Very observant. Yes, the front gets very light especially under power, and that is why I have cutting breaks. (I can break the rear wheels independently for steering purposes.) The lack of tread prevents the tires from picking up rocks and slinging them at you.

The black dot over my right eye, in my avatar, is a piece of latex that resembles a bolt (sticking out of my head.) I was part of a Halloween costume. (I don't wear it all the time.)

Thanks - I was joking about your eye, you mentioned something about that long ago. I've just never seen a photo without it.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled "VW - Not so clean diesel" programming.

 

The 2016 marketing seems funny now that we know about what's in the technology.

The TDI Clean Diesel technology was engineered to go the distance. And with that addictive torque and turbocharged power, you probably won’t ever want to stop driving.
...
Saving fuel has never been so fun.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...ons-cheating-found-by-curious-clean-air-group

“I personally am deeply sorry that we have broken the trust of our customers and the public,” Volkswagen Chief Executive Officer Martin Winterkorn said in a statement on Sunday. “We will do everything necessary in order to reverse the damage this has caused."

Sorry they got caught for sure but now we know how they did it.

 

The 2016 marketing seems funny now that we know about what's in the technology.


http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...ons-cheating-found-by-curious-clean-air-group

Sorry they got caught for sure.

There was actually a 2016 Passat commercial on while I read your post! Amazing how much they have been advertising (or how much I have noticed their ads) since Friday. You are right, "Clean Diesel" just doesn't mean much any more - environmental wise or performance wise.

 

VW cheated, mislead the government and the buying public. They deserve the book thrown at them.

 

VW cheated, mislead the government and the buying public. They deserve the book thrown at them.

They have also created a no-win situation. They can offer to fix the emissions but then the car will not meet the performance ratings the consumer was paying for. Not fixing them means acidic, NOx emissions and also may explains why one co-worker had to replace the OEM exhaust on his Jetta after only 3 years.

 

Wow, they first really noticed it in Europe but didn't believe their data. Then came to the US to verify their data because the US is known for being tough on emissions. (Surely, VW wouldn't try to mess the US.) Sure enough, VW lied.

VW is so screwed. Not only in the US, but worldwide. Maybe Chinese sales will keep VW from going out of business. They don't care about emissions, but they have Hyundai.

 

I use a, "pin vise". Much easier on the piggies.

Mine are 1/8" shank so the will fit my Dremel otherwise yes I would be using my pin vice tool as well.

 

VW cheated, mislead the government and the buying public.

Yea the government and it agencies really get upset when someone starts playing their games by their side of the rules.

 

A cheater is a cheater, no matter how anyone tries to rationalize it.

 

Not fixing them means acidic, NOx emissions and also may explains why one co-worker had to replace the OEM exhaust on his Jetta after only 3 years.

I would be far more prone to blame them using really cheap metal for their exhaust rotting out than the NOx being no other vehicles or machinery with diesel have exhaust corrosion problems from their NOx emissions.

We have farm tractors here that are 30 - 40 years old that still have their original exhaust tubing in place. I think a couple still have their original mufflers as well so why are they not rotting out being they were built decades before anyone ever considered putting emissions compliance rules on diesel engines.

BTW the current specs for NOx are .1 grams per HP hour so even at 40 times that that still only 4 grams which is still less than the weight of a common Nickle.

Also the average lighting flash makes between 3 and 7+ KG of NOX and there are around 1.2 billion flashes a year.

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/nox_lightning.html

According to a new paper by Ott and Pickering in the Journal of Geophysical Research, each flash of lightning on average in the several mid-latitude and subtropical thunderstorms studied turned 7 kilograms (15.4 pounds) of nitrogen into chemically reactive NOx. "In other words, you could drive a new car across the United States more than 50 times and still produce less than half as much NOx as an average lightning flash," Ott estimated.

 

I don't think VW is the only car company that has thought of this way of cheating emissions. I wonder who else has actually done it?? I bet there is going to be a lot of on road testing of emissions before a car is certified to be sold in the US, and elsewhere.

 

When the researchers multiplied the number of lightning strokes worldwide by 7 kilograms, they found that the total amount of NOx produced by lightning per year is 8.6 terragrams, or 8.6 million metric tons. "That's somewhat high compared to previous estimates," said Pickering.

But fossil fuel burning produces nearly four times as much, and is rising.

The largest global source of NOx emission is that of fossil fuel burning, with a recent estimate of 33 Tg per year.

http://www.ghgonline.org/othernox.htm

 

I bet there is going to be a lot of on road testing of emissions before a car is certified to be sold in the US, and elsewhere.

The issue is fundamental to the new emission test regime in the US: rather than the old fashioned "sticking a sensor in the pipe" way of emission testing, the newer approach relies on the onboard computer, assuming that the onboard computer (and its software) is trustworthy, which, in the VW case, turns out to be wrong.

It is bound to happen if you trust without verification.

 

VW cheated, mislead the government and the buying public. They deserve the book thrown at them.

This is like schadenfreude for you, isn't it?

 

This is like schadenfreude for you, isn't it?

You view what happened to VW to be "unlucky" or "misfortune". I call it engineering and business failures covered up with fraud.

 

You view what happened to VW to be "unlucky" or "misfortune". I call it engineering and business failures covered up with fraud.

I call it standard government operating practice.

 

This is like schadenfreude for you, isn't it?

And you're a big schnitzengruben.

 

Before that, atmospheric COtwo levels were healthy and not depleted.

Over the last several hundred million years, atmospheric co2 went as high as several thousands ppm. 50 percent of the time, it was over 2000ppm. 90 percent of the time, it was over 1000ppm, vs 400ppm now.

We could have burned all the known fossil fuel reserves without ever reaching those historical levels.

So if those levels were healthy, today's co2 would be extremely healthy. Why worry about it at all?

 

Over the last several hundred million years, atmospheric co2 went as high as several thousands ppm. 50 percent of the time, it was over 2000ppm. 90 percent of the time, it was over 1000ppm, vs 400ppm now.

We could have burned all the known fossil fuel reserves without ever reaching those historical levels.

So if those levels were healthy, today's co2 would be extremely healthy. Why worry about it at all?

They weren't healthy. During the rise of civilization, and for the last ten thousand years, the level was a steady two hundred to two hundred fifty ppm.

 

CO2 and other destructive pollutants, such as O2, are maintained and regulated by living processes, not chemical.

The problem is not CO2, it’s the O2. It’s the O2 that does all the damage to our planet and our economy(happiness).

The food spoilage alone is almost 30%. All because of too much O2.

We won’t even mention corrosion.

I’ve been saying for years that modern science has it backwards.