel and putting out exhaust gases. Probably almost as big a bill of goods as ethanol.

It's partly a forest for the trees thing, both literally and figuratively. They're trading NOx emissions for CO2, only difference is the higher CO2 levels still fall under the limits, due to the efficient nature of diesels. I haven't studied it closely enough to create my own overall environmental impact opinion honestly. I'm sure the NOx is bad, but they always talk about it in multiples of the limits set in the law. "40 times the limit" etc. 40 times nothing is still nothing, or 40 times 8 parts per billion could very well still be WAY lower than many other things out there. It's the same way people bastardize statistics to make things sound the way they want without having to actually do science. But I do know I'm burning more fuel...

That said, my car won't idle longer if I shut down mid-regen. Then fans will stay on till it cools down, but that's it.

Shutting down mid-regen is a bad idea. During regen the soot is burning off the filter and by not allowing that to finish it then solidifies on the filter decreasing the life of the system. Once regen completes be sure to rev the engine to blow the crap out or the same result will happen.

this is so in trucks not sure about cars now that I think of it. Because big trucks have 2 types of regen cycles, one that happens while driving to decrease the number of times you have to actually stop the vehicle and do a full regen. You can interrupt the former but not that latter.

Knowing when a regen is happening would require EGT monitoring which requires a bunch of aftermarket goodies to accomplish. I'm looking into some options, but having a 1 yr old at home re-prioritizes my cash flow Honestly it rarely happens. Probably because I always have a few minutes of barely above idle driving to get to my house, but it's certainly more likely now after the re-flash. I've found some pretty reasonable OBDII dongles out there, and there's an app you can get, so I may rig up my old iPhone to monitor. I just don't like leaving stuff strapped to my dash, it's like a break-in invitation.

The higher the RPM and longer the high rpm the better as far as needing a regen. The hotter the exhaust the more that burns off on it's own.That is really strange that there would be no warning light. In the big trucks you have one that lets you know when it is doing it while driving and then a warning that actually tells you to pull the truck over and do a manual regen.

Probably has to do with volume of the trap/amount of particulate etc. I usually do a couple good pulls getting on and off the highway before I putt into my neighborhood, could satisfy the regen then....

To be honest I don't know the correct name.The new trucks have a voice that actually says pull the truck over in a safe place....

A pyrometer measures temperature, so there's definitely one involved in the EGT monitoring system.