We know what they did.....but WHY?

What motivated them? Ferdinand Piech's autocratic "work or get fired" philosophy?

It's not like they couldn't meet emissions standards without cheating. It's not like they still don't get great fuel economy in non-cheating mode. (They still beat EPA estimates handily.)

What did they have to gain? It's mystifying to me.

They say they'll never sell another diesel in the US, but I'm not sure how much I believe that. They'd sell snake oil to their own mothers to make a buck. They're a corporation. PROFIT is the overriding motive. If there is a market for diesels they'll sell diesels.

If other manufacturers have success with diesels then TDI will be back. I'm watching the Mazda experiment closely.

-mickey

The answer may be found here grasshopper, have fun in your journey:

http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=448053

The fast answer is what you said and not wanting to pay Mercedes Benz a 350 license fee per car for their Adblue system...Mark

maybe368 said:

The fast answer is what you said and not wanting to pay Mercedes Benz a 350 license fee per car for their Adblue system...Mark

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Excuse me for being lazy and not wanting to read this huge thread....

So really that is the reason? wouldn't also be a factor that VW thought that by having Adblue on our cars would have discouraged many potential customers who may not have wanted to put up by having to bring their cars to the stealership for this service through out the life of this vehicles?

mz1 said:

Excuse me for being lazy and not wanting to read this huge thread....
So really that is the reason? wouldn't also be a factor that VW thought that by having Adblue on our cars would have discouraged many potential customers who may not have wanted to put up by having to bring their cars to the stealership for this service through out the life of this vehicles?

Click to expand...

Adblue and the systems needed to utilize it are costly. HP may have been reduced. Fuel consumption may be higher. So now diesel is on par with gas, and what's the point of the product? There are many more factors including euro co2 standards.

mz1 said:

Excuse me for being lazy and not wanting to read this huge thread....
So really that is the reason? wouldn't also be a factor that VW thought that by having Adblue on our cars would have discouraged many potential customers who may not have wanted to put up by having to bring their cars to the stealership for this service through out the life of this vehicles?

Click to expand...

Your question is going to draw very many opinions, all of them are already in threadzilla. There may have been problems with the use the MB system, but it sure was easy for them to go down the cheating road, driven by corporate avarice and the "no bad news" attitude of the VW leadership. They also probably figured that they would get a wrist slap if caught. They got what they deserved...Mark

fookin said:

Adblue and the systems needed to utilize it are costly. HP may have been reduced. Fuel consumption may be higher. So now diesel is on par with gas, and what's the point of the product? There are many more factors including euro co2 standards.

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The license was only 350 bucks and they could have easily passed on the cost of the equipment..Mark

fookin said:

Adblue and the systems needed to utilize it are costly. HP may have been reduced. Fuel consumption may be higher. So now diesel is on par with gas, and what's the point of the product? There are many more factors including euro co2 standards.

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It was just about saving a few bucks. SCR tends to increase fuel economy and has no real effect on power vs. LNT.

If the answer is "they didn't want to license AdBlu" then what was the problem with the Passat? Mine had AdBlu from the get-go. It wasn't added on. Isn't that true of all the 2015 Passat TDIs?

-mickey

Your answer can be found here. Great read.... https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/039325450X/ref=yo_ii_img?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

AdBlu doesn't affect power or economy. It's exhaust treatment. In fact, it lets the engineers tune the engine for power and economy at the expense of NOx because they can count on the "pee" to clean things up. So that can't be it.

Saving a few dollar per unit? I reject that theory. Clearly whoever did this was stupid, but stupid enough to risk the wrath of the EPA?

The theory I like best is "Corporate Culture." Former Chrysler executive Bob Lutz wrote an article which many of you may have seen. He described sitting next to Ferdinand Piech at an industry conference shorter after the A4 platform VWs were released and were being praised for their exact body gaps. VW had previously suffered from poor control of body gaps. He said, "Congratulations on the A4s. How did you get the body gap problem sorted so quickly?" Piech replied, "I called all the managers involved into my office and told them they had 30 days to solve the body gap problem or be fired."

It worked. But Lutz theorized that kind of management could have led to Dieselgate. Piech was the kind of guy who would issue a demand with the implicit (or sometimes explicit) threat that he'd fire anyone who didn't make it so. Is it possible the upper brass made demands about performance and emissions standards that couldn't be met, and the engineers were under so much pressure that they cheated?

I tend to agree with Lutz on this one. I think they cheated because they were afraid not to.

-mickey

clone1008 said:

Your answer can be found here. Great read.... https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/039325450X/ref=yo_ii_img?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

Click to expand...

I haven't read the book, but I've read the synopsis. And it seems the author agrees with Bob Lutz and myself: Corporate Culture. Demands from Up High to meet pie-in-the-sky goals but no direction on how to actually achieve them. Just threats about what happens if you DON'T meet them.

That's a recipe for corner-cutting and cheating.

Something similar happened to my employer recently: Doing a fire sale business installing solar panels, but they set hugely ambitious goals and then STAFFED as if the goals were already met. Excellent sales were only 50% of target, and they were staffed for 100%. Result: Financial disaster in the face of success.

One middle-manager saw it coming, knew what was happening, and yet tried to cover it up with the result that a problem became a catastrophe. They fired him. But why did he do it? HE WAS AFRAID NOT TO. The corporate culture didn't allow him to raise a red flag and say, "Hold on, the goals are set way too high." When you give people an impossible task and threaten them if they don't meet it they WILL cheat.

-mickey

New Mickey said:

I haven't read the book, but I've read the synopsis. And it seems the author agrees with Bob Lutz and myself: Corporate Culture. Demands from Up High to meet pie-in-the-sky goals but no direction on how to actually achieve them. Just threats about what happens if you DON'T meet them.

That's a recipe for corner-cutting and cheating.

Something similar happened to my employer recently: Doing a fire sale business installing solar panels, but they set hugely ambitious goals and then STAFFED as if the goals were already met. Excellent sales were only 50% of target, and they were staffed for 100%. Result: Financial disaster in the face of success.

-mickey

Click to expand...

You should go to the link I posted and read the first couple of reviews. Very interesting and enlightening.

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

Here's another question: How much of the Phase 2 "fix", the part with the expensive equipment, just a matter of punishment by the EPA?

We're assured that the cars DID meet emissions standards in the lab, and that the issue was the software "cheated" on the road.

Okay....but that means they met the standards WITHOUT all the extra hardware. Right?

Why, then, isn't the software "fix" all that's needed to meet emissions standards? We we having gadgetry shoved down our throats by the government that isn't even necessary?

-mickey

clone1008 said:

You should go to the link I posted and read the first couple of reviews. Very interesting and enlightening.

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

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Indeed. I see a parallel to another German "corporate controversy." There is no evidence that ****** ever explicitly said "Kill all the Jews". He simply said, "Make the problem go away".....with a very obvious, unspoken "or else" attached.

The whole thing was based on nods, winks and innuendo. There was no "we need to kill them all" until you work your way down the chain of command, all the way to unit commanders in the field. They felt the pressure, got the "impression" of what was "needed", and did it. It's all but impossible to nail down any of the UPPER "management" and say, "A-hah, YOU ordered it."

Corporate culture. In the case of the ****s I think ****** knew exactly what he wanted to do. I do NOT think Ferdinand Piech wanted to hoodwink the EPA. But the effect was the same: An autocratic, intimidating leader made it known what he wanted the world to look like, and made it very clear what would happen if he didn't get his wishes.

-mickey

Oh for crying out loud.....h 1 t L & R is censored? Really? He was a historical figure, and I was drawing a parallel.

Sheesh. Political correctness.....

-mickey

Another issue, which has been a pet peeve of mine forever: Why are the emissions standards being set so high that nobody can reasonably meet them?

It's doing harm to American citizens who are just trying to go places. Example: Ford EcoBoost engines, and other direct-injection gasoline engines (but especially turbos) have been having problems with intake valves getting carboned up until the engine runs poorly. (And coughs out POLLUTION!!!!) Forced to go to direct injection in order to meet ever-tightening emissions standards. Now the valves are no longer subject to gasoline spray that keeps them cool and clean. The result is poor economy, poor power, poor emissions performance and huge repair bills. (Unless you perform illegal mods.)

The blame for the absurd goals can ultimately be traced to unelected bureaucrats issuing edicts that cost us BILLIONS without the slightest concern whether they can be reasonably met.

Shouldn't we be ENCOURAGING engines that use 30% less fuel to do the same work? OPEC would have kittens. But no.....we're not that smart.

"Clean" is good. But at what point does it just become silly?

-mickey

Personally I think AdBlu is a good idea. Reasonably cheap. Very effective. Enables engineers to optimize power and efficiency and not worry so much about NOx.

I'm all for solutions that are effective, reasonable, and don't wreck the utility and economy of the vehicle.

-mickey

New Mickey said:

Here's another question: How much of the Phase 2 "fix", the part with the expensive equipment, just a matter of punishment by the EPA?

We're assured that the cars DID meet emissions standards in the lab, and that the issue was the software "cheated" on the road.

Okay....but that means they met the standards WITHOUT all the extra hardware. Right?

Why, then, isn't the software "fix" all that's needed to meet emissions standards? We we having gadgetry shoved down our throats by the government that isn't even necessary?

-mickey

Click to expand...

Read the docs on phase-2 more carefully! Almost no new parts, just replacement of same to ensure lifespan, and an additional DEF quality sensor . . . It meets standards now, and that has been determined to be required to keep meeting that standard over the cars expected lifetime.

New Mickey said:

Oh for crying out loud.....h 1 t L & R is censored? Really? He was a historical figure, and I was drawing a parallel.

Sheesh. Political correctness.....

-mickey

Click to expand...

That was also covered in threadzilla, it's deja vu all over again...Mark

I find the holocaust to be a very poor analogy. Corporate culture is largely driven by profits. The engineers were pressured to cheat in order to save a small amount of money. Bad choice.

New Mickey said:

Another issue, which has been a pet peeve of mine forever: Why are the emissions standards being set so high that nobody can reasonably meet them? .... snip.....

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We get what we vote for.

For the record, I am making out like a bandit.

I can only wish I would have been more aggressive minded to buy up a few of these "gold mines," and sold them back wholesale to VW

I also go with the corporate culture perspective. The boss said JUMP, and the engineers asked how high? on the way up. I can imagine the meeting where the senior engineer came down to the engineering cubicles shaking his head and saying, "Guys, the brass want us to tune the TDI for awesome fuel economy without compromising performance, and we can't add an SCR."

And some outspoken engineer responding with, "but it can't be done!", and silenced with a stare and a "make it happen or we're all out". And so, they made it happen.

The part I love is how some engineering grad students at a mid-ranked engineering school (UWV) figured it out and blew the whistle.

Early in my career, many years ago, I worked in an oil refinery, which was integrated with a chemical plant that used refinery streams for feedstocks. One product made in the chemical plant was butyl alcohol. But in the process of making butyl alcohol, other rogue alcohol variants were also produced, and separated out in a distillation tower. These by-product alcohols had no commercial value as alcohol, and were collected in a waste tank.

Getting rid of the stuff was a problem. Someone suggested that it be blended into refinery gasoline, as it had some octane value. So this was done. After about three years, it was "discovered" that this alcohol could dissolve some rubber parts in gasoline fuel pumps in a few brands of cars.

So, without making any public announcements, the waste alcohol was no longer blended into gasoline, but was instead blended into the crude oil going into the stills. It was theorized that the heat of the still would break down the alcohol. Well, it didn't, and now the alcohol was going into jet fuel.

You would think that the refinery would immediately want to know whether all this alcohol contaminated jet fuel was doing any harm to the fuel systems of commercial aircraft. THEY NEVER CHECKED, AND THEY NEVER INFORMED THE AVIATION INDUSTRY ABOUT WHAT WAS GOING ON WITH THE INVENTORIES OF JET FUEL THEY HAD ALREADY SENT OUT.

Instead, they finally decided to forget about trying to send this waste alcohol garbage out with product to customers, and instead blended it into the still furnace fuel used within the plant.

What this all means to me is, once a business sets off on the wrong foot, they are loathe to admit it, hope the problem will never be discovered, and will go away on its own. Once VW started cheating, there was no way it was going to stop on its own.

halbert said:

.

The part I love is how some engineering grad students at a mid-ranked engineering school (UWV) figured it out and blew the whistle.

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Yeah, they weren't the first to discover the cheat (by accident), but they did blow the whistle.

halbert said:

I also go with the corporate culture perspective. The boss said JUMP, and the engineers asked how high? on the way up. I can imagine the meeting where the senior engineer came down to the engineering cubicles shaking his head and saying, "Guys, the brass want us to tune the TDI for awesome fuel economy without compromising performance, and we can't add an SCR."
And some outspoken engineer responding with, "but it can't be done!", and silenced with a stare and a "make it happen or we're all out". And so, they made it happen.
The part I love is how some engineering grad students at a mid-ranked engineering school (UWV) figured it out and blew the whistle.

Click to expand...

Life needs more whistle blowers.

turbobrick240 said:

Yeah, they weren't the first to discover the cheat (by accident), but they did blow the whistle.

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Who was first?

k1xv said:

Early in my career, many years ago, I worked in an oil refinery,<snip>

What this all means to me is, once a business sets off on the wrong foot, they are loathe to admit it, hope the problem will never be discovered, and will go away on its own. Once VW started cheating, there was no way it was going to stop on its own.

Click to expand...

I like this one. There's a lot to be said for inertia. As far as all the theories involving plotting & scheming by VWAG executives, I recall the statement attributed to Napoleon (?!?): "Never ascribe to malice that which may be adequately explained by incompetence."

Does this apply?

Goodwins Law is alive and well here

wilcharl said:

Goodwins Law is alive and well here

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I believe that you are referring to Godwin's Law. There is nothing good about it.

Have Fun!

Don