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The problem with any official test is that it has to be to a fixed standard or you can't make comparisons; that opens the test up to gaming. Even leaving the VW thing aside (and worth remembering that that applied to the last generation of engines, not the ones that have been on sale for the last few years), all the manufacturers build cars to do well in the tests. Small engines with turbos? Good on paper and in tests because the acceleration is gentle, so the throttle gets mapped to prevent the turbo from boosting in test conditions. Gear ratios are chosen for the tests. Start-up modes are set for the tests.
The new "real world" tests won't be much better because, again, they'll be to a set regime, and the manufacturers will exploit that regime.
I think there should be a well subsidised scrappage scheme for low earners to get rid of old diesels as many can't afford to just go out and buy a new hybrid.
My wife drives a 10 year old diesel Golf which we're planning to change later in the year. It seems a shame to scrap it though as mechanically it's still 100%, it's decent to drive, and has proven very reliable. Not too mention the fact that she paid £10k for it 7 years ago and you'd still get about £3k for it now..
British pollution for British people!
https://www.rt.com/uk/385587-coal-industrial-environment-greenpeace/
We did 120 miles last Tuesday with the caravan behind the old Volvo and it pulled like a train and still did over 30 ampg. My BMW 525i doesn't have nearly the same torque and it doesn't get much over 24mpg in any situation. Ask it to pull another tonne and a half and I reckon it'd be in single figures!
Diesel might not be politically correct anymore but it has some very practical applications for which there isn't an equivalent alternative.
Anyway that's just my own concern. I'm sure diesel won't be banned, it'll just become a lot more expensive to own and run one.
There is no 'H' in Aych, you know that don't you? ~ Wife
Turns out there is an H in Haych! ~ Sporky
Bit of trading feedback here.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jan/06/diesel-cars-are-10-times-more-toxic-than-trucks-and-buses-data-shows
It is possible to make cleaner diesel cars but the current Euro 6 cars are not.
On the subject of towing, a diesel makes sense for towing, but you are unlikely to be towing your caravan into central London, or any other big city. It shouldn't really be an issue. It's just unfortunate for caravan owners that they are likely to get hit with extra costs.
You never answered my question about whether petrol cars meet the Euro 6 standard in normal use, so I assume they don't either - at which point singling out diesels is daft.
Same thing with Brynglas tunnels in South Wales, it's a nightmare so the solution is to build a new road.
However, wouldn't it be a better idea to remove, not the traffic per se, but the need to drive to start with?
Shouldn't the government really be giving businesses the incentive to keep commutes to a minimum? Ok it won't work for everyone, but a lot of jobs can be done just as effectively from home as going to the office.
My job can but I travel 25 miles each way into the city every day into an eight storey office building to do the same job I could do in my pjs at home.
Even if I only needed to be in the office 60% of the time for meetings etc then that cuts down my personal travel a lot. Do that for 30% of the country's workforce and there's a lot less cars on the roads at peak times. Less cars driving into inner city areas and less pollutants as a result.
Businesses could feasibly reduce the size of their premises and save on overheads too.
Why this isn't embraced and encouraged in the business world I don't know, but it should be IMHO.
Don't simply target drivers, remove the need to drive at least some of the time.
There is no 'H' in Aych, you know that don't you? ~ Wife
Turns out there is an H in Haych! ~ Sporky
Bit of trading feedback here.
I'm pretty sure diesels affect my asthma more than petrols. I've had plenty of new diesels that were supposedly clean but on start up, if I reversed and fumes entered the cabin, it would induce wheezing.
I wouldn't call them any more toxic than petrol, they'd both be toxic if you breathed the exhaust air directly, but diesels definitely are a trigger for me, whereas I love a good lungful of petrol fumes. Anecdotal I know but there you go.
Plus it never ceases to amaze me how many diesels chuck out black smoke, even when relatively new. I assume it's because they are not running right, therefore not really the cars fault, but you don't really get that with petrol. Probably the DPF filter being clogged with the short journeys.
I'm not totally against diesels. Wine makes me wheeze also and I have that still. And that needs delivering in trucks, so I wouldn't ban its use ;-)
On most diesel engines the throttle is usually fully open very early in the rev range, fuel is used to regulate engine power.
So you throw in more fuel to get more power but until the turbo spools up there isn't enough air in the combustion cycle to efficiently burn all the fuel so you get black smoke.
Some emission controls don't help either. EGR valves are pointless in my experience. They're fitted I think to help reduce Nox emissions but they usually just allow the intake manifold to become sooted up and that hinders the flow of clean air needed to burn the fuel properly.
I blanked off the EGR valve on my car completely and the difference it made to black smoke was quite dramatic - it went from smoking quite badly on very mild acceleration to hardly smoking at all under very hard acceleration.
There is no 'H' in Aych, you know that don't you? ~ Wife
Turns out there is an H in Haych! ~ Sporky
Bit of trading feedback here.
http://www.theicct.org/news/press-release-new-icct-study-shows-real-world-exhaust-emissions-modern-diesel-cars-seven-times
They found that the average Euro 6 diesel produced 7 times more than the limit. I've seen other studies reporting figures that are lower than 7 times the limit but they were all around 4 times the limit or higher.
Please also bear in mind that the limit for diesels is still higher than for petrols in the first place - 80mg/km vs 60mg/km. Seven times higher than the diesel limit would be 9 times higher than the petrol limit.
@sporky please read this:
http://www.carbuyer.co.uk/news/153072/petrol-outperfoms-diesel-in-new-real-world-emissions-index
To quote the relevant part of it:
Nearly every petrol engine claimed to comply with Euro 6 was rated 'A'.
That means they comply with the (lower for petrols) limit. There were only a handful of exceptions.
So mine does comply with Euro6 in the new tests... ironic that the VW ones seem to do well.
Certainly highlights that - as I suspected - its not just diesels, though clearly diesels do worse in this test regime.
It'd be interesting to see how manufacturers adapt to the new test cycles. We all know they will.
The second link shows that some of the newer Euro6 engines do actually comply in real.world tests. VW didn't introduce the 2.0 150ps EU 6 until late 2015 but it's there in that list as achieving A grade.