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VW "Clean" Diesel not really clean

But the fuel reg issue isn't directly gaming the system or committing fraud. The regulatory testing procedures, particularly in Europe, are a joke, as they don't replicate real world driving at all. The fuel ratings they produce will always look better than what you achieve in the real world. This is part of why the whole move to small displacement turbos for fuel economy reasons is such a joke. Those engines perform great in the mickey mouse testing regiments, but offer much smaller gains over their naturally aspirated counterparts in the real world.

The fuel economy thing is a regulatory failure. This emissions thing is straight out criminal fraud.
 
Website is up from VW for owners.....site doesnt provide much other than 'they'll do their best' and that current cars should pass smog still. Ummm yeah, cuz the cheat software is still running.

http://vwdieselinfo.com/

Sounds like they are leading down the path to a fix via parts or software. Probably software first, cheapest route.
 
Dubbington said:
Now this! VW gas cars consume more gas.

http://www.ibtimes.com/volkswagen-says-gasoline-cars-consume-more-fuel-tests-show-company-suspends-rd-2116323?ref=yfp
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"An environmental group said Monday that it had found evidence that several new gasoline-powerd models of Volkswagen cars, as well as models from Mercedes, BMW and other automakers, consumed significantly greater quantities of fuel than lab tests claim, according to the Associated Press (AP)."

Reli said:
Gas-powered Golfs and Jettas have always had shittier MPG than the Japanese, so I could see why they would try to fudge the numbers.
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Not sure why MPG numbers would be a big news for VW in particular

a) Ford and Koreans were actually in the news and fined in the last years
b) at least I've found one past VW that I had to be bang-on within the EPA published numbers...
 
Archimedes said:
But the fuel reg issue isn't directly gaming the system or committing fraud. The regulatory testing procedures, particularly in Europe, are a joke, as they don't replicate real world driving at all. The fuel ratings they produce will always look better than what you achieve in the real world. This is part of why the whole move to small displacement turbos for fuel economy reasons is such a joke. Those engines perform great in the mickey mouse testing regiments, but offer much smaller gains over their naturally aspirated counterparts in the real world.

The fuel economy thing is a regulatory failure. This emissions thing is straight out criminal fraud.
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I dunno. My 2008 (the latest model VW I owned) GTI averaged 28-30 MPG on the highway. That's comparable to what the window sticker said it'd get. :dunno

Sometimes I'd knock on the door of 31, too. :teeth

28182_1399962512891_2413224_n.jpg
 
^^ but you are believing the car's computer there. Haven't you seen 2001 A Space Odyssey? Don't trust onboard computers when they are crazy.

Fuelly has stats for miles/gallons for cars but most of them are from hypermiling geeks and skew the averages for models very optimistically.
 
augustiron said:
^^ but you are believing the car's computer there. Haven't you seen 2001 A Space Odyssey? Don't trust onboard computers when they are crazy.

Fuelly has stats for miles/gallons for cars but most of them are from hypermiling geeks and skew the averages for models very optimistically.
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Fuelly shows that the average for that car was 25.96 based on 65 vehicles, 3,322 fuel-ups and 1,011,965 miles of driving. There was a 0.14 margin of error.

http://www.fuelly.com/car/volkswagen/gti/2008

Based on this window sticker for a 2008 GTI, the average is listed by the EPA as 24 MPG...

images


So the reality is that the real world average is actually higher than what was predicted and pretty well in line with what I actually got, computer errors or not.
 
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In 2008 the EPA increased the severity of the fuel economy test to be more real world. If you dive efficiently and your drive is not too extreme, then you should get the EPA rating on your car.

The Euro tests are crap. Euro test are consistently yield >20% better numbers.

Hyundai and Ford were found to cheat a bunch of their fuel economy tests, so they had to hand out gas cards to their owners to make up the difference.

It turns out that the EPA does not test themselves all of the cars that get EPA ratings. The EPA relies on the manufacture to provide honest results most of the time.
 
Kornholio said:
I dunno. My 2008 (the latest model VW I owned) GTI averaged 28-30 MPG on the highway. That's comparable to what the window sticker said it'd get. :dunno
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Pure highway driving or super slow, super early shifting in town and you'll get close to the specs on the window sticker. But few people drive anything like that most of the time. Few, if any cars, will match the mixed driving number on the window sticker in normal driving conditions. And that's not the manufacturers fault. It's the regulators fault for designing meaningless test protocols that should have been changed years ago.
 
Killroy1999 said:
In 2008 the EPA increased the severity of the fuel economy test to be more real world. If you dive efficiently and your drive is not too extreme, then you should get the EPA rating on your car.
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They improved it, but its still not a real world driving protocol. There is still a material gap between the real world and the EPA test numbers. I track our mileage and I'm never within 15% of the EPA test numbers on any of the six cars we own.
 
Archimedes said:
Pure highway driving or super slow, super early shifting in town and you'll get close to the specs on the window sticker. But few people drive anything like that most of the time. Few, if any cars, will match the mixed driving number on the window sticker in normal driving conditions. And that's not the manufacturers fault. It's the regulators fault for designing meaningless test protocols that should have been changed years ago.
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Except the Fuelly numbers agreed with what I was seeing and surpassed the EPA's estimates. :dunno
 
Kornholio said:
Except the Fuelly numbers agreed with what I was seeing and surpassed the EPA's estimates. :dunno
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On the highway or in true mixed driving? I'm not surprised you'll see them in highway driving. Mix in a bunch of city, suburban driving, there's no way unless you drive like a Grandma and short shift everywhere.

It all comes down to how you drive and few people drive the way the cars are driving during the EPA testing regimen.
 
Archimedes said:
They improved it, but its still not a real world driving protocol. There is still a material gap between the real world and the EPA test numbers.
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True. Despite continually diminishing availability and size of research grants, his is an active area of research. It's impossible to design a dyno-based testing regimen that accurately models real-life engine loads and use. This affects both fuel consumption and emissions testing.

Manufacturers are well known to rig their ECUs to provide the most miserly fuel economy when being tested. Everyone does this to my knowledge, and it's not illegal.
 
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