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The mkiv Supra Owners Club

The VAG emissions saga


Chris Wilson

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  • 4 weeks later...
The whole emissions testing is a load of rubbish. Much (possibly all?) of the test is done on rolling roads. The emissions tests need changing and need to be done with "production" spec vehicles.

 

The emissions test has become a load of rubbish. But only because engines have become so optimised to be efficient in the "emissions zone", which only covers about 25% of the total engine operating speed/load map. That's the only area the OEM will be tested in, the only area they will be financially penalised for exceeding emissions limits in, so it stands to reason that all the R&D has gone into making engines clean in that area and (mostly) that area alone. The drive cycles used around the world don''t and never did represent "normal driving", but now the difference in terms of emissions and fuel economy (the latter of which is more noticeable by the man in the street) is becoming large enough to call the whole thing into question - cheating or no cheating. End-users are starting to ask why their 60mpg car doesn't do 60mpg in real life.

 

Optimising an engine to be clean on the drive cycle isn't cheating. Programming the ECU to recognise it is doing an emissions certification test and switch to a totally different operating mode altogether (which is what VW allegedly did) is cheating. And tests with "production spec vehicles" is already done for conformity of production, thing is the production spec vehicle also has the "defeat device" code, and will be tested under the same conditions, and so will still go into "cheat mode".

 

IMHO this might accelerate the move to "off cycle testing", in which there is no specific drive cycle and the whole of the engine operating range is up for grabs. Problem is that it then becomes a very uneven playing field and finding a way to compare all cars driven in all styles and on all road surfaces in all environments will be a big challenge. There are new "more representative" drive cycles already close to being introduced, but they are still cycles, and so could be recognised by the ECU.

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Two guys I work with have received letters, one owns a new Audi the other a new Skoda, interestingly depending on the engine you have its either just a software patch / fix / fudge or a patch and new injectors too, now I cant see why you would recall all the motors to install smaller injectors so maybe they are installing larger injectors but no idea why.

 

Interesting indeed, any more updates on what other companies been messing about too?

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  • 1 month later...

 

IMHO this might accelerate the move to "off cycle testing", in which there is no specific drive cycle and the whole of the engine operating range is up for grabs. Problem is that it then becomes a very uneven playing field and finding a way to compare all cars driven in all styles and on all road surfaces in all environments will be a big challenge. There are new "more representative" drive cycles already close to being introduced, but they are still cycles, and so could be recognised by the ECU.

 

Why not do both tests?

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