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

[JELLOWSUBMARINE]

You just overshot the whole point(s) again. not seeing the trees for the forest.

The point is a that even 10x... 100x over ridiculous is what? The EPA is far from a well oiled machine with obvious issues. Other issue argued here is the balance of how much is too much before going bassakwards?

My apologize to oilhammer for quoting him again but it's worded well. I'll add EPA

The Bosch guy said it best, when he said clearly the legislators simply do not understand the combustion cycle of a diesel engine, and are trying to force it to behave like a gasoline engine (square peg --> round hole)

I thinks I'm through here

 

[turbobrick240]

Well, I do live in the most heavily forested state in the country.....

It sounds as though you're ok with any amount of vehicular pollution because the regs are just so ridiculous. I don't share that view.

 

[J_dude]

I’m a little late to the party, but once again, @oilhammer brings common sense and clarity back to the discussion, I like the way he keeps things in focus, without ignoring the backdrop, the big picture. Thank you sir.

 

[ticaf]

Well, it is one thing to do a delete, and drive smoothly for efficiency with minimum emissions, versus doing a delete to gain a few HPs and rolling coal.
Rather than having a practical emissions system, the EPA is steering folks towards a delete when it would cost the price of the car to replace DPF/SCR. The math was wrong from the start.

 

[turbobrick240]

It doesn't really matter how gently you drive a deleted vehicle, it's still going to be emitting far, far more NOx and PM than it was designed to. Good intentions don't equal compliant emissions. You bought the car, don't blame the EPA.

 

[oilhammer]

... and yet uses ~10% less fuel, not to mention no impact of manufacture and transport of broken things like DPFs. I get both sides, and I hate stinky smoky diesels (or gassers, for that matter). But the fact remains: the older engines (be they in road going vehicles, stationary engines, ag and construction equipment, whatever) have become more likely to be kept in working order BECAUSE the newer ones have these fragile things. So you can make the newer stuff as clean as you like (and keep in mind, the definition of "clean" is subjective... a cheating TDI's "white glove" exhaust pipe sure looks cleaner to me than the soot-filled one of the DI turbo gasser right next to it) but if people cannot afford to purchase/own/operate them, then they go backwards to the older, dirtier versions. You can virtue signal all you like, but that doesn't help someone who is faced with a multiple thousand dollar repair bill on a car that is not even paid off yet. And that is quite often a common thing we see here every single day. And the flipside, is probably (certainly) why I see so many older cars (not just TDIs) being not just kept on the road, but being put back ON the road, after a hiatus. It is the opposite of cash-for-clunkers.

 

[oilhammer]

Also keep in mind, "100x" the amount of whatever is an arbitrary number. 100x of what? One hundred grains of sand is 100x more than one grain of sand. But if the scale at large is all the sand in Daytona Beach, then.... ???? And what of those single-percentile figures? If we were all about "saving lives", then why does the tobacco industry still exist?

Not that I feel the WHO has a handle on everything, but this is taken from their website:

• Tobacco kills up to half of its users.
• Tobacco kills more than 8 million people each year. More than 7 million of those deaths are the result of direct tobacco use while around 1.2 million are the result of non-smokers being exposed to second-hand smoke.
• Over 80% of the world's 1.3 billion tobacco users live in low- and middle-income countries.
• In 2020, 22.3% of the global population used tobacco, 36.7% of all men and 7.8% of the world’s women.

Sure seems like a pretty awful thing to me. Yet, we still have it... So yeah, I'm not really worried about my little 55 MPG Golf wading through a sea of empty full sized pickups to get to work every morning.

Takes about FIVE GALLONS of oil to produce ONE TIRE. Seems like a car that can use smaller, lighter tires and can go 80k miles on a set of them has less environmental impact on one that uses big heavy ones that wear out every 30k miles.

A car that can go 20k miles on an oil change and uses a little cartridge filter is going to have less environmental impact than one that only goes 5 or 10k miles and/or has a metal can oil filter.

Seems a car that can last 20+ years and still function perfectly fine has less environmental impact as one that is flat worn out after 10, or barfs an engine apart repeatedly (we commonly see Hyundai/Kia products on engine number 3 before 100k miles).

....there is more to emissions than just what comes out the tailpipe. Look at the bigger picture. You'll see a lot more.

 

[IndigoBlueWagon]

Seems a car that can last 20+ years and still function perfectly fine has less environmental impact as one that is flat worn out after 10, or barfs an engine apart repeatedly (we commonly see Hyundai/Kia products on engine number 3 before 100k miles).

This is one a lot of people overlook. It takes a lot of materials and energy to build a car, and they are rarely, if ever, disposed of in a way that minimizes environmental impact. Driving one for a long time has to help, even if it doesn't have a lot in the way of emissions controls.

 

[oilhammer]

The cost (energy, consumables, etc.) to manufacture things, as well as disposing of old things assuming the new things are replacing old things, is for sure often overlooked. And it isn't just cars. This has in recent years been slowly but surely pushed off to the least common denominator which means the worst environmental impact: China. The pollution plumes barfing out of that country 24-7 is astounding (you can watch the time lapse on NASA's website). It easily dwarfs everything else on the planet many times over. The only time in the last 40 years it visibly slowed was during the whole Covid deal. But it is back with a vengeance. I try and avoid Chinese made things whenever I can, but it has become increasingly difficult to impossible.

 

[IndigoBlueWagon]

Many describe the new crop of EVs as "disposable." Because of the changes in technology, along with battery degradation, it's unlikely that anyone will want to drive a 2022 EV in 10 years. And construction methods for some EVs (BMW in particular) makes them prohibitively expensive to repair in the event of a minor accident. So we're building vehicles that can either be mechanically totaled by battery failure or tech obsolescence, or totaled in a minor accident. How green is that?

 

[oilhammer]

It isn't just EVs that get totaled and deemed unrepairable in a relatively minor accident, either. The cost of some of these ignorant stadium LED headlights alone can see to that. The STRIPPER Jetta now is graced with headlamp assemblies that are nearly $1000. Each. Some F150s have over $7k worth of exterior lights. Think about that.

 

[ticaf]

Food for thoughts:

Nitrogen dioxide and ultrafine particles dominate the biological effects of inhaled diesel exhaust treated by a catalyzed diesel particulate filter - PubMed

We studied the impact of a catalyzed diesel particulate filter (DPF) on the toxicity of diesel exhaust. Rats inhaled exhaust from a Cummins ISM heavy-duty diesel engine, with and without DPF after-treatment, or HEPA-filtered air for 4h, on 1 day (single exposure) and 3 days (repeated exposures)...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0269749121007454

See, its all not black and white.

 

[Abacus]

Well, I do live in the most heavily forested state in the country.....

It sounds as though you're ok with any amount of vehicular pollution because the regs are just so ridiculous. I don't share that view.

You bought the car, don't blame the EPA.

With one of the smallest populations.

But why did you go to the extreme in your second sentence. How did you contrive what he said with what you posted? Some people simply have more of an acceptable level of compliance with the current insane rules and regulations, they are not looking to throw the baby out with the bath water. I am with Oilhammer on this one, I've driven in many other countries and the US is severely lacking in the efficiency department when it comes to automobiles and even power. While in the UK we saw a few mini hydro generating facilities that powered just a single factory. We cant have those in the US due to the 'green' agenda that says you can't disturb a waterway. They seemed to figure it out. Same thing with their cars, even back in 2014 I was driving around in a 6 speed Ford Focus diesel that was vastly superior to anything in the US, and despite really enjoying the torque, it still got 56 mpg (hand calculated). My point is that no matter how 'great' people think these regulations are, they pale by comparison to other countries, which seemed to figure out a balance of what the consumer wants vs reducing emissions.

As to 'buying the car', that's a misnomer. People are only buying cars the EPA has told them they have to buy, nothing else. If that were not the case, a new Scirocco would be sitting in my driveway right now. So making people choose what you want them to drive really doesn't make your case.

 

[DivineChaos]

The thing I don't understand is the CR TDI is a cleaner burning than the old predecessor, yet with the EPA stringent regulations makes them use the EGR, DPF, and if applicable SCR. Those items make the car last not as long and also use more fuel for regen? Also threaten people if DEF shortages happens and can not start a car if it runs out.

In my area I see so many old semi vs new ones because of the stupid EPA.

Many old ones are being pulled out of the weeds, fixed and licensed for cheaper.

 

[turbobrick240]

With one of the smallest populations.

But why did you go to the extreme in your second sentence. How did you contrive what he said with what you posted? Some people simply have more of an acceptable level of compliance with the current insane rules and regulations, they are not looking to throw the baby out with the bath water. I am with Oilhammer on this one, I've driven in many other countries and the US is severely lacking in the efficiency department when it comes to automobiles and even power. While in the UK we saw a few mini hydro generating facilities that powered just a single factory. We cant have those in the US due to the 'green' agenda that says you can't disturb a waterway. They seemed to figure it out. Same thing with their cars, even back in 2014 I was driving around in a 6 speed Ford Focus diesel that was vastly superior to anything in the US, and despite really enjoying the torque, it still got 56 mpg (hand calculated). My point is that no matter how 'great' people think these regulations are, they pale by comparison to other countries, which seemed to figure out a balance of what the consumer wants vs reducing emissions.

As to 'buying the car', that's a misnomer. People are only buying cars the EPA has told them they have to buy, nothing else. If that were not the case, a new Scirocco would be sitting in my driveway right now. So making people choose what you want them to drive really doesn't make your case.

She brushed off 10x and 100x the allowable emissions because the regs are "ridiculous". Where does that end? Because it sure sounds like no amount would be excessive with that view. The problem is not with the regs, but rather the manufacturers willingness to engineer and implement good solutions. If all of the commonrail cars came with a proper scr system to begin with (which was available), VW wouldn't have had to break the laws of many nations, and doomed diesel passenger cars to a premature decline. Things have changed a lot in Europe since you rented that 2014 Focus. Diesel car sales have fallen off a cliff there as well. Violating laws on that scale has real repercussions.

 

[oilhammer]

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.

You want to talk about real repercussions? I think we are discussing just that. We just put a new engine in a 10 year old 330k mile Silverado 3500HD because the new ones are too expensive and too fragile. You know how I know that? Because that same company HAS those newer trucks, and the dumbass cylinder on demand crap that GM insists upon to squeak it past the regulations SUCKS BALLS and BREAKS. Not even talking about diesels here. Talking about the good ol' gasser V8s. The old (original) 5.3L will outlast the rust can it left the factory in. The new ones have tiny metal valvetrain pieces falling apart before the darn thing is due for a set of spark plugs! Progress!!! Not.

You want to roll up to any Ford dealer service department and ask them how many Ecoboost engines they have replaced or are in the process of replacing? How many Cyclone V6 timing chain jobs? Man, I've been working on these things since Ford trucks just went to EFI. The old ones didn't break like that. Ever. Like, EVER.

You know how many Dodge trucks and vans I've seen with blown up Slant Six engines? Less than one. You know how many I've seen with Pentastar V6s blown up? At least a dozen so far this year, and the year isn't over.

Ya know, come to think of it, I guess an engine is pretty dog gone "clean" if it can no longer run at all because a connecting rod went rogue and tried to shawshank its way out the side of the block when the plastic oil filter housing spontaneously blew the contents of the oil pan out all over the transmission and across the highway!

 

[turbobrick240]

The SCR system in the CKRA wasn't nearly as good as it could have been because VW didn't want to license the much better system that Mercedes had developed. Then they cheated the software so that owners wouldn't have to fill the urea res. as often. I'm not sure what the deal w scr was on the CRUA and CVCA. VW could have continued selling TDIs here as they have in Europe, but probably figured it was better to lift the black cloud of the scandal before it seriously impacted their gas vehicle sales here.

 

[oilhammer]

What "better" system did Mercedes develop? Because (and I've worked on many of both) it all looks the same to me. Even some of the components are made by the same people. MB even has adopted low pressure EGR on the newest engines (which for us, is now just in the Sprinter) just like VAG uses.

They both have a DPF/trap oxidizer in the same spot (right off the turbo). They both have the DEF dosing injector right after that. They both have the NOx reaction chamber that the DEF injector aims into. They both have a DEF tank with its associated pump and heating elements and level sensors. They both have various EGT sensors, oxygen sensors, and NOx sensors. The NOx sensors are the same, they just use a different connector and/or different length of wire.

If there is a difference, it must be software... which is all Bosch. And, just like VAG, MB got a scolding and a software change too.

 

[turbobrick240]

I'm not an emissions systems engineer, so I can't speak to exactly what made the Mercedes blue motion? system perform so much better. I suspect better software was a big part of it, but could also be related to the internal structure and chemistry of the catalyst.

 

[DuraBioPwr]

Make the US military use DPF/SCR tech and let them deal with it. Oh wait they dont because they are NOT reliable with those systems in place.

Yes, the point has been made several times, lets take 50mpg cars off the road but 12mpg suburbans get a pass so soccer moms can drive around little kids. Brilliant. Really fixing the world. The hypocrisy is shocking.

We are over here splitting hairs on emissions and China says hold my beer. Yet everybody that says yes to clean emissions still buys garbage nonstop from the gross polluting china (yes, i have been there and its as bad as reported). Your Iphone probably has more emissions associated with it than a 'dieselgate' car ever would have produced. What a joke.

 

[oilhammer]

MB's name is Bluetec. VAG's is BlueMotion. And those are just trade brand monikers, don't really mean anything specific. Like 4Motion, or VTEC, or H-TRAC, or Puremotion, or Hybrid Synergy Drive. Even the Cummins powered Ram pickups wore a 'Bluetec' badge when MB owned them, but shared no parts at all with any MB products (save for the manual 6sp gearbox that was from the MB parts bin).

VAG never used the BlueMotion tag here, even though it was around before Dieselgate. But I think they limited it to just the super high efficiency diesel models, which even when we DID get diesels, we didn't get those. I mean, why would anyone want a Golf that gets 65+ MPG? That's absurd. Should be illegal. Oh, wait....

(the Polo BlueMotion is capable of an astonishing 75 MPGs!!!)

 

[IndigoBlueWagon]

Based on customer inquiries I would say the SCR systems on VW, Mercedes, and BMW are all equally bad.

 

[oilhammer]

I would agree with that. Seems that is the main thing that the Sprinters had issues with, but they updated the system in 2014, and those seem much less troublesome. They redesigned and relocated the DEF tank, they moved some sensors around (on the V6... the 4 was new for us, so no idea how those were previous) and seemed to fix the leaky DEF injector problem, which is the same thing VAG had with the CRUA and CVCA.

The new Sprinters, though, so far, have been 100% trouble free excluding the rando-blow Korean tires so many were cursed with from the factory. If the Amazon drivers can't hurt them, that says a lot (and boy by the looks of these vans that come in here they sure try... pretty sure some of them are legally blind).

But boy, those pre-SCR Sprinters will run and run and run and run:

 

[turbobrick240]

The early 80's era emissions systems on gas cars in the US were pretty awful too. With enough R&D they got those to be much more reliable with far less impact on performance. The same thing applies to modern diesels, there are solutions- the manufacturers just have to be willing to invest in the R&D.

 

[oilhammer]

The CIS+Lambda system that Volkswagen used was pretty good. A feedback version (an early type) of K-jet. L-jet wasn't bad, either. The domestics just wanted to stick with carburetors even though some had already employed EFI systems on some models. I think there was more of a lack of understanding by technicians and the public, to be honest. I cut my teeth on Bosch Jetronic systems. They are simple, reliable, and work well. But it always amazed me how many people were completely clueless about them. The carburetor, it seemed, they understood, even though by then most all of those were saddled with some layered on feedback nonsense with a mixture control solenoid, a single wire oxygen sensor, and some rudimentary solid state controls. The early Japanese stuff was either Bosch L-jet under license (Toyota, Nissan), or some copycat of the L-jet system by Denso (then Nipponsenso) or Hitachi. They tended to have a fetish with vacuum control solenoids for all kinds of things. Honda would have a big stack of solenoids and a huge bundle of vacuum lines on a rack on the firewall, LOL.

The high points, for simplicity and reliability with engine management was right around 1990, and then again around 2000. There was a teething period with the OBD2 mandates that caused all sorts of turmoil, so much of what was perfected by ~1994 had to be ironed out some more in the late '90s. But that's not to say everything fell into the same category. Mitsubishi Electronics had some real garbage through those years, and it was not just found in Mitsubishi-branded vehicles. There were Mazdas, Suzukis, and others that had issues with that.

But the 1981-87 K-jet+lambda Rabbits, Jettas, Golfs, etc. were very reliable and easy to service. One of the main issues they had was that they had a 1000 mile first service that was supposed to be done. Diesels got their cylinder heads' bolts torqued down an additional 1/4 turn, and the CIS cars got the little thimble screen in the fuel distributor inlet removed. This was there just to catch and swarf from the manufacturing process, because CIS injection bits are very intolerant to debris. Problem was, Bosch knew they were temporary, so they were not made of a very robust steel. If they did not get removed, eventually they'd start to rust from any moisture in the gasoline, as well as corrode from any alcohol. Then, all at once, whatever swarf they'd collected would suddenly break through and go right into the fuel distributor... and they didn't like that. Lots of driveability problems with those cars could be traced back to that 1000k mile service never being performed. And a lot of these cars just never went back to the dealer for anything, and they had a short warranty anyway.

 

[turbobrick240]

Yeah, I think Volvo was the first to introduce K-jet +lamda over here. I had a '76 244 (among many)with lamda and never had any problems with the emissions system. It had lots of pep too, much more than you'd expect from a 100hp car weighing around 3000 lbs.

 

[oilhammer]

Yep, they wore the 'lambda-sond' badge in the grill. With the Greek letter IIRC.

Volkswagen started with CA vehicles in '78, with the Federal stuff in '81. Save for the Vanagon, which outside CA stuck with L-jet through early '83 when it got replaced with the waterboxer, which were a spin-off of L-jet. Volkswagen called those Digijet.

And somewhere in the early '80s, Volvo went to LH-jet (the hot-wire air flow sensor instead of the vane type sensor). Saab may have had it, too.

Something else significant that happened in the 1970s was the catalytic converter. Which was a boon for clean air, but forced unleaded gasoline. Lead was something that had been added to gasoline for an upper end lubricant enhancer to keep valves and seats working, but had a nice side effect of being an octane booster in addition to helping otherwise poor fuel work. This also allowed some seriously high compression engines, which were capable of a lot more power. The lack of a good replacement for lead, and the need for catalysts, meant all the domestic car companies pretty much lock step did the same thing: they took 1950s and 1960s era engines, lowered the compression ratio, retarded the cam timing, and had to back off fueling because the engine simply couldn't turn the fuel into power. But the Germans (and the Swedes) bypassed that nonsense by using fuel systems that far better atomized the fuel. And, ironically, they didn't even require catalysts on cars then. They were still selling leaded gasoline well into the '80s. Because our dealer used to get the tourist pickup cars (mostly Westfalia campers) and had to take the "delete pipe" that was factory-installed on the German-delivery US-market Transporters, and install the new-in-the-box catalyst that was shipped with it. Because they knew that those campers would be driven all over Europe, often in places where unleaded gasoline wasn't even available, before they came home.

 

[oilhammer]

I don't think any minds will be changed here (or anywhere), because most people tend to see more closely to what is in front of them which is what impacts them the most. I've lived in this same area all my life. Our shop is almost within sight of the hospital where I took my first breath, and I can still breathe here just fine.

There seems to be a bad knee jerk reaction to a lot of things that seem good on the front end, but don't get researched properly (the whole "let's pass it, then read what it says" type of mantra). There is a lawsuit currently with a collection of the Missouri electric co-ops in rural areas due to wind turbines. The gist of it is, the gov't pushed some very expensive wind farms on them, that they had to pay for. The cost ended up being more (substantially more, actually) than what was first stated. Then the PM costs have already been MUCH higher than was first stated. Then, they already started failing (and by failing, I mean, to the point that replacement is necessary) long before the predicted time was stated. Then, the final kick to the balls, was the "oh, yeah, by the way, you can no longer operate them at night because of the bats".

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".

 

[turbobrick240]

Jellow- I feel no hostility toward you, and I hope that's mutual. When a member starts resorting to name calling and inuendo, they have left the realm of logic and entered into emotionality. That's all I was referring to. I have no idea what your inner emotions are, anger or otherwise. Why did we get the great(for it's time) K-jet/lambda system? Because it was needed to meet the stricter CARB mandated standards in California.

 

[JELLOWSUBMARINE]

Oilhammer, your right on target. The book, Arguing with Idiots keep popping up in the back recesses of my mind.

I did get my panties in a bunch over one of the 1st post instructing a posting member to go cry on xxxx.com. A bit hypocritical after calling for no politics on such a polital subject.

All done anyhoo, looking forward to a good day today nevertheless