Volkswagen Stores Nearly 300,000 Dieselgate Vehicles in a California Boneyard

[TexRex]

I'm not sure people "hate" driving as such, but most seem to have absolutely no interest in it, other than as a means of getting from one place to another without having to resort to public transport.

Couple a disinterest in the act of driving itself with a soul-sucking crawl of a commute and you've got a recipe for making someone loathe the act.

it may actually work out cheaper for them to put a cheaper, lighter petrol engine in their low-use city car which would in many cases give them a more interesting drive

How would a petrol-engined city car that's merely comparable, let alone more cost-effective, be more interesting to drive than its diesel counterpart?

 

[homeforsummer]

How would a petrol-engined city car that's merely comparable, let alone more cost-effective, be more interesting to drive than its diesel counterpart?

That'd depend on how one defines "interesting".

A lot of people like modern turbodiesels because they can put their foot to the floor and it'll pull fairly well with no need to bother changing gear etc and no need to hunt for the red line. Easy performance and a fairly good effort/reward balance - even people completely disinterested in driving can appreciate a car that goes quickly when they want it to.

I do think a lot of drivers who've had diesels for their last few cars would be surprised with how far petrols have come on though. Ten years ago most regular cars weren't turbocharged, now a great many are - and they all deliver that same easy-going performance but with less noise and vibration than the equivalent diesel, which could be more "interesting" for certain customers.

When it comes to small stuff, @Factor41 may have a point - most small petrols now are much more pleasant to drive than small diesels for the reasons mentioned above. And they're almost certainly more cost-effective than diesels for people who only drive short distances - probably not much less economical, cheaper to buy in the first place, less potential for going expensively wrong a few years further down the line. And in the UK/Europe at least, less likely to be taxed to death over the next few years. With similar performance to diesels but less noise it's a no-brainer.

However... I'm not sure if that's giving the average customer too much credit. The chances of them actually finding say, a three-cylinder turbo petrol more "interesting" than the four-pot diesel they might otherwise buy (for the reasons we might - engine note, higher rev limit, less weight over the nose etc) is probably very slim indeed. I hear quite a few of the two-cylinder Fiat 500s going about these days - an "interesting" car to people like us - but are we to assume the people (usually young females) who drive them do so because it has an interesting engine, or because it was affordable, costs little to tax, and came in a lovely pastel shade?...

 

[Factor41]

How would a petrol-engined city car that's merely comparable, let alone more cost-effective, be more interesting to drive than its diesel counterpart?

Engine note, lighter engines usually mean better handling, not having to wash the diesel filth off it all the time, being able to rev it past 4000rpm. Interesting is subjective of course and the world is a weird place; there are people out there who buy 'sports cars' with auto gearboxes, so what do I know?!

The chances of them actually finding say, a three-cylinder turbo petrol more "interesting" than the four-pot diesel they might otherwise buy (for the reasons we might - engine note, higher rev limit, less weight over the nose etc) is probably very slim indeed. I hear quite a few of the two-cylinder Fiat 500s going about these days - an "interesting" car to people like us - but are we to assume the people (usually young females) who drive them do so because it has an interesting engine, or because it was affordable, costs little to tax, and came in a lovely pastel shade?...

Yeah, I think you've hit the nail on the head there. Without wishing to bait a feminist backlash, many of those female buyers will follow the thought process of a) it matches my favourite nail polish an I can get pretty stickers on it, and b) my dad (who was a sales rep and covered 150,000 miles a year) had a diesel and he once said they were economical. The Fiat 500 is a prime example. Very rarely will they leave the city and do big mileages, but I suspect more of them in the UK have a diesel engine than the characterful twin-air which is a perfect complement to the cheerful runabout image the car so gleefully projects.

 

[homeforsummer]

The Fiat 500 is a prime example. Very rarely will they leave the city and do big mileages, but I suspect more of them in the UK have a diesel engine than the characterful twin-air which is a perfect complement to the cheerful runabout image the car so gleefully projects.

I dunno, in that class of car I really don't think many people actually buy diesels, because they usually cost quite a bit more than the petrols. I'd guess most 500s are the basic 1.2-litre four-cylinder, but I do hear Twinairs puttering around now and then so I'm guessing they're reasonably popular.

 

[VXR]

My largest exposure to turbo diesels and turbo petrol has been in Malaga province, with high, twisting mountain roads. A place where an elastic, boosting engine with a narrow torque band is absolutely useless. Smooth driving is nigh on impossible, as second gear sits too high and third too low, so you either drone into a corner, or try and coast on what little torque exists below the plateau, before the turbo hits its threshold and comes in just as you're about to round the apex. In contrast, the modest, light Panda 1.2 Fire was an absolute joy; linear, tractable, quick enough for the keen driver willing to drive to its strengths. It was a small car with a suitable, small engine. A 1.6 TDi in an Octavia just doesn't make sense away from relatively smooth, flat motorways.

 

[Ledbetter]

Consider the relative impact on the environment of scrapping all these cars versus letting them be used for their expected life span. They technically met the emissions standards in effect at the time of manufacture. They may pollute the air a little more than expected. But scrapping all those cars puts a lot of material in the landfill, even with recycling, and causes the need to manufacture the same number of cars to take their place.

 

[Dennisch]

They technically met the emissions standards in effect at the time of manufacture.

Ehm. No. That's exactly the reason why they are standing there. They only met their emissions standards because they build in a piece of software that recognised that the car was being tested. As soon as the test was over it went back to it's 90's levels of polluting.

 

[Ledbetter]

Ehm. No. That's exactly the reason why they are standing there. They only met their emissions standards because they build in a piece of software that recognised that the car was being tested. As soon as the test was over it went back to it's 90's levels of polluting.

Yep. They put in software that knew what was being tested, and as you say, “They only met their emissions standards” because of it. But, as you say, the cars did meet the standards. The point of the relative amount of pollution and resource consumption remains. Scrapping these cars is a net loss for the environment, IMO.

 

[Tunerguy21]

Not sure if anyone else has thought of this (although chances are someone has), but how feasible would it be to just lock them in testing mode permanently? Have there been any reports on how much of a performance cut effected cars take in test mode? Would they be realistically usable? If they were capable of passing standards in test mode, would that not be better than letting thousands of cars just sit?

 

[Dennisch]

Not sure if anyone else has thought of this (although chances are someone has), but how feasible would it be to just lock them in testing mode permanently? Have there been any reports on how much of a performance cut effected cars take in test mode? Would they be realistically usable? If they were capable of passing standards in test mode, would that not be better than letting thousands of cars just sit?

I believe that that is the idea of VW, but they need to figure out if they can even sell these anymore, as diesels are rapidly losing their already shoddy reputation around the world. Just look at Germany, 90 cities are allowed to ban Euro 6 diesels. At the moment diesels are dropping in price like silly. Perhaps VW has to cut their losses and just scrap these. The damage has already been done.