Diesel Dilemma ?

Although I don't understand any of the technical stuff, it seems to me that diesel is still giving out more harmful emissions than the manufacturers claim (independent tests under road conditions as opposed to laboratory conditions). There's also some, personal, empirical evidence that diesel seems to be more harmful (Mrs Shiney's patients that come to her because of damage to their lungs from emissions).

There may be some of the diesel cars that are cleaner than others but I don't want to drive them. So, I would prefer a car that doesn't run on diesel in order to cut down on the Noxious emissions. Even from a capital cost point of view I wouldn't buy one because of the possible devaluation if restrictions are brought in.

 

I agree, Shiney. But there is the obvious Elephant in the room in the form of the German car manufacturers deliberate attempt to disguise the level of emissions of exhaust gases etc with software designed to do so. I'm not saying that they have done the same with petrol driven cars but.................................???

 

I would guess that there are, or will be, independent tests on those as well.

 

Worth a watch...

 

@fat controller Hi, I know it's being lazy but I don't have time to watch 22 minutes so are you able to let us know what his conclusion was? I still won't buy diesel but I'm curious.

 

In short, he is saying that there is nothing wrong with diesels and pointing out that petrols also emit nasties on a similar level, whilst also making the very sensible point that the buyer should be buying what is right for them - in short, if you do a lot of city driving, and the car never sees motorway or fast A-road work and you buy a diesel, don't come crying when it all goes wrong. If you can spare a few mins, he is worth watching, if only for a giggle at his brutal Aussie honesty.

 

@pete - bear in mind that he is talking from an Aussie point of view where they can often measure distances in days rather than miles, so diesel is a much more sensible choice. Also bear in mind that part of the reason for him making the video at all is because of the heavily biased, anti-diesel news (propaganda?) that has been going on of late.

The reason that diesels are in the majority in many car makers ranges is because they were pushed down a path of developing diesel over the past 10-15 years; initially, all the fuss was about CO2, so the fact that diesel gave considerably better fuel economy than their petrol counterparts meant that they emitted a hell of a lot less CO2, whilst also costing less for their owners at fill up time. Add into the bargain the grunt and in gear flexibility from the diesels, and they seemed to make a lot of sense to a lot of people. Add in the generous tax breaks from the government to encourage people to buy them, and suddenly the diesel market became big business - at least half of the market overall.

As with everything, particularly when bureaucrats who know everything there is to know about absolutely sod-all get involved, there began a push to rid diesel of its dirty image (the clouds of reek from the exhausts when they were booted, for a start), and at the same time increase power/torque to keep a smile on the drivers face. This led to one of two things happening (in my opinion) - either, old technology was pushed way too hard and beyond its capabilities (I had first hand experience of this with a VW Passat), OR new technology was released into the wild before it was properly fettled. The real irony was, the more these engines were tinkered with to give more grunt and more MPG, the more NOX they were putting out - - and where the old sooty exhausts were unpleasant, it is these NOX emissions that are dangerous to health.

Fast forward to only a couple of years ago, and the latest crop of diesels (generally) were finally getting to the point where they were delivering on their promises - DPF's & AdBlue systems massively cleaned up the exhaust output, whilst better engine and fuel system design made them as efficient as possible up the front end.

Then VAG got caught with their trousers down, in a very big way. The fact that they were caught in the US made matters worse, as diesel has always been a hard sell over there - - understandably so, as their fuel prices are so low they can run around in 5-litre gas guzzlers and not care a jot. This started a ball rolling, and the resulting fall out started the demonisation of diesel.

A few months on, and the UK (London in particular) exceeded air pollution standards on what seemed to be an increasingly frequent basis - the new Mayor was put in a position where he had to be seen to be doing something, so he started banging on about dirty diesels and additional charges. To back his argument up, he even went as far as designating some areas such as Putney High Street (the first to breach air pollution standards this year) as Ultra-Low Emssions Zones for buses -- all the various bus operators through the area were forced to make sure that their buses passing through Putney were Euro 6 compliant. Fair enough - but the older Euro 5's didn't just disappear.... they were simply moved to other garages and routes elsewhere.

I have driven buses in Putney on numerous occasions over the past 20 years, and I can say with certainty that the emissions standards of the buses is merely a fart in a huge bathtub. The main problem is congestion - - vehicles not moving due to a lack of road capacity, and often times traffic lights being screwed around with (by TfL) to manage traffic flows; essentially, where the centre of the city is prioritised to keep it flowing like clockwork, whilst the outer 'doughnut' disappears up its own rear-end. To cap it off, loads of roadworks, road closures, reduced lane capacity and other restrictions were slowly put in place to allow for cycle lanes to go in, and the result was pretty inevitable. Hell, the majority of motorists including bus and taxi drivers all saw (and said) that increased congestion was bound to happen as a result.

Meanwhile as little as 6 supertanker ships out on the ocean put out more NOX than all the diesel cars in the UK put together, China have coal fired power stations left, right and centre belching out smoke at an incomprehensible rate of knots, and Kim-Wrong-Un seems hell bent on filling the air with nuclear fallout at every available chance.

So yeah, forgive me if I feel a tad cynical that all of a sudden my wee 1.5 diesel is suddenly being portrayed as a killing machine.

 

Well said, @fat controller

In big towns and cities the major problem is congestion and the subsequent pollution. Politicians have got their heads up their own exhaust pipes when it comes to sorting out traffic.

One of the problems, as you said, is the stupid manufacturers trying to avoid the regulations with regards to actual emissions. This did an enormous amount of self-inflicted harm to the industry and it's not going away because the current declared emission are laboratory figures instead of roadside figures. There are a number of moves afoot to measure roadside emission on both diesel and petrol but they are being obstructed from all sides. I think that the manufacturers, the politicians and the planners don't want the real figures to come out as they would then have to try and solve the problem.

 

I think everyone needs to take their heads out of their backsides to be honest - vehicle emissions, on the whole, are immensely cleaner than they ever were, and the Euro 6 diesels are as clean or even cleaner than their petrol counterparts - its the mentality that we want it all sorted and we want it all sorted yesterday that is the problem. With every week that goes by, more and more of the older diesels are naturally coming off the road, and slowly but surely they are being replaced with the Euro 6 models (admittedly, not directly, but filtering down through owners). Given time, things will naturally improve. Petrol models too are getting ever more efficient, and therefore cleaner.

Also, we need to get rid of this mentality where we are trying to make omelettes without breaking any eggs! People need to get about, goods need to be transported, and for that to happen fuel needs to be burnt. The current push to get everyone into electric cars is insane too - given that we have only about 5% safety margin in our power generation, if everyone went electric, how would the National Grid cope?