Volkswagen's Clean Air Act violations on 2009+ TDIs spark huge recall, investigations

[croppz]

They didn't lie to us. They lied to EPA and bested their fuel consumption in the process to benefit the consumer. Just so happens they got caught and now the consumer, has to get their cars changed back. I doubt MPG is going to suffer that much.

 

[Mizzeaux]

So far all we have seen is the EPA side of the conversation. VW's wording of the event may differ.

Understood, but the EPA (or CARB) saying VW admitted to breaking the rules against defeat devices when they didn't would likely put those entities in some real danger of paying some large monetary damages to VW for tarnishing the brand.

My whole point is that if VW is going to take the damage to the brand willingly by admitting the issue exists, they've very likely got a fix ready to go to kill the story. Heck, EPA could even have demanded the recall without an admission of guilt from VW I would imagine.

The fact that this was dropped on media garbage day (Friday) might speak a little to the issue as well. I'm sure if the EPA wanted to make a real issue of this it would have dropped this, or last, Monday where the story could be on the nightly news for a week.

They've got to have a fix, it's the only thing that makes sense. EPA says they want the credit for fixing the environment, If VW admits there's something wrong the EPA will release it on Friday. VW announces the fix Monday, recalls the cars on the roads, fixes the cars at the port and moves on. EPA gets good press, VW takes a sufficient (but smaller than it could have been) hit on the brand, it's all over by next week.

I'm only taking public perceptions, media, and politics into account, no clue if the technical fix is even possibly simple.

Edit: Speaking of politics. Did Chattanooga unionize? That could come into account with an executive agency as well. (I'm not really trying to make it political, just looking for answers in the puzzle pieces.)

 

[hudsonian]

Understood, but the EPA (or CARB) saying VW admitted to breaking the rules against defeat devices when they didn't would likely put those entities in some real danger of paying some large monetary damages to VW for tarnishing the brand.

My whole point is that if VW is going to take the damage to the brand willingly by admitting the issue exists, they've very likely got a fix ready to go to kill the story. Heck, EPA could even have demanded the recall without an admission of guilt from VW I would imagine.

The fact that this was dropped on media garbage day (Friday) might speak a little to the issue as well. I'm sure if the EPA wanted to make a real issue of this it would have dropped this, or last, Monday where the story could be on the nightly news for a week.

They've got to have a fix, it's the only thing that makes sense. EPA says they want the credit for fixing the environment, If VW admits there's something wrong the EPA will release it on Friday. VW announces the fix Monday, recalls the cars on the roads, fixes the cars at the port and moves on. EPA gets good press, VW takes a sufficient (but smaller than it could have been) hit on the brand, it's all over by next week.

I'm only taking public perceptions, media, and politics into account, no clue if the technical fix is even possibly simple.

Edit: Speaking of politics. Did Chattanooga unionize? That could come into account with an executive agency as well. (I'm not really trying to make it political, just looking for answers in the puzzle pieces.)

If this is true and they have a fix, why (as previously stated by a plant employee) have they stopped building TDi's at the plant for the last week or so?

 

[Rockwater]

They didn't lie to us. They lied to EPA and bested their fuel consumption in the process to benefit the consumer. Just so happens they got caught and now the consumer, has to get their cars changed back. I doubt MPG is going to suffer that much.

It wouldn't surprise me to see the revised EPA highway mileage number drop below 40 mpg. That's a magic number VW certainly wanted to reach for the 2009+ TDIs and may have been the reason for defeating the emissions control.

 

[Mizzeaux]

If this is true and they have a fix, why (as previously stated by a plant employee) have they stopped building TDi's at the plant for the last week or so?

I didn't read that post, so I don't know.

Perhaps they've got to make sure whatever fix they create will meet up to whatever deal they cut with the EPA? I'm guessing this is all a negotiation and you don't want to drop money into a fix until you know the fix will be accepted.

 

[CDubber]

Some commenters seem overly confident that this scandal will not result in a buyback. I'm not so sure. I'm guessing it won't just be MPG that takes a hit due to a recall fix. I expect some performance degradation as well. So to be emissions compliant my car will no longer drive like it did during my test drive. The product I bought was misrepresented. Buyback?

 

[lynnejohn]

So the real question I have is if we took a variety of gas and diesel cars, not just VW's, how many would pass or fail this cobbled together "emission road test"? Were there no other vehicles tested this way?

 

[LogicBomb]

I guess I get why people are up in arms, but in the end, we the consumers reaped the benefits of this lie. I'm still more than happy with my Passat, denied the dealers attempt to update the ECM with the update, and I don't need to visit the dealer again, so I'm going to avoid this next update for as long as possible. Being that I'm in California, I doubt CARB will let that slide for long. All I can hope for is that reliability isn't affected, and slightly diminished fuel consumption. Reading all these posts has me thinking that isn't likely.

 

[turbovan+tdi]

Guess CR diesels are going to be real cheap to buy,

 

[Duramaxdude]

Well i will be canceling my appointment for my ecu update Monday. I scheduled an appointment because i thought it had something to do with my 02 sensor code. None of this bothers me too much though. I have a deleted and tuned duramax truck that runs better than gm could ever have done and with no smoke, and i plan on deleting and tuning my new to me 2011 TDI golf. Because so long as im footing the bill to keep my engines running im going to make them how i see fit to run well and last many miles. And get better mpg. Because last time i checked i dont enjoy spending thousands of dollars on factory equipment that fails to just make my vehicle have the same crappy performance, no im gonna put that money into products that make it run healthier, sound better, more torque/hp and just all around a more enjoyable vehicle. Who doesn't want to hear their turbo whistle anyhow?




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[nectarguru]

I wouldn't be surprised to see a significant increase in urea consumption and a slight increase in fuel consumption on SCR engines. Also, a reason for VW to cheat on the SCR engines would be to make sure the end user didn't get any warnings of low urea in an OCI - leadfooted Passat drivers could get 15,000 mi urea range, I believe, and you get warnings starting at 1500 mi from start being blocked.

How "significant" and "slight" of an increase do you mean, exactly? Refilling UREA every 10k instead of 15k is manageable to me, but the increased consumption could have some pretty bad longterm effects. As for MPG, currently my car averages about 49 mpg (lowest 46, highest 54). If we're talking a drop to 40 mpg, that's pretty significant. To me "slight" would be losing 1-2 mpg per tank, which I could possibly live with.

I've always treated EPA fuel consumption as a baseline that I've never trusted. My Mk4 had an estimated 38 mpg, but I never dropped below 48. My girlfriend's Fiat 500 is rated at 34 combined, but she consistently averages higher than that. If this update results in a slight drop in mpg, I'm could deal with that so long as I'm averaging well over 45, but if I'm pulling in 36 the way the EPA suggests I should be, I'll be regretting my RECENT purchase pretty quickly. I bought my car with full confidence that I would be skyrocketing above the EPA "suggestions," whether or not VW cheated with the emissions.

 

[Aquaticmind]

Will you please go outside and make sure your car isn't actually a Prius?

yep, not a Prius. It's a much better chick magnet

 

[VeeDubTDI]

How "significant" and "slight" of an increase do you mean, exactly? Refilling UREA every 10k instead of 15k is manageable to me, but the increased consumption of UREA could have some pretty bad longterm effects. As for MPG, currently my car averages about 49 mpg (lowest 46, highest 54). If we're talking a drop to 40 mpg, that's pretty significant. To me "slight" would be losing 1-2 mpg per tank, which I could possibly live with.

To me, I've always treated EPA fuel consumption as a baseline that I've never trusted. My Mk4 has an estimated 38 mpg, but I never dropped below 48. My girlfriend's Fiat 500 is rated at 34 combined, but she consistently averages higher than that. If this update results in a slight drop in mpg, I'm could deal with that so long as I'm averaging well over 45, but if I'm pulling in 36 the way the EPA suggests I should be, I'll be regretting my RECENT purchase pretty quickly.

What bad long term effects of increased DEF consumption are you concerned with?

 

[pkforbes87]

Passat owners will notice that DEF consumption is approximately 1% to 1.5% of fuel consumption, while the industry standard for DEF consumption is more like 3% of fuel consumption. Now I understand why.

In 75,846mi I've burned 1,691 gallons of fuel, and 10 gallons of DEF. Granted, the extended refill intervals make DEF mpg averaging less than scientific, but I do have 4 separate 2.5 gallon refills logged over 75k+ miles. Even assuming I get a refill warning tomorrow.. that moves the figure up to 12.5 gallons, which comes out to 6,068mpg. That puts my DEF consumption at 0.745% of my fuel consumption.

Disclaimer: I'm no expert, just sharing these figures from extensive record keeping over rapidly accumulated miles. I've never heard the DEF:fuel consumption ratio discussed before. Maybe someone smarter than me will find these figures useful.

 

[TDIDaveNH]

56 pages of activity in the last 62 hours, I'm impressed.

 

[Analogeezer]

I've not read this entire thread but one thing that strikes me is what kicked all this off was a study by a University, under contract to another entity and the sample size for VW's was TWO CARS.

Doesn't seem very scientific to me, based on the results it might not be production variation but at the same time basing all this off a third party assessment of a sample size of TWO CARS seems pretty sketchy by the EPA.

Why haven't they gone and tested some cars on their own?

Analogeezer

 

[ATR]

56 pages of activity in the last 62 hours, I'm impressed.

A bit less time then that.
I calculate right about 40 hours since the first post.

 

[gncc600]

They didn't lie to us. They lied to EPA and bested their fuel consumption in the process to benefit the consumer. Just so happens they got caught and now the consumer, has to get their cars changed back. I doubt MPG is going to suffer that much.

“If you ain't cheating, you ain't trying” and “it ain't cheating if you don't get caught” Al Davis

 

[imurrx]

I don't know if this was posted all ready but I found two things of note in this article.

1) Dec 2014 recall only slightly improved CARB testing but not enough

2) Sept 3rd 2015 the EPA was not going to let the import and sale of the 2016 TDI models which lead VW admitting to the cheat.

Here is the article

http://www.informationweek.com/government/leadership/volkswagen-software-cheated-emissions-test-epa/d/d-id/1322257

Anyone else notice a slight drop in MPG and more soot for 2015, I did when that recall patch 12/14 was done in March. It dropped by 2-3 MPG all around.

 

[NSTDI]

There should be a link to this post as a "sticky" in all the TDI model forums. This is an issue that effects all 2009-2015 TDI's and I only came across this post because I read the TDI News forum where this was reported and linked. Reading the Passat forum, I would not have known about this post.

It will be interesting to know what parameters were modified from "normal" to run the "cheat" programming.

VW will get very famous in the car world with this "cheat", like GM did with ignition switches and Toyota/Lexus with sudden acceleration (as did Audi back in the 80's). At least in this case, there is no safety issue.

Don

 

[NSTDI]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-19/vw-clean-diesel-scheme-exposed-as-u-s-weighs-criminal-charges

From the above article, which I don't believe was posted before:

Volkswagen was sued Friday in a federal court in San Francisco in a consumer class-action case alleging that the defeat device has caused vehicles to lose value.

Last year Ford Motor Co. was forced to lower mileage estimates and compensate more than 200,000 customers. The Dearborn, Michigan-based company sent out payments ranging from $200 to $1,050. In 2012, an investigation led to Hyundai and Kia relabeling some of their top-selling U.S. models.

The reliability of auto emissions data has also been questioned in Europe. Last year, Mercedes-Benz was accused of overstating fuel economy performance of its vehicles by 40 percent compared with real-world results, according to a study by Brussels-based lobby group Transport & Environment.

 

[showdown 42]

So all this talk is about urea use and consumption, the 09's and some 10's don't have a urea system. Now what? It will be very interesting to see what they do with them.

 

[bhtooefr]

From what I understand, warranties have to be upheld

Not if there's a bankruptcy - New GM (General Motors Co.) wasn't required to honor Old GM's (Motors Liquidation Co., formerly General Motors Corp.) warranties. They just chose to do so for PR reasons, AFAIK. (The same happened for Chrysler, too.)

and OEM parts available for 10 years per US law.

That's not actually a law at all, it's an internet myth. The closest to reality that that comes is the 8 year emissions warranty.

 

[POBOX2897]

My question is where are people getting the "40% reduction in fuel economy when they retune the ECU" figure?

Perhaps a broad assumption and generalization associated with modern diesel engines.

"Diesel vehicles are up to 40 percent more fuel-efficient than gas-powered ones" quoted in the first photo caption in a NYT article from 2010: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/17/business/energy-environment/17DIESEL.html

 

[bhtooefr]

That's the number for how much more efficient they're claiming a diesel is than a gas engine...

 

[Rico567]

56 pages of activity in the last 62 hours, I'm impressed.

I'm impressed by how many of the posts are nothing but rapid breathing into a brown paper bag.....

 

[vwUMO]

I'm impressed by how many of the posts are nothing but rapid breathing into a brown paper bag.....

The reactions on here are why I always prepare for the worst. Overreaction and fear at its best cause fear uncertainty and doubt. This story is already off the front pages on most all major news outlets. Non-issue really, the car still drives great

 

[titleist1]

I use a 'cheater' diesel tdi and I burn coal for heat....I must be Satan himself!!

Now I understand why VW says the DEF components are not part of the emissions warranty coverage - they knew the system wasn't controlling emissions!

 

[NSTDI]

I use a 'cheater' diesel tdi and I burn coal for heat....I must be Satan himself!!

Now I understand why VW says the DEF components are not part of the emissions warranty coverage - they knew the system wasn't controlling emissions!

Sarcasm at its best. This is a usable argument when you call a 1-800 number to argue over urea issues.

Also a good argument when you are denied warranty since you have a non stock tuner setup------ well VW, tell me what is "stock", is my cheating worse than your cheating?

Don

 

[turbocharged798]

The amount of fear mongering in this thread is borderline laughable.

A TDI emitting a bit more NOx is not going to do a thing to the environment in the big picture. Really irks me how the media portrays them as gross polluters. That is far from the truth and NOx can reduce smog by spreading it out.

We have huge superships out there burning the dirtiest nastiest bunker oil, china polluting their whole country, and coal fired power plants that pump astounding amounts of mercury, retarted hicks who tune their pickups to make retarded levels of smoke, and people are worried about a tiny bit more NOx 50mpg TDI? Give me a freaking break.

I am also guessing there is no such "switch" like everyone likes to keep mentioning but a NOx spike when the NOx trap is regenerated. EPA probably didn't catch this.

Sadly this might be the end to diesel passenger cars in the US.