EPA Hits Two More Diesel Tuners With $10 Million Fine For Defeat Devices

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turbobrick240

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Now, think about this. If you needed a toaster, because someone said you were forbidden from eating a sandwich without first toasting your bread, and you were told the toaster costs $20 to purchase, would last 1 year, and would cost $1 per month to operate... OK, so then the toaster ends up costing $30, craps out after only 6 months, after costing $2 per month to operate, and now the replacement toaster is $35 and you have to pay a $5 disposal fee for the old toaster. Oh, and you cannot make any toast at night, because every time you fire it up, the neighbor pisses his pants and forgets who he is for half an hour. That's pretty much what happened. Went from $32/yr to $84+/yr. And that cost was supposed to be just schlepped right on over to the consumer. Which is now pissed, because their toasters are costing MORE to operate than they were two years ago with no wind farm "help".
Wow, I'm feeling pretty good about toasting my bread on top of the woodstove now. :D
Joking aside, the electric rates in Maine have been skyrocketing over the last 18 months or so. It feels like CMP is punishing us for voting down the hydropower transmission corridor from Quebec.
It does seem to be encouraging home solar installations at least.
 

Abacus

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Joking aside, the electric rates in Maine have been skyrocketing over the last 18 months or so. It feels like CMP is punishing us for voting down the hydropower transmission corridor from Quebec.
It does seem to be encouraging home solar installations at least.
Yep, Maine is taking a shellacking in the power industry now, but it wasn’t unexpected. We still have a camp in Maine and go back when we can, and family lives there so we keep up on current events.

Solar is not a good medium for Maine, you need to upsize it 2-3 times to account for the lack of available sunlight. Just here in Arizona, with more than double to solar score, we spent $27k to meet our current demand, which is much less. Prices have gone way up in just a few years. It’s akin to buying an EV to save fuel costs, which is fine until you lay out the initial capital expense and realize it’s unaffordable for most. Great in theory but not so much when it comes to real life.
 

turbobrick240

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Maine has really fantastic insolation during the summer. And with our net metering policy excess solar credits can be used during the winter, and even on another property. The DIY ground mount system I installed two years ago has already halfway paid for itself.
 

x1800MODMY360x

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If SCR were all it took, then just the CBEA and CJAA would have gone away. The CKRA, CRUA, CVCA, and all the V6s sold here had it. They're gone too. Heck, they didn't even approve a "fix" for the CKRA manual cars. Yes, let's take the 50 MPG family sedans off the road. That'll help. Sure hope everyone that turned theirs in is now riding a bicycle...
From the Gen3 Dieselgate manual.


That is sad that VW only expects the vehicle to last 150k miles. I would rather my vehicle to last as long as possible to get my money's worth out of it.

New vehicles are not built to last anymore, which is sad and not environmentally, my opinion.
 

oilhammer

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There are just too many to list....
Most every manufacturer says that. They have to, otherwise the extreme drivers would be suing everyone when their 200k mile car broke down for whatever reason.

But you are correct in that nobody boasts about the longevity of cars anymore. Used to be some manufacturers (I know MB and Volvo did for sure) gave out grill badges for mileage accomplishments. My 300SD had one for 200k miles. Now, MB is just trying to figure out what hideous paint scheme and giant ghetto wheels they can entice the rich people with to get them to trade in their overpriced fragile two year old ugly car in on, with ever more letters and numbers that no longer have meaning glued across the butt end of the trunk or hatch.
 

IndigoBlueWagon

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Both Subaru and Toyota advertise "XX% of our cars are still on the road after 10 years." Trouble is, I don't know what the average percentage is of cars that last 10 years. Seems it would be pretty high.

My son and I joke about the miles totals on our cars; If people ask how many miles the car has (we're both at around 460K) they don't comprehend the answer. If we said 150K or 200K they'd get it, but over 400K is a number that simply doesn't register.

Auto sales are among the biggest drivers of our economy. We need to by cars to keep the country afloat economically. Longevity isn't our friend, and one could argue (although I wouldn't) that if we're not replacing cars regularly we're not doing our part.

One more thing: Someone mentioned above that people are dragging out old MKIVs and putting them back into service because of their lack of emissions gear and therefore reliable and economical operation. Our MKIV parts sales would support that. We are continually amazed at how well MKIV parts sales have held up as those cars age. That has to have some environmental impact: positive, I'd hope.
 

oilhammer

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There are just too many to list....
Yep, I'm doing my part by not only keeping them on the road, but also by putting ones that were NOT on the road BACK on the road. I've got four at home right now doing just that. Along with a B5. I just did $6k worth of work on a '98 New Beetle for some lady who bought it new. It has 420k on it.

I just wish someone would start reproducing some of the obsoleted parts, especially things like trim items (and, in the case of this '98 NB, mirrors :( ).
 

DuraBioPwr

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One more thing: Someone mentioned above that people are dragging out old MKIVs and putting them back into service because of their lack of emissions gear and therefore reliable and economical operation. Our MKIV parts sales would support that. We are continually amazed at how well MKIV parts sales have held up as those cars age. That has to have some environmental impact: positive, I'd hope.
HAHA I am one of them! Have bought alot of parts from you guys keeping my 300K mi MKIV on the road!

Far greener to keep an old rig on the road especially when it still delivers 45mpg and runs on B100. That why this push for electification of the entire fleet is stupid. The tech is not there yet to be comparable to range and charge times of a gaser let alone a diesel that get 45mpg. What is the plan, electrifiy ALL cars and then in 10years when batteries ARE comparable change them out again? No one ever takes into account the manufacturing contribution of CO2 and other pollution. Smarter to wait until tech is there THEN change out. In a real free market this is what would happen.
 

wxman

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Agree that manufacturing new vehicles uses a lot of resources and produces a lot of emissions.

Here is a screen capture of emissions from manufacturing a new mid-sized passenger car from the latest version of the GREET model (GREET_2022):

 

norbert77

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Let's keep this thread on topic. I'm deleting the political comments...
My post about covid math wasnt political. EPA dictates cleaner air measures by mandating devices that increase fuel economy.

Like DPF, sounds good in theory. All cleaner air crap on a semi truck it cost 1 mpg fuel loss. If you go 1 million miles at 7mpg you burn through 142,850 gallons, if you get 8mpg you burn 125,000 gallons. So with increased EPA mandates a sem truck wasted almost 20,000 gallons to drive the same distance. Tell me, which is better for the environment, DPF, regen, other crap or simply not burning 20,000 extra gallons. It's covid math because they have not done the long term testing but implemented it because they wanted to appear to be in charge of situation
 

IndigoBlueWagon

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Like DPF, sounds good in theory. All cleaner air crap on a semi truck it cost 1 mpg fuel loss. If you go 1 million miles at 7mpg you burn through 142,850 gallons, if you get 8mpg you burn 125,000 gallons. So with increased EPA mandates a sem truck wasted almost 20,000 gallons to drive the same distance. Tell me, which is better for the environment, DPF, regen, other crap or simply not burning 20,000 extra gallons. It's covid math because they have not done the long term testing but implemented it because they wanted to appear to be in charge of situation
This is what I posted about earlier. Illogical as it may sound, the DPF equipped truck is better for the environment. And as someone else posted, we're in a development phase of these emissions systems. When emissions were first introduced on gasoline powered cars in the late 60s, power output, fuel economy, and driving characteristics all turned to crap. By the 90s cars were cleaner still but making more power and delivering better FE than before the emissions requirements were put into place. I think the same thing will happen here, at least it will for over the road trucks.
 

ticaf

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Maybe, another issue though is ultra fine particulates emission during Regen. It's a real problem since it's not addressed under any emission regulations.
In other words, they don't want emissions during their test cycle, but don't care about the "delayed" emission during regen.
 

JELLOWSUBMARINE

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Maybe, another issue though is ultra fine particulates emission during Regen. It's a real problem since it's not addressed under any emission regulations.
In other words, they don't want emissions during their test cycle, but don't care about the "delayed" emission during regen.
Post #42 not the easiest read but very good and much to the point of unintended issues.

Sometimes there is be a tipping point before going backward. This is another great example of unintended issues. What exacrly will ultra fine particals effect? What kind of footprint will the next gen ultra fine particals search and destroy EPA wisdom consiet of?

IMO, I see diesel as the target, this hyper emmision hunt as only a means to an end.
 

Jr mason

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I'm glad the buybacks came around and gave me a good opportunity to make it right.
Definition of irony : people claiming they care enough about the environment to junk their otherwise functional, economical vehicle with a lot of life left in it yet continue to drive a 20+ year old vehicle that pollutes far worse than the car they sent off to the compactor.

Electing to scrap hundreds of thousands of perfectly good vehicles didn't do a single positive thing for the environment. The only thing that came out green were the wallets of those that accepted the deal.
 

turbobrick240

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Definition of irony : people claiming they care enough about the environment to junk their otherwise functional, economical vehicle with a lot of life left in it yet continue to drive a 20+ year old vehicle that pollutes far worse than the car they sent off to the compactor.

Electing to scrap hundreds of thousands of perfectly good vehicles didn't do a single positive thing for the environment. The only thing that came out green were the wallets of those that accepted the deal.
No idea what you're talking about. I averaged 25k miles a year when I drove my tdi. I've averaged 11k miles a year w/ my 2010 32 mpg Golf since the buyback. I also installed enough solar panels to cover all of my electricity needs. So yeah, I'd call that a win for the environment. Besides, like most people, I took the buyback primarily for economic reasons. Getting the legal/environmental weight off of my shoulders was mostly just a nice bonus.
 

Jr mason

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Nearly 600,000 affected vehicles in the US alone, less than 100,000 scrapped would make 1 in 6 at best. I'd wager that's on the low side given many of these cars were used for commuting and had some miles racked up on them when turned in.
Regardless, "hundreds of thousands " was likely an over the top estimate.
No idea what you're talking about.
The "irony" I was referring to was your self proclaimed righteousness of ditching your "dirty" car but keeping a 20+ year old truck that is several times dirtier than the VW you turned in.

I took the buyback primarily for economic reasons.
That's much more believable than this:

I'm glad the buybacks came around and gave me a good opportunity to make it right.
 

IndigoBlueWagon

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My recollection is that 275,000 vehicles were turned in. I think most of these were re-sold, even ones with 100K or more on them, even ones that were in accidents (I bought one of those). The exception was the manual transmission 12-14 Passats, for which there was no fix. Unless the owner decided to keep the vehicle and not get any compensation, those were crushed. But that wasn't a high volume model.
 

turbobrick240

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The "irony" I was referring to was your self proclaimed righteousness of ditching your "dirty" car but keeping a 20+ year old truck that is several times dirtier than the VW you turned in.
My 20 year old farm truck hasn't been on the road in 5 years. Probably put 100 miles on it as a farm vehicle during that time. I also have no problem with members here driving 15-20 year old cars. Sounds like maybe you do.
 

Jr mason

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I also have no problem with members here driving 15-20 year old cars. Sounds like maybe you do.
4 of the 7 vehicles I own are more than 20 years old. My teenage son drives a truck nearly 15 years his senior....a standard no less.
I'd look pretty silly badgering someone for owning an older, "dirty" vehicle. That would make me a hypocrite. There's already enough of those around.
 

Jr mason

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My recollection is that 275,000 vehicles were turned in.
I don't have any data to counter this but that is quite surprising if that number is even close. I would have thought it was a much higher number based on news articles I've read in the past.

It was still a colossal waste. Think how many perfectly good tires, batteries, fluids and brakes were replaced because the cars sat so long. All to burn more fuel and eat up more parts because the reliability tanked. There was nothing green about any of what the epa required VW to do. It was very poor management of an already bad problem.
 

IndigoBlueWagon

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I wasn't far off. Reuters says 300,000. And I agree on the wastefulness of the whole activity.
 

Jr mason

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Agreed. Believe it or not, there are tasks a 3/4 ton 4x4 truck with plow gear can do that a fwd passenger car simply cannot.
I'm gonna go out on a limb and say you don't make a habit of looking at peoples signatures.
 

Abacus

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And as someone else posted, we're in a development phase of these emissions systems. When emissions were first introduced on gasoline powered cars in the late 60s, power output, fuel economy, and driving characteristics all turned to crap. By the 90s cars were cleaner still but making more power and delivering better FE than before the emissions requirements were put into place.
Two things:

1) the same can be said for EV's, they're in the development stage. This current medium of Li-Poly is OK, but it's not the end-all or final word in EV's, it's just the best so far. Until the batteries can be hot-swapped the technology just isn't ready for prime-time.

2) the horsepower formula was changed in 1971, which explains why older muscle cars can smoke the tires off while rolling vs newer cars that can't. I'll never forget seeing a '60's Vette rolling smoke from the tires at 50 mph when passing another car. Sure, the new cars have traction control and all sorts of anti-slip devices but the engines pre-72 were a whole different beast. There was a 4 bolt main 350 sitting in my garage that had twice the power of the brand new crate one swapped in.

I still abide by the reasoning that keeping an older car alive has a much smaller carbon/emissions/green footprint than buying anything new, the same goes for houses and many other things taken for granted today.
 

nwdiver

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IndigoBlueWagon

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For every new car put on the road, another is taken off the road and junked. This is the famous Broken Windows Fallacy, but now the windows have wheels and engines and seats.
Not sure I follow. And I hope you realize my comment was a little bit sarcastic: I don't believe we should promote an industry that has ill effects on both the environment and people's personal economic situations to keep the overall economy booming.
 
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atc98002

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Until the batteries can be hot-swapped the technology just isn't ready for prime-time.
I have no intention of permitting a hot swap of a battery with one that is a known quality to me. If I've done all the charging and driving, I know exactly what conditions the battery has seen. If I swap it with a fully charged battery, I get a full battery with no past history. Someone might have abused it with constant fast charging, or perhaps hot rodding their car and abusing the battery in other ways. There is no way to ensure I get "my" battery back.

As mentioned, DCFC is making battery swapping a moot point. They're down to 18 minutes for a 10-80% recharge. Not as fast as filling a liquid fuel tank, but far better than the close to one hour my Bolt takes. That's one of several reasons I'm moving back to a PHEV as soon as I can get out of my current lease.
 
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