Volkswagen emissions scandal

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Volkswagen emissions scandal

Not if the base car is the right price, and the options are cheap. In fact, potentially, if the prices are kept sensible, people could be more likely to opt for extras they don't necessarily need. As I've mentioned, it has happened in the past, with immense success!

There's a reason it doesn't happen. But you're not going to understand that are you?
 
Sorry,
my mistake, meant EU5. It's the EA 189 engines that are affected. Still not AdBlue so the EGR comment stands.

Robert G8RPI


Ad blue systems are fitted pretty much to all the Californian market cars where NOx standards are 4 times more strict than euro5, the EPAs own reports it states that in normal use ad blue systems turn off to save customers having to refill the system.
Back over here in Blighty euro6 cars don't routinely have ad blue my euro 6 golf 2.0tdi doesn't. It's such a pain in the arse system that they don't fit it unless they have to.

The defeat device is a bit more sophisticated than just closing an egr valve, it apparently knows exactly where the car is in the test process and constantly changes parameters and settings to keep the emissions with in limits for each part of the test. This involves limiting power reducing fueling altering engine timing, though vw might have been stupid to do it they certainly weren't stupid in their execution
 
Agreed, I was looking at the models affected here in the UK, which don't have AdBlue. There has been a lot of talk of not being able to meet the standards. This is not true, it appears that VW want to make their cars ore economical, better to drive etc, giving them a sales edge, rather than just not being able to meet the regulations.
Those on here who do or advocate the blanking of EGRs or deletion of DPFs should note that they are doing the the same tng as VAG are accused of.

Robert G8RPI.
 
I see here many posts about Californian law, Californian market, etcetera, etcetera, but in reality VW has a problem with federal law.

See for example this section of a press release by the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), which is a federal agency, and pay attention to the words that I made blue:
Today, EPA is issuing a notice of violation (NOV) of the Clean Air Act (CAA) to Volkswagen AG, Audi AG, and Volkswagen Group of America, Inc. (collectively referred to as Volkswagen). The NOV alleges that four-cylinder Volkswagen and Audi diesel cars from model years 2009-2015 include software that circumvents EPA emissions standards for certain air pollutants. California is separately issuing an In-Use Compliance letter to Volkswagen, and EPA and the California Air Resources Board (CARB) have both initiated investigations based on Volkswagen’s alleged actions.

EPA emissions standards means federal law!

The complete press release can be found on the EPA website: http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpres...dfc8e33b5ab162b985257ec40057813b!opendocument
 
Sorry, not this last comment . I meant the unnecessary comment by 306 Maxi which paints the forum in a very bad light. Is there a yellow and red card system like in football?!
 
You're misunderstanding me. Using the VW Golf as an example, say you bought a 1.2 TSI: the basic car would literally only have the bare minimum to pass type approval/legislation, so you'd have all the airbags, the ABS, the thiefproof locks, and the immobiliser as standard, everything else would be optional: alloys, central/remote locking, aircon, electric windows etc, even upto the power steering. Essentially, what I mean is that a Golf 1.2 TSI would just be a Golf 1.2 TSI: there wouldn't be the S, SE, SE-L models, or option packs, you literally just pay for the things you want.

Given the current craze of manufacturers trying to sniff out every conceivable niche, I'm surprised no one has thought of offering that: potentially, it could be a great success!

But you already get this, you've poverty spec, can add options if you want, but its normally cheaper to get the next spec up.

Type approval and emissions will also vary depending upon options fitted (different wheel sizes, engine mods like one version having an AC compressor and another not) etc. This is where you're missing the cost implications, its not as cheap or simple as you seem to give it credit for.
 
But you already get this, you've poverty spec, can add options if you want, but its normally cheaper to get the next spec up.

Type approval and emissions will also vary depending upon options fitted (different wheel sizes, engine mods like one version having an AC compressor and another not) etc. This is where you're missing the cost implications, its not as cheap or simple as you seem to give it credit for.

I see! All I was thinking of is people having to have kit on cars which they don't actually want, purely so they can have the bits they do want, if that makes sense?
 
I see! All I was thinking of is people having to have kit on cars which they don't actually want, purely so they can have the bits they do want, if that makes sense?

Are you sure Ford did this for road cars? It would have been easier in the 60s but the amount of shared parts in any given car would make it pretty pointless. Race cars on the other hand it makes sense, you buy your bare shell (rather than gutting a factory built car and throwing it all away) then fit your bespoke bits cost and type approval not really being an object, fairly sure you could buy RS500 cosworth shells for this purpose.
 
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The whole problem with that idea is that having a million different variants means more costs. For every different configuration you may need a different body loom, you need to program that body computer, you also have cars going along the production line and having stations with people on them sitting around doing nothing. Far better to have a whole wave of cars going through which are very close in spec so that people can switch off their brains and just do the same thing car after car after car.

That's how you male profit. The cost for our tooling is on the tens of thousands of pounds, we make a minimal profit on them if any at all.
 
Are you sure Ford did this for road cars? It would have been easier in the 60s but the amount of shared parts in any given car would make it pretty pointless. Race cars on the other hand it makes sense, you buy your bare shell (rather than gutting a factory built car and throwing it all away) then fit your bespoke bits cost and type approval not really being an object, fairly sure you could buy RS500 cosworth shells for this purpose.

Yeah, I'm sure that's how it worked for the original mustang: you chose the body style, then you chose the engine/transmission, then you chose the rest of the spec you wanted. I think it was a major part of the reason it was such a phenomenal success.
 
The whole problem with that idea is that having a million different variants means more costs. For every different configuration you may need a different body loom, you need to program that body computer, you also have cars going along the production line and having stations with people on them sitting around doing nothing. Far better to have a whole wave of cars going through which are very close in spec so that people can switch off their brains and just do the same thing car after car after car.

I don't see how production would be that different tbh. Take my car as an example: there's plenty of things on mine which aren't fitted to a lot of other Grande Puntos worldwide, but by the same token, there's plenty of things that were available on the Grande which mine doesn't have. I would imagine exactly the same thing could be said about your 500.
 
Like I said, economies of scale........

The vast majority of cars are fairly close to the spec level they're based on. Take my car for example. The only options were leather, side rubbing strips and different wheels.

Now the only one of those options that requires more work is the side rubbing strips.

But it would have been able to run down the same production line as a run of 500 lounges and not need a huge amount of extra or less work, so if you have 20 people on the line (just a random figure) you've not got huge numbers of people not doing anything on a large number of cars.

As I said, you make your money by not having people sitting around doing nothing.
 
Yeah, I'm sure that's how it worked for the original mustang: you chose the body style, then you chose the engine/transmission, then you chose the rest of the spec you wanted. I think it was a major part of the reason it was such a phenomenal success.


You're talking about a car built in the days when things like windscreen washes and reversing lights were optional extras.

Aside from the fact this has nothing to do with the subject of the thread, you would pick your mustang as a convertible, hard top or fast back and pick which engine you want, the same as you'd buy a car today. But in 1964 that's as complex as cars got. Everything else was an optional extra, it wasn't as you perceive it and you built your car to order, they didn't have standard air con electric Windows etc. The standard car was 4 seats and a steering wheel.
 
People who used to kill them self with the exhaust pipe through the window would die of carbon monoxide poisoning, try this these days and you'll get a bit of a head ache and a cough because their isn't the nasty gasses anyone that cause immediate serious harm. Petrol or diesel.
Well, there is a difference between these two. The petrol engine might run on a stoichiometric mixture and then you will run out of oxygen!
 
Like I said, economies of scale........

The vast majority of cars are fairly close to the spec level they're based on. Take my car for example. The only options were leather, side rubbing strips and different wheels.

Now the only one of those options that requires more work is the side rubbing strips.

But it would have been able to run down the same production line as a run of 500 lounges and not need a huge amount of extra or less work, so if you have 20 people on the line (just a random figure) you've not got huge numbers of people not doing anything on a large number of cars.

As I said, you make your money by not having people sitting around doing nothing.

That's true to a certain extent, but 500s for how many different countries pour out of the same factory?




Everything else was an optional extra, it wasn't as you perceive it and you built your car to order, they didn't have standard air con electric Windows etc. The standard car was 4 seats and a steering wheel.

That's exactly what I meant in my original post. Not everyone wants electric windows or aircon etc, but these people are rapidly running out of options. What I was thinking was that cars are becoming increasingly more expensive, and being filled with an ever increasing amount of guff which quite a few of us don't actually want.

In all fairness, it wasn't me who took the thread off topic, I merely replied to other people's comments, lol!
 
That's irrelevant though.

Firstly, most people want electric windows for instance. Also consider the extra cost of putting keep fit windows in as an option.....you have to design them, get them manufactured, store them in the factory, put them in the manual, write the repair procedures up in the service manual, have how many different sets of door cards due to the different openings, have trim on the dash without the holes for leccy windows, have another body ecu.

The list goes on and on. It would probably cost Fiat a hundred thousand pounds to put a manual window option in for the 500, all so people could have something that most people don't want.
 
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