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True Ned. But remember VW still has to contend with other countries standards too not just the U.S.'s.

As far as retrofitting a urea system, I guess its possible but dang the man hours to do it. Most cars/trucks with a urea system have been designed early on to have one. Then manufactured that way. I can't imagine if the go this rout how they will do it. Will you have a fill tube in the wheel well or even the trunk space? Where are you going to fit its tank?

tanker27 wrote:

True Ned. But remember VW still has to contend with other countries standards too not just the U.S.'s.

And that's the largest part of the problem and one that doesn't get enough play. US emissions standards are focused on oxides of nitrogen (NOx) due to their smog-causing abilities (the Clean Air Act is a child of the '60s/'70s bad smog era). Euro standards focus on CO₂ emissions and greenhouse gas theories. From an automotive engineering POV, the two requirements are diametrically opposed. I've yet to see a proper technical analysis, but my suspicion is that the base tune (the "road calibration" in EPA-speak) is what meets Euro-spec and that, instead of expensively re-engineering for the US (and its small percentage of global VW Group diesel sales), the defeat software was conjured up.

Orville Redenbacher is the smart stock play right now.

Friend of mine got rid of his 2010 Golf TDI that was a lemon (48 dealer visits in 4 years) about a month ago. He looked at the new Golf TDI and said that they had altered the suspension to fit the urea tank in, so I can't imagine VW retrofitting the urea setup to current cars.

I think it most likely that it will be a software flash that runs the NOx trap better but is going to cost in fuel consumption and potentially power and reliability (as if reliability counts with a modern VW!)

NoOne ButMe wrote:

dmjifn wrote:

Now the LA Times is adding that the federal government paid out $51mm in "green subsidies" based on the falsified test results.

http://www.latimes.com/business/autos/l ... story.html

On the other hand, all this makes VW an excellent buy on the stock market. Because they'll almost certainly bounce back eventually.

Dubious of that.

Why? It includes tax credits given to consumers under the "Alternative Motor Vehicle Credit", which can add up. It's not like all this money went to VW.

I guess unless you're talking about my comment on their stock! I kind of see it like BP - they're going to get beat up but they're "too big to fail". I agree it won't be any time in the next couple weeks but it could easily be this year yet.

dmjifn wrote:

I kind of see it like BP - they're going to get beat up but they're "too big to fail".

Uhh, you know BP had to sell off ALL of their stations here in the U.S. Their footprint has been reduce to infrastructure and manufacture.

tanker27 wrote:

dmjifn wrote:

I kind of see it like BP - they're going to get beat up but they're "too big to fail".

Uhh, you know BP had to sell off ALL of their stations here in the U.S. Their footprint has been reduce to infrastructure and manufacture.

It's true that I haven't been following it closely, so I may be speaking out of turn here. I'm aware that they're not doing so hot. I also know that Shell and Chevron have both joined BP in this "restructuring" phase that includes sale of such assets. But with those two being involved, it's a little unclear to me how much of this is directly due to the oil spill and not also a bigger trend in that industry.
As far as selling "all" of the stations, they're very clearly still operating and selling BP gasoline. So if you're talking about just selling the real estate and retail business, I'm not sure that'd necessarily make me fussy as an investor.
Again, I haven't been following it closely. I guess it could very well be that they're declining / dying and it's all 100% driven by the oil spill. Either way, my "too big to fail" comment is probably stupid.

I really don't think that the current biggest auto manufacturer in the world will get taken down by this event - whether or not they should. I don't think they'll give up on the U.S. market, and I do think it's just a matter of time before they're back. Even if the Obama administration uses them as an example to prove they aren't soft on white collar crime.

It's worth noting that a urea SCR system will also require installing a ~5 gallon tank, tubing from that tank, power to the pump and heater in that tank, and some other things hardware-wise would need to be added as well. And, on cars without full multi-function displays, the instrument cluster and steering wheel for that would need to be installed, to provide the display needed to show SCR system alerts.

If they do a purely software fix on the LNT cars, expect DPF failure rates to increase, in my opinion.

Chrispy_ wrote:

jihadjoe wrote:

It's the AdBlue urea filter thing that lets the others run clean. VW claimed they could meet emissions even without it, turns out this was done using a defeat device.
Anyone else who is actually using urea filters should be ok.

Oh, so VW TDI's can be retrofitted with a urea filter? I'm assuming like a catalytic converter and a particulate trap there will be some added restriction to the exhuast but not large percentage losses - perhaps 5-10% worst case?

For my 2014 Ram, the DPF causes only about a .05-.20 PSI difference in back pressure. The engineers have learned a tremendous amount on exhaust flow compared to the lovely 1974 Catalytic fiasco. Computer models, and a lot of real life testing goes into these systems now, so they do not poise a problem like they did back then. Sure, a straight pipe turbo back will give you the least restriction, but with all the crap on the diesels now, you can expect no more than 1 PSI in back pressure tops.

Chrispy_ wrote:

Oh, so VW TDI's can be retrofitted with a urea filter? I'm assuming like a catalytic converter and a particulate trap there will be some added restriction to the exhuast but not large percentage losses - perhaps 5-10% worst case?

In theory yes, but there are lots of concerns over packaging, cost etc. E.g. where would you put the urea tank? Would it take up trunk space? Is there enough room in all of the models to accommodate the additional plumbing, or do you need a custom solution for different models?

And the heads begin rolling: https://www.volkswagen-media-services.c ... h=z1h8CA9s

bhtooefr wrote:

And the heads begin rolling: https://www.volkswagen-media-services.c ... h=z1h8CA9s

I am sure his exit package will tide him over for quite awhile.

Now the German authorities are stepping up their investigations: http://www.wsj.com/articles/volkswagen- ... 23?tesla=y

Well, that didn't take long. First class-action suit has been filed here in US District Court in Burlington (by the former US Attorney for VT).

http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/stor ... /72698378/

There's several class actions, and lawyers getting their URLs redacted when they try to spam on TDIClub.

bhtooefr wrote:

There's several class actions, and lawyers getting their URLs redacted when they try to spam on TDIClub.

My boss just bought a TDI Jetta and firmly believes that she will receive a brand new replacement from VW gratis. I guarantee she's not the only one who thinks this way.

Typical class-action settlement:
10 lawyers each get $20,000,000 in cash. 400,000 class members each get a $500 credit towards the purchase of a new 2016 Volkswagen vehicle if they agree to finance it through Volkswagen. Because they're being magnanimous, they'll also guarantee to give you at least $500 minimum trade-in value for that now-worthless diesel polluter that you bought from them a few years ago.

Captain Ned wrote:

And that's the largest part of the problem and one that doesn't get enough play. US emissions standards are focused on oxides of nitrogen (NOx) due to their smog-causing abilities (the Clean Air Act is a child of the '60s/'70s bad smog era). Euro standards focus on CO₂ emissions and greenhouse gas theories. From an automotive engineering POV, the two requirements are diametrically opposed. I've yet to see a proper technical analysis, but my suspicion is that the base tune (the "road calibration" in EPA-speak) is what meets Euro-spec and that, instead of expensively re-engineering for the US (and its small percentage of global VW Group diesel sales), the defeat software was conjured up.

Orville Redenbacher is the smart stock play right now.

VW has admitted that the defeat device software was installed in 11 million cars world-wide, not just the cars in the US. Also, current EU rules allow twice as much NOx per KM than the current US rules (80 mg per KM vs 40 mg per KM); the Volkswagen being tested were putting out 10 to 40 times as much NOx as US standards allow, so that means they are 5 to 20 times worse than current EU standards.

JustAnEngineer wrote:

Typical class-action settlement:
10 lawyers each get $20,000,000 in cash. 400,000 class members each get a $500 credit towards the purchase of a new 2016 Volkswagen vehicle if they agree to finance it through Volkswagen. Because they're being magnanimous, they'll also guarantee to give you at least $500 minimum trade-in value for that now-worthless diesel polluter that you bought from them a few years ago.

It would be funny if it wasn't true.

What a nice nest egg.

Seems it's the same story with BMW's cars

Regarding that particular story from Auto Bild... It could very easily be legal cycle beating.

It's perfectly legal to tune a vehicle to be compliant during the test parameters, but when the vehicle exceeds the demands that the test makes of it, it gets out of compliance. This is especially easy to end up doing with how gentle Europe's current testing regime is. (There are far more difficult testing regimes that will be adopted for 2017 specifically to make it harder to do that, though.)

It's a whole 'nother story if the automaker tunes the engine to behave differently for the same demands on a test cycle versus real world, which is what VW did.

All manufacturers tune their engines to perfom optimally under a test cycle, where cars accelerate ridiculously slowly etc. But it seems VW went one step further, explicitly running an entirely different tuning when they are on a dyno, so it's not even theoretically possible to get those kinds of low emissions in the real world.

Diesel sucks anyway

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/ ... nts-reveal

Wow seems like their governments might have supported the cheating, at least implicitly.

It is not uncommon for one unit/division of government to have different goals than another...much less acknowledge that the other even exists.

Warning

Tis true that cover-ups make it worse. But realistically who expected for there not to be a cover up when this news broke?

http://www.autonews.com/article/2015110 ... t-software

And now the 3.0L V6 TDI is implicated, bringing in:

VW Touareg
Audi A6
Audi A7
Audi A8 & A8L
Audi Q5
Porsche Cayenne

Captain Ned wrote:

And now the everything is implicated

FTFY.

When people asked me for my opinion on this "VW" thing, what I said was "I bet euros to cents that everyone else is doing it too". Lo and behold.

And how long will it be until an auto maker than isn't part of the VW group gets busted for this same thing ?

Hance wrote:

And how long will it be until an auto maker than isn't part of the VW group gets busted for this same thing ?

I have no doubt that the EPA is already looking. Best guess is that anyone using urea injection should be in the clear, but who really knows at this point.