AndyRKett said:

It's idiotic for any government to fine a company so big to the point of bankruptcy. Volkswagen employs over 600,000 people and as the world's biggest manufacturer it employs millions more indirectly though dealerships, workshops, manufacturing partners and distribution services. You fine them till the point of bankruptcy and weigh that up against how much tax revenue they would lose and it really isn't worth it, not to mention all those people now not earning but out of work and potentially claiming benefits.

It's all very good from a moral standpoint to fine the hell out of them but It doesn't make economical sense which is what everything really comes down to.

As fiat are in the same boat I'd be interested to know if you think they should be fined to the point of bankruptcy which is a possibility as fiats finances are at best on a very uneven footing

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In that case, I suppose every big company in the world should just do what it wants, and get away with it! I'm no tree hugger, but they should pay in a way that hurts for what they done. And yes, Fiat too. Although I believe it's Chryslers diesels is it not that are the issue? Though I know that's completely Fiats problem for buying them.

At least put all of the companies directors in jail and make them personally bankrupt for their role in it. After all, it's up to them to make sure this doesn't happen!!!

Certainly not in favour of bankrupting companies but I would have expected at least some sort of fine to cover the difference between VED charged and VED that should have been charged, if only to level things up with the ones who didn't cheat.

FiatChryler in the US apparently seem to have bent some rules too on some of their SUVs. I suspect they will get a spanking from someone over it. And I'm sure other cases will come to light too.

I guess it's almost inevitable while people want to drive 4-wheel drive SUVs with 7 seats that are clean and economical but can still do 150mph and out-accelerate sports cars, just to sit in traffic jams on paved roads at slower than walking pace with no passengers to talk to. It's a strange world. Or maybe I'm an ageing hippie.

On the other hand, if everyone chose a smaller car with a smaller engine to sit in their daily traffic jams, the jams would be physically shorter, parking would be easier and they could even buy a SUV to use at weekends with the money they would save.

Yep. I've got a SUV.
And a Panda. (Or two. OK, maybe 3)

IMO the focus with diesel cars should now be on what can be done to minimise the pollution they cause, for public health reasons. Personally I'd like to see action taken to remove whatever perceived financial advantage remains to operating a diesel car, particularly in an urban environment.

The writing is clearly on the wall. Anyone choosing to buy a diesel now can hardly plead ignorance if they find themselves stuck in the future with higher congestion and parking charges, more expensive fuel, outright bans to usage in some places, and an essentially worthless car.

I don't really have a problem with banning diesel cars from city centres completely. There are other options there. Hybrids and electric cars would seem to be a wise choice for urban dwellers. Or they could take the bus.
Trouble is diesel cars make sense in really rural areas, and operate cleanly enough there. When it's a 20+ mile detour to the nearest filling station a few extra mpg make a big difference. And there are less choices - no public transport, no recharge points etc.
What worries me is that politicians and the associated pen pushers tend to ignore this, and make policy accordingly.

Do have one cheap fix though...
Place rising bollards about 4" wider than a Panda on all roads where emissions are a problem. Put them up whenever pollution is high. Or even all the time.

Run an electric bus service from the big car park next to the bollards.
Similar to Park-and-Ride but with teeth.

Small cars allowed to proceed unhindered, big ones only allowed through if carrying 3 or more people, or carrying disabled driver/passenger.

Bet that'd cut queues and emissions.

And increase small car sales.

I'd agree that rural car users get a raw deal from most of the initiatives aimed at dealing with the urban pollution/congestion issue; they're being penalised to solve what is, for them, a largely non-existent problem.

Higher parking charges for diesel cars is one option, albeit not one that's easy to enforce for casual parking - it's already happening for some residential permit holders. If we ever move to road pricing, I'd bet money that diesel cars will be differentially charged in urban areas.

There is very little financial advantage left in owning a diesel unless you do big miles (15k +). Tax rules are going flat rate effectively, diesel costs more than petrol and in winter or not on the motorway they scrape maybe 15% better economy than a petrol. The cars themselves cost at a grand more to buy at least and have higher service costs. So if you like to buy new and switch at 3 years you won't have saved anything by that time, if you like to keep long term to get that the chances are you start running into some nice modern diesel issues down the line (dpf, turbo, hp fuel injectors dmf etc. seem to be fun although time will tell if downsized petrol engines are a similar ball ache). Even if you don't you'll be paying for increased brake tyre and suspension wear caused by the weight of the engine. Financially it's very much 6 of one half a dozen of the other as what you save on fuel you spend elsewhere.

What does need to be sorted is company car tax. We'll see if anything has changed when the ds3 is due up in October but when it was done it was about 1800-2k cheaper than a petrol over the period over the duration for car that listed at 1500 quid more.

On rural roads (it's winter now!) I get 52mpg in the 1.2, and 75mpg in the multijet. Somewhat better than 15%. Similar driving style/speed in both cars. Makes a big difference to the range of a Panda when you get nearly 50% more out of a tankful.
We do have a filling station about 5 miles away, but in a direction we rarely go. So 10 mile detour to fill up.
I don't drive like an old fuddy duddy either. Wife gets similar mileage too.

I do have a colleague who regularly gets under 20mpg from his "clean" BMW X5 petrol. No passengers, drives it like a sports car. Loses the time he gains on dual carriageways by having to stop when meeting cars on lanes. (Rarely happens in a Panda!)

And another with a hybrid SUV which I've yet to see have the "sport" mode turned off. He could charge it overnight, but doesn't. He could avoid trying to out-accelerate everyone else on the road, but doesn't. Don't know how many mpg he gets, but I bet it isn't what's advertised, or what it achieved in lab tests. I'd also bet it's total emissions are worse than the 04 Panda 1.2.

Biggest problem with emissions is driver, not engine type. Maybe a black box on all new cars, and tax the driving style and economy achieved would be a better way.

And get employers to incentivise their employees to use public transport where it is available.

Also set any mileage allowances to encourage better driving. Maybe break even at 50mpg. Or higher. That way, if driven badly, they will lose money rather than gain. Should be achievable in almost any reasonable car. Should help emissions targets dramatically, when drivers have to consider the effect on their pocket. Maybe a steady 99.5 mph on the motorway and 0-60 between traffic lights aren't such bright ideas...
Might encourage wiser choices of car too.

I'll tell you what they need to do, everyone's buying new diesels still which are plagued with DPF problems that'll happen again. And again. And again.

No problem.. they just go and get them deleted/removed and the ECU programmed to accept it.

Diesels spewing out harmful emissions freely then.

They need to do stop checks and anybody found operating a car knowingly with a missing DPF warned, second time have the car crushed into a cube. And charge anyone making a business out of doing this.

If the government really cared about the environment, I'm sure they'd do something like that.

P.s. everyone where I live (rural NI) uses red diesel which is supposed to be for agricultural use whether they are farmers or not and the police rarely seem to care!

irc said:

On rural roads (it's winter now!) I get 52mpg in the 1.2, and 75mpg in the multijet. Somewhat better than 15%. Similar driving style/speed in both cars. Makes a big difference to the range of a Panda when you get nearly 50% more out of a tankful.
We do have a filling station about 5 miles away, but in a direction we rarely go. So 10 mile detour to fill up.
I don't drive like an old fuddy duddy either. Wife gets similar mileage too.

I do have a colleague who regularly gets under 20mpg from his "clean" BMW X5 petrol. No passengers, drives it like a sports car. Loses the time he gains on dual carriageways by having to stop when meeting cars on lanes. (Rarely happens in a Panda!)

And another with a hybrid SUV which I've yet to see have the "sport" mode turned off. He could charge it overnight, but doesn't. He could avoid trying to out-accelerate everyone else on the road, but doesn't. Don't know how many mpg he gets, but I bet it isn't what's advertised, or what it achieved in lab tests. I'd also bet it's total emissions are worse than the 04 Panda 1.2.

.

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We also have a petrol and a diesel except the petrol is bigger, heavier and faster. The Euro 6 compliant diesel (which your panda won't have to deal with) manages 42-50mpg, the petrol manages 37-45 while carrying 200kg more at least. With that I lay the blame squarely at the gear ratios. To get below 100gkm they are best described as retarded, the person who decided on the final drive must have been unaware of the engine it would be used with. Basically there isn't enough torque or power band to keep it rolling without multiple down shifts on hills or hanging on to gear ratios for far longer than is efficient.

It's worse on fuel than the petrol micra it replaced despite being slower. It's a mechanical marvel....

A3jeroen said:

Completely off topic, but after reading here what ridiculous high premiums one has to pay for car insurance, I'm wondering how expensive Insurance for a motorbike might be in the UK.

gr J

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as stated in one of SB's "other" threads,
bike ins. is @10% of car ins.

Everyone likes to slate diesels but environmentally (and generally speaking) they mainly harm people not the planet and with a world wide population of 7billion wer're not exactly lacking on that front.

Modern euro 6 diesels are as clean (if not cleaner due to much lower CO2 emissions) than the equivalent euro 6 petrol the rules are so strict now. The point has come that they can only make petrols cleaner by fitting GPF or gasoline particulate filters, so the next generation of cars will all have some sort of filter installed.

You can't simple ban Diesel engines as 90% of our infrastructure relies on Diesel engines ships use diesel, trains run on diesel (west coast high speed lines) busses are very much predominantly diesel, taxis are mostly diesel even all the mini cabs are. We run our power stations on coal and gas and when the nuclear stations need a boost they turn on enormous diesel back up generators. So to think there it is a simple issue to ban diesels is to kid yourself.

Yes we need to stop polluting like we do but the only real option is to bin internal combustion engines in favour of electric vehicles, however batteries have their own problems, such as range issues, weight, cost and the pollution cost to produce them.

But people like to find one thing and then bang on about that thing until that thing gets changed, then they just pick something else up and rant about that instead.

I agree older diesels are very unpleasant to get stuck behind if they are not running well, but compared to growing up in the 80s when walking to school with think smog and no blue sky on hot summer days, well we live in a dream land compared to that. And with continued improvements the future is only going to get better. I have no concerns about my diesel it's euro 6 so incredibly clean, dose 60+mpg and weights 2 tons not having a roof. It produces the same CO2 as the 1.3 Diesel it replaced and much less than its petrol equivalent. If a car uses less fuel then less fuel needs to be moved about so less lorries carrying the diesel and also causing emissions. Less ships to move the fuel are needed, the whole economy revolves around oil and diesel is a major part of that, that's not going to go away

StevenRB45 said:

There is very little financial advantage left in owning a diesel unless you do big miles (15k +).

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A few years ago, Top Gear magazine were running a long term MINI diesel. When they broke it, they were lent a petrol model, otherwise identical to their diesel. One month they compared the whole running costs, including purchase and servicing costs. The diesel had a higher purchase price, higher fuel price, and higher servicing costs, offset by the better economy. The result was that it would take 10 years with the diesel, at 20k miles/yr to break even. After that they'd start saving money.

SB1500 said:

They should make owners pay the increased tax cost due to the higher CO2 per Km volume, either them or VW to pay the difference if they're so great.

I think it has something to do with the EU going soft on them being such a big economic player. The US certainly didn't care to hold back, wish we were the same! Whether it bankrupts the company or not. That goes for anyone else who did such a thing too!

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I'm pretty sure all manufacturers have found loopholes. Maybe not outright software cheats like VW but they will have been fiddling in someway. This saga is set to continue for sometime yet...

DaveMcT said:

I've had bikes all my adult life, Certainly they are more dangerous than cars, but the one that hurt me the most had a sidecar attached.

Wear appropriate gear.

Get something that can keep up with traffic. There's not much worse than a slow bike. You get all the disadvantages and apart from traffic filtering none of the advantages.

Don't ride with friends but if you do, DON'T get sucked into any silliness. There are no second chances. Ride like everyone on the road is out to get you. Before long you'll spot them a mile off but you cant trust anyone out there.

I have a BMW 1200 Adventure. it can't of course but looks like it could cross Africa in a weekend. Road presence is the big thing HID headlight and LED daylights make it stand out without dazzling the whole street.

Economy? 40mpg if Im lucky. Rear tyre will be illegal in 5000 mile and front will have gone off too much to be worth keeping.

Performance? Wet weight about 1/4 ton and around 100bhp onto the road not much will touch it and very naughty speeds are so easy to reach. But it stops, accelerates and corners amazingly well. 65K miles and counting.

Its a good compromise. Sports bikes will do bigger numbers with much less weight but are hardly usable on normal roads.

Do you NEED a big bike of course not. My brother did Derby to Turin in under 24 hours door to door on an MZ 250 2 stroke. AN acquaintance used to your Europe on his. He did Helsinki, Moscow and Ankara on different trips.

I took this in the Alps (in 2003) from the exact spot where the "Italian Job" bus was left wobbling on the edge. We got there on bikes and even now I could almost certainly retrace the route without a map.

Nearly there

It wasn't on the Beemer.

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What on Earth happened there??!

AndyRKett said:

Modern euro 6 diesels are as clean (if not cleaner due to much lower CO2 emissions) than the equivalent euro 6 petrol the rules are so strict now. The point has come that they can only make petrols cleaner by fitting GPF or gasoline particulate filters, so the next generation of cars will all have some sort of filter installed.

You can't simple ban Diesel engines as 90% of our infrastructure relies on Diesel engines ships use diesel, trains run on diesel (west coast high speed lines) busses are very much predominantly diesel, taxis are mostly diesel even all the mini cabs are. We run our power stations on coal and gas and when the nuclear stations need a boost they turn on enormous diesel back up generators. So to think there it is a simple issue to ban diesels is to kid yourself.

Yes we need to stop polluting like we do but the only real option is to bin internal combustion engines in favour of electric vehicles, however batteries have their own problems, such as range issues, weight, cost and the pollution cost to produce them.

But people like to find one thing and then bang on about that thing until that thing gets changed, then they just pick something else up and rant about that instead.

I agree older diesels are very unpleasant to get stuck behind if they are not running well, but compared to growing up in the 80s when walking to school with think smog and no blue sky on hot summer days, well we live in a dream land compared to that. And with continued improvements the future is only going to get better. I have no concerns about my diesel it's euro 6 so incredibly clean, dose 60+mpg and weights 2 tons not having a roof. It produces the same CO2 as the 1.3 Diesel it replaced and much less than its petrol equivalent. If a car uses less fuel then less fuel needs to be moved about so less lorries carrying the diesel and also causing emissions. Less ships to move the fuel are needed, the whole economy revolves around oil and diesel is a major part of that, that's not going to go away

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The issue is though that the Vw scandal and the fall out from has proven is that diesels have only ever been clean on paper. The fact Vw has come out and said it is phasing out diesel passenger cars in favour of petrol and electric (and one has to assume eventually electric only) is probably the closest you'll get to an admission that they can't be clean in real world testing. Not just vw though Renault as well. The majority of Euro 6 diesels tested in the wake of Vw produce anything up to 15 times more PM than they do on paper.

There's a nice transport and environment PDF freely available if you google "dirty 30 diesels".

Having said all that you can't ban diesel road haulage, you could try and make it more efficient and it's something that the character of the engine suits also the usage cycle is good for the various anti emissions bits of gear as well.

Also GPFS are coming due to direct injection (I love DI it's a gift that keeps on giving), and time will tell if they can regenerate successfully on a petrol usage cycle or you'll be paying to be getting them unblocked along with getting your valves decoked..but hey progress!

StevenRB45 said:

The issue is though that the Vw scandal and the fall out from has proven is that diesels have only ever been clean on paper. The fact Vw has come out and said it is phasing out diesel passenger cars in favour of petrol and electric (and one has to assume eventually electric only) is probably the closest you'll get to an admission that they can't be clean in real world testing. Not just vw though Renault as well. The majority of Euro 6 diesels tested in the wake of Vw produce anything up to 15 times more PM than they do on paper.

There's a nice transport and environment PDF freely available if you google "dirty 30 diesels".

Having said all that you can't ban diesel road haulage, you could try and make it more efficient and it's something that the character of the engine suits also the usage cycle is good for the various anti emissions bits of gear as well.

Also GPFS are coming due to direct injection (I love DI it's a gift that keeps on giving), and time will tell if they can regenerate successfully on a petrol usage cycle or you'll be paying to be getting them unblocked along with getting your valves decoked..but hey progress!

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Well, Ford can do the whole DPF thing without issue and scandal! Haven't heard any bad press about them!

Diesel is fine for the applications where it's needed... oh, boo hoo, you can't overtake as fast and can't afford the fuel bills on an equivalent powered petrol.. who cares. There's a planet we depend on to live, if you so much as own any car that can move faster than you run then personally I wouldnt complain.

(I'm not saying this about/toward you StevenRB45, just to those diesel people who thing its so great despite all the real revelations we're seeing these days)

SB1500 said:

There's a planet we depend on to live, if you so much as own any car that can move faster than you run then personally I wouldnt complain.

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Well said SB1500. Your generation is somehow going to have to find a way to live with all the mess and pollution my generation has created.

The scientific community has known what was coming for nigh on half a century - I remember attending a Club of Rome lecture as a student in 1973 and being seriously chastened by what I heard - yet the masses continue to rush onward like lemmings off a cliff.

We know the party can't go on forever. I feel very, very sorry for those who are left holding our planet when the music stops. It doesn't help that those with the greatest wealth, influence and control won't be around long enough to care.

SB1500 said:

There's a planet we depend on to live, if you so much as own any car that can move faster than you run then personally I wouldnt complain.



(I'm not saying this about/toward you StevenRB45, just to those diesel people who thing its so great despite all the real revelations we're seeing these days)

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Just to reiterate the point, diesels are no more harmful to the planet than petrols, the particulates that every one is whining about are more harmful to people. The main upset from diesels are the NOX emissions, which are easily managed now with adblue systems. Particulates from a brand new Diesel are as low if not lower than the equivalent petrol.

VW have since the emissions scandal withdrawn diesel cars from the US market, but don't forget it's a market where SUVs are king so they will happily moan about some NOX while pumping out tons and tons of CO2

AndyRKett said:

Just to reiterate the point, diesels are no more harmful to the planet than petrols, the particulates that every one is whining about are more harmful to people. The main upset from diesels are the NOX emissions, which are easily managed now with adblue systems. Particulates from a brand new Diesel are as low if not lower than the equivalent petrol.

VW have since the emissions scandal withdrawn diesel cars from the US market, but don't forget it's a market where SUVs are king so they will happily moan about some NOX while pumping out tons and tons of CO2

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If it's harmful to people, then that's bad too in my books!

My point was, people driving cars and not lorries don't really need a diesel! But they won't give them up too easily..

I do like the fact that, the cheapest (and nastiest?) cars on the road are all petrols. But the very finest, and best cars in the world are ALL petrols The billionaires have extraordinary taste ;-) haha

SB1500 said:

My point was, people driving cars and not lorries don't really need a diesel! But they won't give them up too easily..

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Why don't the 'need' diesels? Why are petrols 'needed' any more than diesels? Both are harmful to the environment, they both harm the environment in slightly different ways, and some would argue are equally harmful, higher levels of CO2 from cars contribute more to global warming which has a much bigger global implication, where as the world can survive a few people with asthma pumps......

The current attitude is very much that diesel's are bad, from drivers of petrol cars who are happy to ignore the problems their own cars cause.