Volksgate: The Volkswagen 'scandal'

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arbilab

arbilab

Well-known member
Joined
May 1, 2011
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Location
Ft Worth TX (Ridglea)
There's a strong engineering bent to AW, by hobby, profession or both. What do y'all think about the revelation that VW diesels are jiggered to produce one result favorable to government numbers and another favorable to customer experience?

On the one hand it's ingenious. The car knows when it's being tested and kicks in all its environazi hardware. Then when it's on the road it shuts that off and drives well. Who's the loser?

Obviously the g'ment. But to what extent? I mean, washers are Star-tested on the "normal" cycle so that cycle uses water roughly equivalent to pygmy-goat breath while the enduser can get 'standard' results by choosing anything other than "normal".

The rumoured enduser class-action lawsuits won't hold water IMO. They got the performance they wanted and the *imaginary* save-the-galaxy emissions. If they seriously thought buying a VW diesel was going to refreeze arctic ice shelves, they were deluded by their own imaginations.

There's a tinge of fraud to VW's marketing, but really folks, what marketing is without a tinge of fraud?

After owning VWs from 1964, 65, 67, 68, 59, 62, 74, 80, 82 and watching the absolute quality deteriorate in every generation, I cut their water off in 86 and bought a Toyota. Which I still have.

To me, "German engineering" is that which is designed to separate you from your money if you're gullible enough to fall for it.... more than 9 times.
 
I keep thinking of the "year end, rear-end" ad Ladies,  " Everyone knows the pickup in diesel stinks".   Turns out they were right.
 
the losers...

are those who have to breathe 40 TIMES (not 40%) the nitrous oxide pollutants and owners who now have cars that will depreciate more quickly in value. Biggest kick in the pants to diesels since the crappy GM diesel junk of the '80s. I for one appreciate the significant progress made in cleaning up the air since the 60s, when the Mid-Atlantic got smog inversions on a regular basis.
 
VW

AW members seem to dislike the EPA for their different ideas of energy and water wasting versus our own views. However, there are far worse things that pollute and effect the environment. Do I agree with VW's idea of cheating, no. Although it was one of the best ideas I have seen lately. Too bad washer manufactures could not find a way to do this other than fabric softener on/off switches. VW is a great company with the quality and reliability issues aside and I hope they can survive in America.
 
The lawsuits will arise not from people being deceived, but from the recall "fixes" that will cripple peoples vehicles by reducing MPG and/or reducing power. Not to mention the drop in resale value.

My mother had a 2013 Passat for awhile, and while the car was very nice, solidly built, drove well it had alot of little things about it that reaked of German arrogance and some things that seemed like they were done intentionally just to be condescending towards the buyer (largely americans).
One of them was the door locks, it would NOT let you use the button on the door to lock the vehicle when the car door was open. So you couldn't lock it while stepping out. You were forced to use the keyfob. It wouldn't let you leave the car running, and then with the second fob lock the doors either.
The A/C compressor would cycle so little that even with the A/C on, on a cool day it wouldn't dehumidify. The defroster was horrible too. Most cars when in heat mode always direct a little bit of air to the defrost vent even while in floor vent mode and this didn't, making it harder to keep the windows from fogging up.

My personal biggest gripe was how numb the throttle response was. It was so numb that you pretty much mashed it during normal light driving just to move, in doing that it would slink off the line and on it's own, per software programming, increase throttle gradually. It was so bad that it felt like I was just pressing a suggestion box and did what it wanted, it was very hard to get it to do what I wanted in that regard.

It's been awhile since she got rid of that car so I don't quite remember if there was anything else.

The other thing is that Passat had very poor resale value. That was the final nail in deciding not to consider VW anymore. If I ever consider them again myself, it will be the Golf, or CC. No more Jetta, and no Passat.
 
Quote in today's Wichita Eagle Opinion line

Volkswagen: Proof that after 70 years the Germans are still trying to gas us.

And for the OP, the losers here are the people that breath 40% more emissions from a diesel engine. More cancer causing soot. More asthma inducing NOx, More CO. The environment is everyones responsibility.
 
it's a shame really...

what it will do to diesel popularity in the US, as they are inherently far more thermodynamically efficient and by all accounts new generation diesels drive very well. As a former Peugeot 504 Diesel wagon owner, by all accounts the new ones are not the sluggish black smoke belching beasts that we experienced back in 1980, but that said I sure loved that old "Pug", 0-60 in 18 seconds and all. And it was always fun to fill up with the "big rigs"! I for one would buy a diesel SUV made by Toyota or Nissan, if only one were offered.
 
As an owner of a 2012 Skoda Superb TDi wagon (think Passat wagon, but better quality),  I am one of the people caught up in this shameful event.

 

However, VW will want to be very careful about how they address this issue. Should they do a recall or, in the course of servicing the car, run a programme through the chip to 'amend' the emissions that then subsequently affects the economy, performance or both....they are headed for trouble.

 

We specifically bought our car because of the real world performance and economy coupled with its vast interior space and (supposed) generally green credentials. The green issue was the last on the list and simply 'nice to have' rather than a deal breaker.

 

Now, our consumer laws are particularly strong here in Oz. A product effectively has two warranties - the Manufacturers and that provided by our consumer legislation. The Manufacturers is anything from three to seven years on cars and is the one that everyone talks about when things are 'out of warranty' or 'repaired under warranty'. However, in Australia, the Consumer warranty enshrined in law is only limited by a reasonableness clause - how long would a 'reasonable person expect a product/part to last?' If you use the simple TV analogy, you would rightly expect a 40" TV that cost you $1500 to last longer than one the same size that only cost $500.

 

In other words, it's basically a lifetime warranty.

 

So if VW pass a patch through my cars electronics that changes or adversely impacts the economy, emissions and/or performance of the car I bought 3 years ago, then it technically isn't the same car - it is no longer representative of the promotional material (which denotes performance and economy) and I am therefor entitled to a refund......

 

 
 
VW isn't going anywhere

But they will surely relinquish the largest auto manufacturer on the Planet status.

Note, I won't be an apologist for VW, intentional deception is shameful. They will face quite an uphill battle from this incident. It is far worse then the other recall issues other auto manufacturers have endured lately. I will point out that it's not the first time an automaker used an emissions control defeat to cheat and I bet its not the last either.

Currently in my immediate family there are four of the effected cars. Of most concern are the two my brother and sister in law have in southern California. It is possible that CA won't re-register the vehicles until a fix is made. The ones here in Minnesota don't suffer the same issue at this point.

So basically what VW did was to program the engine management computer to only run full exhaust gas re-circulation (EGR) during times when they deemed the car to be undergoing an emissions test. They took input from the steering and non-driving wheels to discern that the car was being run on a simple roller dyno... So when the car was being driven in the real world the EGR was under utilized which would produce higher engine performance at the cost of increased oxides of Nitrogen in the exhaust. I would be curious to see how the current model year cars did in testing. The '15 models have an advanced exhaust catalytic converter that is augmented with Urea exhaust fluid to aid reduction of NOx in the exhaust.

So this means that of the four pollutants that we care about from a vehicle, these VW/Audi vehicles are exceeding their allowable oxides of nitrogen (NOx) by a fairly significant amount (aprox 40 times is the quoted number, but I bet that is peak). The other emissions CO, CO2 and hydrocarbons aren't really increased by the non-use of EGR. Actually if the EGR was employed as it should be the decreased oxygen in the charge could produce slightly higher soot.

So while everyone is freaking out out about how dirty these cars are, they are really only bad at one of the regulated pollutants, albeit a noxious one. Regarding the other pollutants they are still among the best cars running, this hasn't changed.

So if/when VW brings the cars in and alters the software in the manner that lets the EGR do what it should have been doing all along it is likely that engine power will be impacted negatively. There is a lot of talk that fuel mileage will be reduced, but I would think that is likely to be slight if at all. But people may well be annoyed at the lower performance and may be deserving of some compensation since the car isn't what it was originally. Kinda reminds me of the LG HE top loaders that had a software mod to drop their spin speed for safety...

Most of the cars I have owned in my life have been VW's. Last car I bought wasn't a VW because I got to the point where I felt they were no longer meeting my desires for an inexpensive basic vehicle. They started to morph into closer to a "budget" BMW that had all the frills etc. I still believe that in general the German's have excellent engineering and that their quality is very good second only to the Japanese. This is a MAJOR black eye that the public won't fully understand, but no doubt that the deception part gives people the right to be plenty mad about this.
 
VWs cutback on EGE (Exhaust Gas Recirculation) may not be entirely for economy or performance, in fact I doubt that economy is affected much. EGR tends to soot up the entire intake system, particularly the intake manifold. TDIs that frequently run in EGR mode can end up with coaked up intake runners that have the free cross section of a quarter coin. That results in poor running and eventually a check engine light. The fix is to remove the intake manifold and either replace or clean it, a very laborious endeavor. For this reason VW has turned off or reduced EGR for years in some situations. I know my 2002 Golf does this.

VW's big problem is quality as always. My car had over $9000 of warranty work, including a new engine caused by a faulty Romanian made turbo that grenaded through the casing and shot shrapnel though the engine. That one took VW seven weeks to fix, during which time I did not have use of my then three year old car. To add insult to injury, the replacement turbo was bad from new, with sticky vanes that confused the engine management system. It would cause the ECU to cut all turbo boost, rendering the car a complete slug; one evening I could not exceed 55 mph with the pedal floored coming up the 405 through the Sepulveda Pass. Even though the car was still under warranty I finally removed that turbo in my driveway and spent well over $1000 to buy and install a new one myself. That one was OK but I inspected it very carefully before installing it. VW owed me a turbo but it just wasn’t worth going without the car for weeks on end.

Other failures have been the airbag computer (on a never-wrecked car) and the timing belt tensioner, plus a front suspension that tears bushings up every 50,000 miles and must be completely disassembled to fix. Luckily I caught the timing belt tensioner before the camshaft jumped time, basically the super cheap tin-can locating tab on the tensioner sheared off 10,000 miles after the new engine was installed, thus de-tensioning the belt. I was very near my home when it turned the check engine light on for erratic injection pump timing. Imagine my surprise on removing the belt cover to see a floppy belt. When the engine was replaced I had to pay for the new tensioner and belt since those had not caused the engine failure and I didn’t want the old belt with 60,000 miles on the new engine. So I bought another tensioner and belt on my own nickel and installed them myself, something that took many expensive VW specific tools and quite a lot of time, particularly since a timing belt change on a VW involves removal of an engine mount and replacement of several torque to yield bolts.

I still have the car because it is paid for, economical on fuel, reasonably comfortable and parts are readily available. The upholstery and paint have held up very well so not all is bad. Overall it is the most unevenly constructed car I’ve ever meddled with, a bizarre combination of very good and dreadful engineering. In addition to the VW I’ve owned several each French and Italian cars and one Swede, all of which have been more consistently engineered. VW does not lack talent but when they decide to cut costs they do it ruthlessly and with little consideration to the end user. My guess is that it was cheaper in some way to cheat on the emissions test than make the cars pass legitimately. Early sooting up of the intake may have very well have been seen as a warranty liability so they figured out a way to turn it off most of the time. I’ll probably hang onto Helga for a few more years but it will not be replaced with another VW, a decision that has nothing to do with the current situation and everything to do with having to replace stuff that just shouldn’t have failed if properly engineered.

 
 
As above, VW fell off my list after I took my 82 Rabbit back 12 times to fix 3 simple problems. They eventually flew in a guy named Hans from VW-US and shortly later the dealer went out of business, causality unknown.

Yes, they shouldn't cheat but we have to admit the cheat was ingenious. CA probably won't reregister cars without 'proof' they have been fixed. Most locations won't be forcing anyone to downgrade to the new firmware.

Even so, how is CA going to enforce it? There are firmware rewriters for all computer cars. You can get the certificate and immediately put it back exactly the way it was. Forcing the test stations to mobilize their machinery (road test) or spin all 4 wheels on a dyno (cheating the cheat) would cost millions and generate commensurate economic blowback.

Indulging some hypothetical math: For every VW diesel on the road there are 100+ freight trucks covering 100 times more miles. While the trucks may actually meet US NOx PERCENT standards, they belch 100 times the VOLUME of exhaust a piddly 4-cyl sedan does. So there goes your 40x emissions, blown away by a factor of ONE MILLION. Unless of course you're willing to forego EVERYthing you buy. Including cars.

I like fresh air as much as anyone but I have to admit there simply no longer is any such thing anywhere near a metro.
 
Sorry, Arbilab; those diesel trucks belching 100 times the volume of pollutants are bearing 1000 times the load (volume as well as weight). Most interesting solution to the problem I saw was in a column---have VW clean up one or two power plants (equivalent to the emissions from the 450k vehicles); plus $5000 rebate on the next vehicle purchase, plus a $1000 gift card to the owners which they can use to give to whatever charity they deem appropriate should they need to expiate their guilt). When I look at what GM has had to do to certify the Cruze Diesel here (about the only really apples:apples diesel comparison out there); employing the squads of engineers at Pontiac powertrain HQ and in Turin, Italy at the diesel powertrain center of excellence, you see the delay (5 years) and trade-off (urea injection) that GM had to do to comply w/o a cheat.
 
Truly excellent replies and points hydralique and kb0nes. I agree completely. When they cut costs they are ruthless. But what they do well is brilliant. And one of the most important aspects of their driving dynamics, grabbing onto the road and hunkering down into it, is unmatched and what keeps me coming back. That seems to be elusive to everyone else. I do always say, if you're not a car person, don't buy a vw, if you are you'll love it 😜
 
Jetcone

Jon,

My point was that intentional deception like this is worse for the company then an engineering failure. Engineering failures happen to things made by humans and they are unintentional. Dammit, this was intentional!!

Absolutely the failures that caused loss of life are FAR worse in the grand scheme of things! The GM thing is close though since there was a lengthy coverup to try to skirt the problem (while people died). The one point I do offer about the GM problem is that owners NEVER had a problem unless they had a heavy keyring. My cars and motorcycles never have more then a single key in the ignition switch...

The thing that wrankles me about the public response to the VW deal is how people think these cars are SO dirty. Excepting the NOx emissions they are still quite clean and we really don't yet know just how much they exceed the NOx standards while in actual use.
 
German engineering...

as a reflection of a national characteristic, if there is such a thing, seems to embody an obsessively perfectionistic tendancy which leads to OVER engineering, ie too much complexity... example: the notorious 4 ball joint VW/Audi front ends requiring $2k repairs on a regular basis, and countless other examples. Having, back in the '70s, owned TOL Mercedes SE and BMW 6 cyl cars and as a result having suffered through the manifestations of this bent towards overly elaborate solutions to mechanical design that resulted in major designed-in engine and other flaws, I swore off German cars forever and happily went back to full-sized US rear-drive V8 wagons and sedans while they were still available, then only reluctantly switched over to Japanese SUVs, when they were not, and stayed with those, being highly satisfied. While NY rust is evident now, everything still works perfectly on my 17 yr old Trooper with 210k and on my 11 yr old 150k mile Xterra. My son's unhappy (and expensive) experiences with his newish Audi A4 3.2 have only reinforced the wisdom of that decision. One of the most basic and important principles of sound engineering is: Keep It Simple Stupid, a principle the Germans have apparently never learned. That said, intentional cheating is even more stupid, and I hope they are made to suffer because of it.
 

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