VW Cheated on Emissions Testing?

[GigaFire]

Heh, my TDI will never see another dealership if they want to push this update on me. They're not going to throttle both my car's power and fuel economy to save some trees. Therefore, the only logical step now is Malone Stage 2/DPF delete/Rawtek catback, right? Right?!

 

[zipsled]

They are facing fines of up to $37,500 per vehicle. I am sure the negotiated amount will be much less.
Too bad I traded my 2010 TDI in...I could have handed it to them for a buy-back and came out smelling like a rose on my GTI.
The bad PR is going to hurt VW more than any fine.

 

[GabelessToGabeTown]

I doubt that fine is correct.
Kia had 1.2 million cars they lied about and only paid 300 million in fines.

this is interesting. I sell kias and was telling a customer about kias fines today before i heard the news about vw. I believe Kia got in hot water due to not using the same size tires when they did their epa emissions testing to get figures for their monroney labels. Since the hefty fine they have been very conservative about the gas mileage they put on the monroney label and people are getting as much as much as 7 miles to gal more than the label states. Since then though kia is doing extremely well in the US. Basically they stepped up their game and people are responding well to them. i hope VW will bounce back from this but maybe it will be harder for them since they are more established and people payed less attention to kia. VW was projected to take over the US market by 2018 and this could be a huge debacle for them to overtake toyota. I'm not gonna lie i think the ECU programming that is believed to manipulate the emissions test by turning on and off the emissions controls is soooo VW and i find it amusing... those engineers are something else lol. I feel terrible for VW salespeople, they will lose tons of business because of this and the auto industry will make sure to harp on VW.

 

[GabelessToGabeTown]

Heh, my TDI will never see another dealership if they want to push this update on me. They're not going to throttle both my car's power and fuel economy to save some trees. Therefore, the only logical step now is Malone Stage 2/DPF delete/Rawtek catback, right? Right?!

RIGHT!!!! This is SPARTA!

 

[ElectricEye]

^ Doesn't work like that.



Like Tom Brady in deflategate?

So, does VW have any legal loophole on the grounds that the cars pass the EPA cycle?

 

[XGC75]

So, does VW have any legal loophole on the grounds that the cars pass the EPA cycle?

The loophole is that the "defeat device" is defined as a device. As in, a separate control that detects the presence of the EPA testing environment then modifies the function of the emissions system as a result. It doesn't consider that the defeat device is a part of the ECU code itself, which is how VW implemented the "defeat". Keep in mind, this regulation was written in the late 80's when computers on cars were FPGA's and not fully-fledged computers with operating systems and hundreds of kilobites of memory to work with.

Just another "what if": I haven't heard how VW implemented the "defeat". We know so far that in some situations, the car emits 40x acceptable levels of NOx. We know the car behaves and emits differently when it undergoes the EPA cycle. We don't know what is modified.

For instance, they can't turn off the DPF. They can't turn of the catalytic converter. They can fuss with EGT timing and cycling, spark timing, fuel injection, etc. I want to know what they've modified.

 

[PLF8593]

I can chime in here with a bit of insider knowledge. Not from Automotive, mind you. Please read it through - it's worth it if you care about this topic.

...

I'm not trying to say VW is innocent, but VW probably thought they were in compliance with that specification when they released the product and submitted it to the EPA. So why all the uproar at the EPA? The EPA thinks their definition of "Defeat device" is defensible in court against VW's interpretation. That is all.

AND, he does it again. Thank you, Mr. XGC75, for consistently contributing thoughtfully, intelligently, and knowledgeably to this forum. Also, I get a kick out of your "drives: into shit" bit every time i see it. 10/10

 

[thedude4bides]

RIGHT!!!! This is SPARTA!

I laughed out loud:laugh:

 

[thedude4bides]

Like Tom Brady in deflategate?

Not quite... 99% of the United States male population does not have a closet man-crush on VW :laugh:

 

[XGC75]

AND, he does it again. Thank you, Mr. XGC75, for consistently contributing thoughtfully, intelligently, and knowledgeably to this forum. Also, I get a kick out of your "drives: into shit" bit every time i see it. 10/10

Not quite... 99% of the United States male population does not have a closet man-crush on VW :laugh:

 

[ChrisB1]

Well, looks like my wife is done with VW too. I can't want to see what impact this has on the trade-in value of her 2013 Jetta TDI that she was looking to get rid of next year. Also, she had the ECU reprogram at her last oil change. I need to ask her if the MPG and power went down.

The sad thing is that I told her I was going to help her purchase an Audi A3 TDI because she likes the size of the Jetta but wanted more premium features. Oh well, looks like we both get to agonize over our VW replacements now...

 

[XGC75]

Some info on how they may have modified their emissions systems:

So quick "diesel engine 101" for those with some questions

Diesel engines are always in a state of "rich" (more fuel then air) or "lean" (more air then fuel).

Rich conditions produce higher soot content and lean creates higher NOX

NOX is harmful to ozone.
Soot is harmful to your lungs.

To counter these effects modern TDI engines have diesel particulate filters (DPF) to trap soot and either NOX traps or Diesel exhaust fluid (ad-blue) to reduce NOX emissions.

DPF's trap soot until a certain amount is detected and then will burn it off turning it to ash. This is achieved by injecting diesel into the cylinder post-combustion - it then ignites in the DPF acting like a flame thrower turning the soot to ash and cleaning the DPF (regeneration) This also results in higher fuel consumption which is why North Americans diesels have about equal fuel consumption to gas engines

NOX traps operate in a similar fashion but require much less heat to burn off the NOX

NOX traps are now being replaced by injecting Ad-blue into the exhaust system. Ad-blue is a mixture of urea (yes, pee) and water (approx 68% water) when it injected into the exhaust it converts to ammonia and results in a NOX reduction. (Fun fact, Ad-blue fluid can be used as an ammonia fertiliser to get nice green grass)

So all this is happening very fast and being monitored by many many sensors and being helped by things like Exhaust gas recirculation, catalysts and variable engine timing all trying to reduce emissions to meet California emissions standards (one of if not the most stringent emissions standards - its the reason vw did not sell diesels in North America for 2ish years around 2007-8, they hadn't produced a system capable of meeting the standard)

Not sure what will come of all this, but I'm not really worried for Volkswagen AG.

TL;DR - suck, squeeze, bang, blow. Catch it, Pee on it, run it under a flame thrower and have computers watching all of it.

Forgive any spelling/syntax/grammar mistakes, wrote this all on mobile.

(Not me that posted btw)

 

[GabelessToGabeTown]

this happened back in the 70's with the beetle. the good thing about it was that VW was accompanied by every other car manufacturer as well and it took alot of heat off of them. I would bet my left maple nut that VW isn't the only company doing this right now.

 

[XGC75]

More info:

So the short answer is still quite long.

They were caught cheating on NOx emissions primarily although all emissions are in a way connected.

NOx is created when temperatures and pressures are very high during combustion. Sadly NOx emission is generally higher when your combustion is nice and hot and rapid, which gives higher efficiency (closer to the ideal thermodynamic cycle).

So In general if you calibrate the engine with a combustion recipe that atomizes fuel quickly and mixes well youll get more NOx.

There are couple of important trade-offs then. Low soot/good combustion = Higher NOx and Low fuel consumption = higher Nox.

The EPA therefore defines "clean" as having BOTH low soot AND low NOx, and since those two things are hard to achieve together it takes a good bit of engineering, and in todays world some aftertreatment to achieve it.

EGR (exhaust gas recirculation)
Particulate filters
Oxidation catalysts
and SCR calalysts (using Urea as a reactant) all are ways of reducing these combustion products while trying to maintain decent fuel consumption

But in VWs case what they did was teach the ECM to recognize when it was being tested. At that time it would switch to the "clean" map. Clean meaning that it meets EPA requirements for both NOx and soot.

Then when the test is over (and potentially an OBD drive cycle) it would fall back to its primary driving map. On the driving map it would have been optimized for best fuel economy and performance. Optimized in this case refers to the fuel injection pressure and timing, and possibly EGR and Urea flow, parameters controlled by the ECM.

Specifically earlier injection timing gives better power and efficiency but creates more NOx. NOx by the way is totally invisible and odorless.

The end result is an engine that will pass an EPA engine emissions certification test, but then will recalibrate itself for driving or (ironically) for the EPA mpg test cycle (which is done in chassis without emissions monitoring). Thus the engineers get to circumvent the very difficult trade-off between NOx and efficiency. The car will produce a lot more NOx in normal driving, and have better fuel economy. Technically not meeting the intent of the emissions law but very hard to detect.

If VW correct this via recall the car will be required to run on the "clean" calibration all the time. This will mean poorer fuel economy, I would be speculating to say by how much but VW wouldnt have bothered cheating if it wasnt a significant gain. It may even have implications on durability if certain parameters (like exhaust gas temps, turbocharger RPMs or oil life) are affected as they often are.

 

[XGC75]

this happened back in the 70's with the beetle. the good thing about it was that VW was accompanied by every other car manufacturer as well and it took alot of heat of of them. I would bet my left maple nut that VW isn't the only company to doing this right now.

Nope, there were 7 other (maybe 7 total?) manufacturers cited on the independant report that rose the flag in the first place.