30 Minute Fix for Emissions

http://www.smh.com.au/business/volk...t-performance-may-suffer-20151126-gl8fhl.html



Volkswagen says it can fix its rigged engines in as little as 30 minutes but can't guarantee its solution won't affect the fuel consumption or the overall performance of the cars that were designed to cheat pollution tests.
It comes three months after the car maker admitted that it that used software to spew out as much as 40 times the legal limit for emissions, equating to more than 10,000 tonnes of nitrogen oxide pollutants each year.
Volkswagen Australia has confirmed at least 78,000 Volkswagen vehicles have been sold in Australia with a so-called "defeat device" fitted to engines, including an estimated 61,000 passenger cars.

But the company could not say whether its "consumer-friendly" solution – which basically involves fitting a piece of mesh over its air mass sensor - would effect fuel consumption or the vehicle's overall performance.


"The objective for the development of the technical measures is still to achieve the applicable emission targets in each case without any adverse effects on the engine output, fuel consumption and performance," the company said in a statement.
"However, as all model variants first have to be measured, the achievement of these targets cannot yet be finally confirmed."
The piece of mesh, or "flow transformer" is designed to help measure the accuracy of air intake for optimum combustion and will be fitted to only to the rigged 1.6 litre diesel engines. It said it should take less than an hour to install.


The bigger two litre engines will only need a software upgrade, Volkswagen said, adding it should take about 30 minutes.
It expects to find a solution for its rigged 1.2 litre engines before the end of November and said it would most likely involve a software update.

Forgive me for being skeptical, but a piece of mesh in the MAF? Really? That's going to bring emissions into compliance?

This may be interesting but I think it is unrelated to the emissions issues in North America.I believe that this "fix" is about a totally different engine and it is about meeting totally different emissions standards. It has nothing to do with what VW is going to do in North America. I fear that someone is conflating several stories. I, too, am skeptical that this is the fix in North America. Unfortunately this issue has more distractions than facts. This may well be another short lived thread.

Have Fun!

Don

Evidently that "flow straightener" is indeed part of the real fix for the 1.6 TDI engine.

All of this pertains only to engines sold outside USA and Canada.

I am quite sure that all VW is going to do is remove the "cheat" logic and make small recalibration of the EGR system; evidently the 1.6 TDI needed to measure the airflow more accurately in order to do that and hence the flow straightener.

I am also pretty sure that this is going to make little difference to emissions outside of the (light) engine loads and (moderate) RPM that are seen during the NEDC. Emissions during real world driving - higher RPM and load than NEDC - will likely remain high. Making the EGR system more accurate might help a little, but it won't be an enormous difference.

In a nutshell ... Before, if you drove on the road as per the NEDC, the "cheat" logic would detect that you were not on a dyno. Now, if you drive on the road as per the NEDC, it will run the same as if it were on a dyno. Press the accelerator 0.001 mm further than the NEDC requires and all bets are off!

The fact that the NEDC is not representative of modern real world driving conditions is quite another matter ...

I just do not believe that a airflow stabilizer and software will fix our issues. In less restrictive marketsbyes but in the US with CARB and the Monroney act, it will be more of a hack to fix it.

Then again, I'm a pharmacist and not an engineer.

This is all very charming. For me, living in a non-emissions testing state, the solution is very clear— do nothing. I'm past my free services, and have no plans to go back to a dealer for routine service. Warranty work or recalls are another matter, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

I can't decide if it looks like something kids would squish play-doh through to make play-doh noodles or the bottom of my Aeropress coffee maker?

The so-called 'flow transformer' likely does very little to alter the dynamics of the airflow. What it likely does to is limit the amount of air the engine can get.

Less air, less power, less NOx.

The software change likely remaps the fuel quantities to match and probably contains a number of other tuning changes to reduce power further.

That screen isn't a very significant flow restriction.

The screen filters out nitrogen. No nitrogen = no NOx.

We used to make pasta noodle dies that looked similar when I was in the manufacturing business years ago.

The mesh can produce turbulence for the test pperating conditions, flattening/homogeneizing the air velocity profile before the meter, so improving its accuracy at test ranges. The rest will be via software (the cheapest solution) and the cars tested themselves as capable of passing the emission test. I foresee weaker power response in the future... Dang!!

Mike_04GolfTDI said:

The screen filters out nitrogen. No nitrogen = no NOx.

Click to expand...

c-wagen said:

The mesh can produce turbulence for the test pperating conditions, flattening/homogeneizing the air velocity profile before the meter, so improving its accuracy at test ranges. The rest will be via software (the cheapest solution) and the cars tested themselves as capable of passing the emission test. I foresee weaker power response in the future... Dang!!

Click to expand...

Hey guys, keep in mind that this "30 minute fix" is for European engines (not sold in North America) where the primary emissions concern is CO2 not NOx. The chances that this "30 minute fix" is any part of the fix for the emissions fiasco in North America are near ZERO. This little mesh in the air intake has nothing to do with NOx generation. Just because the media cannot keep straight the differences between the European and the American emissions situations is not a good enough reason for the TDI club to intermix them also. There is no reason for us to "dumb down" the conversation the way the press often does. American reporters grab onto European headlines because the VW story is "hot" now. Being "hot" does not make them relevant.

VW is having problems with emissions regulations in both Europe and America - but for very different causes. Because the causes are different, the solutions must be different. We are wasting an incredible amount of time and bandwidth guessing about what VW will do in the US & Canada, but all this talk about what VW is going to do in Europe (to engines not even sold here) is almost entirely unrelated to our situation. Why is patience so hard to come by? Take your $1000, be happy with it, and wait until VW decides what to do about our cars. It might be bad, it might be good - only time will tell.

Have Fun!

Don

This is just BS. You are being punked.

UFO said:

This is just BS. You are being punked.

Click to expand...

Next will be the little magic pellets to put in the fuel tank to increase fuel economy.

JSWTDI09 said:

Hey guys, keep in mind that this "30 minute fix" is for European engines (not sold in North America) where the primary emissions concern is CO2 not NOx. The chances that this "30 minute fix" is any part of the fix for the emissions fiasco in North America are near ZERO. This little mesh in the air intake has nothing to do with NOx generation. Just because the media cannot keep straight the differences between the European and the American emissions situations is not a good enough reason for the TDI club to intermix them also. There is no reason for us to "dumb down" the conversation the way the press often does. American reporters grab onto European headlines because the VW story is "hot" now. Being "hot" does not make them relevant.

VW is having problems with emissions regulations in both Europe and America - but for very different causes. Because the causes are different, the solutions must be different. We are wasting an incredible amount of time and bandwidth guessing about what VW will do in the US & Canada, but all this talk about what VW is going to do in Europe (to engines not even sold here) is almost entirely unrelated to our situation. Why is patience so hard to come by? Take your $1000, be happy with it, and wait until VW decides what to do about our cars. It might be bad, it might be good - only time will tell.

Have Fun!

Don

Click to expand...

Not sure if you know but the fix in Europe applies to the 1.6 tdi (not sold in the us) as well as the 2.0 tdi (sold in the US) so it's not a waste of time to observe what VW is doing in Europe.

It's incorrect to say Europe has a CO2 problem more so than a NOx one. This fix is for the 11 million Diesel engines in Europe that falsify NOx emissions readings.

The difference in the US is the limit for NOx emissions during testing for vehicles to pass is much lower than the euro standard. It would be very interesting to find out if this software fix in Europe is the same one applied to US 2.0 tdi engines when EPA and carb initially notified VW of the issue.

Mike_04GolfTDI said:

The screen filters out nitrogen. No nitrogen = no NOx.

Click to expand...

No no no.

It's a special plasma generating matrix. As ambient air passes through the cylindrical inductor, it generates a plasma field that fuses the trilithium coated fusion matrix with the passing nitrogen. The resulting fusion reaction creates the noble gas Neon. The exiting cylinder is used to capture gama radiation and convert it to electricity. This will replace the alternator thus saving lost HP and increases offset carbon credits.

^ LOL Best answer yet!

For the post above that, the 2.0 TDI sold in Europe is not the same as the 2.0 TDI sold in North America. The emission control equipment is different and the calibration is different, and the test that it is expected to conform to is different, and the legal expectations are different.

The euros have always had a different version of their cars for europe. If you drive a rental Bimmer diesel in europe it acts like a rocker vs ours. My 1978 Alfa had a Calif demanded cat converter and had 25 less HP than the euro Alfa with the same 2 liter engine. Different cars to be sure.

EU fix. It may work for the EU where NOx emissions standards are less stringent. The US fix still is to be revealed. Unless this is to inform EU owners, the post was a waste of time.

GoFaster said:

^ LOL Best answer yet!

For the post above that, the 2.0 TDI sold in Europe is not the same as the 2.0 TDI sold in North America. The emission control equipment is different and the calibration is different, and the test that it is expected to conform to is different, and the legal expectations are different.

Click to expand...

Huh. That's different.

I have a little bit of experience with large diesels (~12MW units) outfitted with emissions monitoring equipment. Ensuring a smooth airflow at the sensors is critical to low readings, since turbulent flow causes large spikes in the calculated emissions (that don't necessarily reflect real emissions). To vastly oversimplify, the math can lead to dividing by zero (or something close to it) - that leads to instantaneous readings of near-infinite emissions, which blows the average out of the water. Presumably this device eliminates some of those calculated emissions spikes, lowering the average to a level that is within compliance.

Lincoln said:

I have a little bit of experience with large diesels (~12MW units) outfitted with emissions monitoring equipment. Ensuring a smooth airflow at the sensors is critical to low readings, since turbulent flow causes large spikes in the calculated emissions (that don't necessarily reflect real emissions). To vastly oversimplify, the math can lead to dividing by zero (or something close to it) - that leads to instantaneous readings of near-infinite emissions, which blows the average out of the water. Presumably this device eliminates some of those calculated emissions spikes, lowering the average to a level that is within compliance.

Click to expand...

Thank you for this informed observation.

They can't have my TDI

I will not go BACK. but I'll keep my TDI!

Lincoln said:

I have a little bit of experience with large diesels (~12MW units) outfitted with emissions monitoring equipment. Ensuring a smooth airflow at the sensors is critical to low readings, since turbulent flow causes large spikes in the calculated emissions (that don't necessarily reflect real emissions). To vastly oversimplify, the math can lead to dividing by zero (or something close to it) - that leads to instantaneous readings of near-infinite emissions, which blows the average out of the water. Presumably this device eliminates some of those calculated emissions spikes, lowering the average to a level that is within compliance.

Click to expand...

This is why I am a pharmacist and not a mechanic or engineer. Thanks.

EDIT: http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2015/12/vw-flow-straightener-really-works/


This reminds me of the JC Whitney junk intake inserts to improve HP and MPG and other
"As Seen As TV" scams of the same type... typically tin "vortex" magic

I love the testimonial, our van now gets 12 mpg... ha ha.
http://www.tornadoair.com/

Amazon Reviews not so good, but you really have to be naive to buy it in the first place or a very trusting optimistic (naive) person.
http://www.amazon.com/Tornado-Saver-KI70-Management-System/product-reviews/B000FSOZ30