Oh Snap! VW Cheat Thwarted And Reveals Just How Much Your Diesel Will Lose When Repaired

Dieselgate sounds like a major case of industrial espionage or political scandal, but it's a very real problem that could impact the way we drive in coming years. Volkswagen has fitted millions of TDI turbocharged diesel engines with so-called "defeat devices" that artificially lower NOx emissions when the cars are being tested.

CEOs and other bosses have been endlessly apologizing for deceiving buyers. Meanwhile, governments and buyer groups have been thinking of ways to sue VW. Still, some say they love their TDI engines but are concerned about the upcoming recalls affecting performance in any way.

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TheSteve - 10/12/2015 5:04:56 PM

+1 Boost

Important things to note:
(1) CR tested the offending VW in "cheat mode" while operating under normal, real-world conditions.
(2) 0-60 acceleration down by about 1/10 second slower (9.1 sec), and fuel economy down a little from 53 MPG to 50 MPG. Both are slight differences.
(3) IMPORTANT: CR did *NOT* test emissions in real-world conditions, so we don't know if the car would pass emissions requirements in the real world.

BTW, recent articles have revealed that diesels from BMW, Mercedes, Ford, and Mazda, though they don't use a cheat device like VW, also (like VW) emit beyond-legal levels of NOx in real-world driving.

Now that authorities are looking closely at real-world diesel emissions, it's time to clean up their act. I believe authorities will also eventually broaden their focus to see how gasoline powered vehicles fare in real world use. We should have been doing this all along.

mre30 - 10/12/2015 6:28:05 PM

0 Boost

I suspect that this controversy that started with VW diesels, is going to be revealed to be prevalent on all cars sold in Europe. It is truly the "secret that is not really a secret".

Just compare the MPG ratings in Govt testing of cars in Europe vs the EPA fuel mileage of the same cars sold in the US vs the real world economy of those cars in actual use. Compare UK versions (which use gallons and not liters) and you will see (FOR ALL CARS) published fuel consumption figures about 20% BETTER than the figures released by the EPA for the same models, which in the US are usually about the same as the real world mileage.

Its kind of like the idea that first was employed in the Corvette 10 years ago with the "skip shift" transmission where you would have to shift from 1st gear, right to 4th gear, but which was defeated in actual use. Or, more recently, the engine start/stop switches that save fuel in the test, but which you can turn off in actual real world conditions.

Its really a semantic argument on a certain level and I think that with some digging, it will be revealed that both gas and diesel engines have some form of this "pass the test" software in use.

This scandal is only just beginning.

Firewombat - 10/13/2015 9:20:37 AM

+2 Boost

A liquid gallon in the UK is not the same volume as in the US even though they are named the same.

One Imperial (UK) gallon is equivalent to approximately 1.2 US gallons.

atc98092 - 10/13/2015 8:05:29 AM

+1 Boost

They have no idea if the "kill switch" was activated. The variation they found in acceleration and MPG is so small it is within tolerance.

Right now, we have no idea what what will happen when the cars are "fixed". My Passat with SCR may see nothing except increased consumption of AdBlue, with no change of power or mileage. My Jetta may see a slight decrease in MPG and performance, as postulated in this article. What we don't know about either car is if this will cause other, long term issues with them.

Until the EPA and VW publish what will be done and what the effects may be, it's nothing but guesswork. All these articles are just wasting bandwidth, because they don't know any more than we do.