306maxi said:

So what you’re saying is that VW wasn’t to blame for dieselgate, it was people legislating?

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The reason VW got nailed for dieselgate was test recognition. You could comply with the letter of the testing if not the spirit and not have any issues.

Varying the emmisions treatment depending on whether or not the car detected it was on test was the issue. Other manufacturers gamed the system hard..but it followed the letter of the rules.

Still crap for consumers..but legal.

The testing regime was..and still is to an extent a joke though due to having to put all vehicles including buses and hgvs through the test so the acceleration phases are unnaturally slow for cars.

StevenRB45 said:

The reason VW got nailed for dieselgate was test recognition. You could comply with the letter of the testing if not the spirit and not got have any issues.

Varying the emmisions treatment depending on whether or not the car detected it was on test was the issue. Other manufacturers gamed the system hard..but it followed the letter of the rules.

Still crap for consumers..but legal.

Click to expand...

My point is that the whole point of these tests is to give customers more economical cars, the further you are out from your test results the worse of a job you’re doing for your customers.

306maxi said:

My point is that the whole point of these tests is to give customers more economical cars, the further you are out from your test results the worse of a job you’re doing for your customers.

Click to expand...

Not quite.
NEDC was designed to assess, not lower emissions or improve fuel economy.

Manufacturers then produced products to is.

EU legislation demanded improvements. (then measured by the test)

It was then the governments that decided to encourage consumers to buy products based on these figures by offering discounts on tax and the impossibility of meeting these test mpg figures.

Goudrons said:

Not quite.
NEDC was designed to assess, not lower emissions or improve fuel economy.

Manufacturers then produced products to is.

EU legislation demanded improvements. (then measured by the test)

It was then the governments that decided to encourage consumers to buy products based on these figures by offering discounts on tax and the impossibility of meeting these test mpg figures.

Click to expand...

Wait, they offered discounts on tax AND the impossibility if meeting these test figures?

That doesn’t make sense.

For the vast majority of people, the difference in fuelling costs is more significant than the difference in tax.

StevenRB45 said:

The reason VW got nailed for dieselgate was test recognition. You could comply with the letter of the testing if not the spirit and not have any issues.

Varying the emmisions treatment depending on whether or not the car detected it was on test was the issue. Other manufacturers gamed the system hard..but it followed the letter of the rules.

Still crap for consumers..but legal.

The testing regime was..and still is to an extent a joke though due to having to put all vehicles including buses and hgvs through the test so the acceleration phases are unnaturally slow for cars.

Click to expand...

The difference is that in VW's case it's emissions were different in real world driving, not just it's economy.

306maxi said:

Wait, they offered discounts on tax AND the impossibility if meeting these test figures?

That doesn’t make sense.

For the vast majority of people, the difference in fuelling costs is more significant than the difference in tax.

Click to expand...

Yes, the published figures, even though they came with a disclaimer that they were produced under certain conditions lead some consumers to buy certain vehicles. I don't think anyone will argue with that.

Yes I agree with the fueling/tax difference, but people still bought expensive but cheap to tax diesels and run them around town when a petrol would have been much cheaper to buy and run anyway.
There's plenty of blocked DPF based evidence of this.

Others just didn't have a choice, due to the NEDC test and EU legislation quite a lot of petrol engine models disappeared all together.

Ironically, this is where this post all started, the legislation meant there was more of a need for manufacturers to develop and push smaller turbo charged petrol engines.

But none of this changes EU legislation and NEDC tests and the manufacturers.
To manufacture and sell cars they had to met EU regulations and the proof they did was a flawed EU devised test.

lsgraham_uk said:

The difference is that in VW's case it's emissions were different in real world driving, not just it's economy.

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Emissions and economy go hand in hand. If you burn 30% more fuel in real world conditions, then all your other figures from the same test will also be under estimating the true figures. The issue for VW was the emissions treatment regime changed to defeat the test when the car detected it was being tested.

We had an old diesel it was meant to do 72mpg..it did low 40s. Co2 wise it would have been more like 170g/km not the 99 it was taxed on. Nevermind all the other byproducts of combustion that would also be present in significantly larger quantities than officially.

StevenRB45 said:

The issue for VW was the emissions treatment regime changed to defeat the test when the car detected it was being tested.

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I think that's basically the point that Goudrons was making.

The VW diesel thing was a long time coming and I'm blaming Fiat!

There was a lot of manufacturers and their engineers wondering how VW managed to do what they did with very little outwardly apparent alterations.

The modern common rail engine is so efficient that it injects little or no fuel on the over run.
It also injects very little and just at the right time (wrong time for NOx) on light loads.
This causes the NOx to proliferate as the combustion chambers temps rise when running this lean and pumping mainly air.

When it came to the NEDC test engineers knew this was going be be a problem.
As other parts of the test were monitoring CO2 and the likes, it wasn't fitting to just inject a little more fuel as these results would have been worse than the previous test on this engine.

The normal way of controlling this NOx is exhaust gas recirculation (EGR).
Allowing the exhaust gas back into the combustion chambers cools the temps as there's little usable air.

Trouble now is a vehicle won't produce the power if it's not enough air to burn.

The option they took to was increase the EGR enough for the test when is was being tested, but didn't interfere with the running out on the open road.

So it didn't actually fail or break the test (as far as the test rules were), it complied, but they ran into trouble when they came to sell it on the results.

The fix btw was to re sequence the main injection bandwidth (made it slightly less and later) and added in a smaller injection to help cool the chambers.
This has caused a lot of owners to complain of engine knock and rattle as neither injection is quite at the right time to prevent the knock.

Interestingly, in the US the consumers are more court/sue orientated and the government were all too keen for cases to be made against VW as it took them and their emissions tests out of the firing line.

In Europe, they did what they are good at, tut tutted VW and made us pay for a new test.

I blame Fiat as they were the first to develop common rail for passenger vehicles, but ran out of money and sold it to the Germans (Bosch).
If they'd stuck with it they'd have obviously cheated better!

lsgraham_uk said:

The difference is that in VW's case it's emissions were different in real world driving, not just it's economy.

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As states elsewhere, economy and emissions are directly linked...

He's referring to the NOx emissions, not the CO2...

puntofan01 said:

He's referring to the NOx emissions, not the CO2...

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They are still linked, if anything the more fuel efficient an engine is the more NOX it is likely to produce.

StevenRB45 said:

They are still linked, if anything the more fuel efficient an engine is the more NOX it is likely to produce.

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No not strictly true. And it's N02 rather than N0x that is a big issue.


https://www.which.co.uk/reviews/new...-car-emissions/cars-that-produce-the-most-nox


Quote from review

No link between MPG and emissions It may surprise you that our testing data has revealed there is no strong link between the level of emissions your car creates and its MPG (fuel economy). We’ve even found hybrids that produce high levels of toxic emissions.

Read more: https://www.which.co.uk/reviews/new...o-co-dirtiest-and-cleanest-carmakers-revealed - Which?

306maxi said:

Quite frankly you’re talking crap. The average person in the U.K. drives 12k miles a year, so a 10% deficit in economy so it does make a difference.

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I do 4k per year in my panda and the missus only done 3k this year in her mr2 so guessing were not average uk drivers

lsgraham_uk said:

No not strictly true. And it's N02 rather than N0x that is a big issue.


https://www.which.co.uk/reviews/new...-car-emissions/cars-that-produce-the-most-nox


Quote from review

No link between MPG and emissions It may surprise you that our testing data has revealed there is no strong link between the level of emissions your car creates and its MPG (fuel economy). We’ve even found hybrids that produce high levels of toxic emissions.

Read more: https://www.which.co.uk/reviews/new...o-co-dirtiest-and-cleanest-carmakers-revealed - Which?

Click to expand...

You're quite right, NOx is the group of gases NO2 belongs too and it is in fact NO2 that's the toxic element everyone is worried about.

Though I think the statement regarding mpg having no relation to emission levels may be specific to NO2/NOx rather than say CO2.

These Which tests are indicative of the problem with the NEDC test and to most extents, the legislation behind them.
The Which testing perimeters were focused on a perceived problem and they got the results they were looking for.

The NEDC was devised long ago and was massively out of date even though they continually papered over the cracks, it's perimeters had lots of glaring loopholes and the results really meant nothing to the consumer in the "real world", but manufacturers produced to them, governments based their vehicle emissions strategies on them and consumers made their choices from these test results and strategies from what was on offer.

Will the new WLTP end up the same?
It's hard to argue that it won't as it's impossible to test to everyone's "real world".
There will continue to be large discrepancies for a lot of consumers.

Will it be more relevant to the consumer?
Hopefully, but making the test a worldwide one might encourage more consumer focused legislation change, not every market is as easier a push over as another one, so it's likely this will cause the "harmonization" that's promised, after all what's relevant in California USA is relevant to California Norfolk.

Will it continue to cost us more?
You can be sure of that.
Government emissions strategies and the test results will no longer align as they once did and the consumer will be expected to pay until it does.
There might be a promise to withhold the tax changes due the new test for a while, but local emissions schemes like the Congestion Charge, ULEZ and similar will be quick to adopt the new results within their regulations.

lsgraham_uk said:

No not strictly true. And it's N02 rather than N0x that is a big issue.


https://www.which.co.uk/reviews/new...-car-emissions/cars-that-produce-the-most-nox


Quote from review

No link between MPG and emissions It may surprise you that our testing data has revealed there is no strong link between the level of emissions your car creates and its MPG (fuel economy). We’ve even found hybrids that produce high levels of toxic emissions.

Read more: https://www.which.co.uk/reviews/new...o-co-dirtiest-and-cleanest-carmakers-revealed - Which?

Click to expand...

Regards NOX it does depend on the treatment system, but in absolute terms the most efficent complete burn is also the point at which the most NOX is produced.

The quote from Which is pretty much irrelevant as they are comparing car A to Car B. Whereas my point was there's no way on earth Car A can achieve it's official exhaust emission figures if it can't hit it's mpg figures. You literally cannot burn more of something to get the same result in the same conditions.

Goudrons said:

You're quite right, NOx is the group of gases NO2 belongs too and it is in fact NO2 that's the toxic element everyone is worried about.

Though I think the statement regarding mpg having no relation to emission levels may be specific to NO2/NOx rather than say CO2.

These Which tests are indicative of the problem with the NEDC test and to most extents, the legislation behind them.
The Which testing perimeters were focused on a perceived problem and they got the results they were looking for.

The NEDC was devised long ago and was massively out of date even though they continually papered over the cracks, it's perimeters had lots of glaring loopholes and the results really meant nothing to the consumer in the "real world", but manufacturers produced to them, governments based their vehicle emissions strategies on them and consumers made their choices from these test results and strategies from what was on offer.

Will the new WLTP end up the same?
It's hard to argue that it won't as it's impossible to test to everyone's "real world".
There will continue to be large discrepancies for a lot of consumers.

Will it be more relevant to the consumer?
Hopefully, but making the test a worldwide one might encourage more consumer focused legislation change, not every market is as easier a push over as another one, so it's likely this will cause the "harmonization" that's promised, after all what's relevant in California USA is relevant to California Norfolk.

Will it continue to cost us more?
You can be sure of that.
Government emissions strategies and the test results will no longer align as they once did and the consumer will be expected to pay until it does.
There might be a promise to withhold the tax changes due the new test for a while, but local emissions schemes like the Congestion Charge, ULEZ and similar will be quick to adopt the new results within their regulations.

Click to expand...

The difficulty is that scientifically in any test you only change 1 variable -the car- but this isn't real world. but the accuracy of any test done on the road can be skewed by 25% by a combination of factors , and this could result in the test being legally nullified if challenged.

Thank you for the reasoned and well made points in your recent posts.

For me it illustrates that it's legislation that hasn't worked, not the Twinair.

Goudrons said:

Government emissions strategies and the test results will no longer align as they once did and the consumer will be expected to pay until it does.
There might be a promise to withhold the tax changes due the new test for a while, but local emissions schemes like the Congestion Charge, ULEZ and similar will be quick to adopt the new results within their regulations.

Click to expand...

Interestingly, there are reports of car manufacturers supplying vehicles with discharged batteries (amongst other things) to increase their fuel consumption under WLTP testing. This is because future emission targets will be based on current test data and there is EU suspicion that car manufacturers are trying to set the present datum artificially high.

gazz_bee said:

Thank you for the reasoned and well made points in your recent posts.

For me it illustrates that it's legislation that hasn't worked, not the Twinair.



Interestingly, there are reports of car manufacturers supplying vehicles with discharged batteries (amongst other things) to increase their fuel consumption under WLTP testing. This is because future emission targets will be based on current test data and there is EU suspicion that car manufacturers are trying to set the present datum artificially high.

Click to expand...

That would make sense if other manufacturersa weren’t able to build cars which also achieved good emissions under NEDC, but also in the real world. Twinair was a fun engined, but didn’t achieve its mission, so can only be seen as a failure.

That would depend on it's mission.

For me it was slightly more economical than the 1.2 FIRE.

It was certainly more powerful and a far better drive than the 1.2 in Euro 6 spec, I do still prefer the Euro 5 1.2 though but that's a personal thing.

I ran three Pandas all at the same time, two 1.2's (Euro 5 and 6) and a Euro 6 TA 4x4.

Both 1.2's average about the same on the same trips to and from work.
Pottering around central London would return around 33 to 35 mpg.

The TA, even with the extra weight and power sap of 4x4 gubbins, it's higher and less aerodynamic stance and low crawler 1st gear regularly beat them with 38 to 39 mpg.

I'm sure if the stop start ever worked on the TA it could have knocked on the door of 40 regularly, but it never did after the first week of ownership. (the 1.2's didn't have SS)

On longer runs it was more difficult to compare as I generally dragged a trailer and off road bike behind the 4x4, but once in tune with the engine it wasn't hard to nudge 50 mpg, which is the same as we get out of either 1.2 without the trailer.

All our Pandas have been/are totally reliable engine wise.
Yes we've heard of multiair failures, but we also hear of every problem on every engine, it's what forums are about.

I am sure there are plenty more without issues than with and to compare it this way with a differently configured engine that's been in production and honed since the mids 80's is a bit unfair.
As I'm not comparing them this way I will ignore the current euro 6 engine problem, you know, the one with no fix and the longest thread on the forum!

Maybe it should be compared to a contemporary of similar configuration, if anyone knows of one?

About the closest I can think of is the three pot 900cc Renault engine or the Ford 1.0 Unecoboost.
Without looking I would hazard a guess they are no more reliable than the TA, cheekily I was put my last fiver on both being a lot worse and I probably wouldn't be alone.

All in all I don't think it was the success it was hoped for, but I don't think it was a failure either.

I honestly don't think it was an engine that Fiat every considered would be a keeper.
It's demise will be at the hands of the new global engine and the FIRE will creak along a while longer in the likes of the Panda as it's so cheap to make.

I know which I'd want to own is 25 to 30 years time, and it won't be a Fiesta or a Sandero with a wonky three pot.
A Twinair 500 will be a proper classic.