What do Yeti owners think of the diesel emissions debate?

[looby]

As the title, what do you think?

[Llanigraham]

Perhaps a bit more detail?

Edited 26 January, 2015 by Llanigraham

[Ryeman]

From 'our' perspective the Pug 308 1.2 petrol engine looks like the future, at least as far as big cities are concerned.

[Huskoda]

I presume after the Dispatches program on how Labour conned people into buying diesels.

[clv101]

To an extent I think we were 'conned'. I don't think diesels should ever have been used as widely as they have in small cars, predominantly used in cities. Urban air quality is a really serious problem and the relatively small CO2 savings probably aren't worth it. For larger cars, used predominantly on motorways, diesel make much more sense.

[JCP]

Diesels have always been smelly and anti social but the green lobby favoured them for a while and government followed without understanding that micro particles in the exhaust made them not only offensive but dangerous - they have now caught on and as always are over reacting. Until you get to 60k miles they don't even save money and DPFs- a simple means of attempting to clean their exhausts- don't work for short journeys. Dead end tech supported by artificial fuel duty regime.

[clv101]

Diesel certainly isn't a dead end tech! And I'm not sure what you mean by artificial fuel duty? Europe's high fuel duty has been wonderful compared with the hopeless situation low duty counties like the US find themselves in. It's a great tax: it's delivered a vehicle fleet twice as efficient as the US, it cushions us from volatile oil prices, it's extremely cheap to collect and hard to evade, individuals also have a lot of choice through buying a 70 or 30 mpg and driving style and it's directly proportional to use. In fact, I'd be very happy to see VED scrapped and an extra few pence (whatever would be revenue neutral) added to fuel duty. Duty makes more sense than VED.

 

The two issues of efficiency and local pollution need to be considered separately - basically we should be using diesels IMO, unless it poses a local air pollution as it does in cities. Which is why I think diesel in 'city cars' was a mistake. 

[Llanigraham]

From comments elsewhere I've read this evening it sounds like Daily Wail inaccurate and sensationalist reporting.

[Ryeman]

From comments elsewhere I've read this evening it sounds like Daily Wail inaccurate and sensationalist reporting.

Surely you don't have the same sensationalist media like we have to suffer, particularly from Murdoch?.

And I thought Blighty was a haven from that.

Oh dear!

[Gobmax]

My Uncle worked in the Local Fuel Refinery.

He told me that the first cut from Crude is Industrial Diesel, 2 nd Cut Regular (+Unleaded involved additional Chemical processes), 3 Cut Super ( +Unleaded (Premium), Final Cut Diesel premium which involved additional Chemical processes.

 

Plus I agree totally with "clv101", and  How do Corporate Fuel companies Like Profits.

Edited 27 January, 2015 by Gobmax

[countryboy]

Diesels have always been smelly and anti social but the green lobby favoured them for a while and government followed without understanding that micro particles in the exhaust made them not only offensive but dangerous - they have now caught on and as always are over reacting. Until you get to 60k miles they don't even save money and DPFs- a simple means of attempting to clean their exhausts- don't work for short journeys. Dead end tech supported by artificial fuel duty regime.

Diesels in the old days, i.e. 1970's could have been considered dirty, smelly and slow but they have moved on in leaps and bounds since then and can hardly be considered that any more. The only reason they don't save money until 60k miles is unfavourable taxation by the government and artificially higher prices charged by the manufacturers compared to their petrol engines. As for the NOx goings on, yes they do produce more than a petrol engine but that is only because diesels use a lean burn process, i.e. burn fuel in an excess of air, which is a technique becoming more commonplace in petrol engines too with the use of turbos and stratified fuel injection. Have a look at the following table and you will see the facts of the situation. As things get tighter so the use of SCR will become more commonplace, this will reduce NOx output to virtually nil as the urea compound will turn the NOx into nitrogen and water.

That article on Dispatches last night was typical of sensationalist "journalism" designed to get a reaction. http://www.smmt.co.uk/industry-topics/environment/intro/european-engine-emission-standards/

Ian

[900000]

Diesels will be dead on 10 year's time. Or will have a similar market share that EVs have now. The motor manufacturers have pressurised all governments for decades to ONLY measure car emissions via CO2 since they knew diesels are very dirty in terms of NOx and particulates. Change the system to have combined comparable figure for all three those elements and your 99g/CO2 petrol car will have a 450g/CO2 diesel equivalent. So a no go way to go as no-one will buy them. Soon we will all be driving big cars with micro petrol engines - 1,0 litre 3 cylinder things with five turbos and delveloping 250hp. The EU will kill the diesel car as we know it very soon. Small changes already happening, e.g.: 

 

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/comment/article-2920397/Islington-Council-s-96-year-diesel-tax-cars-encouraged-people-buy.html

 

http://www.autoblog.com/2014/12/01/france-moves-to-ban-diesel/

[Llanigraham]

I shall be continuing with a diesel, since I can't buy a suitable 4x4 Yeti SE Outdoor otherwise.

[Ryeman]

I would have felt the same as Graham until this little 3pot of ours which has the performance characteristics of a diesel, incl economy but much lighter over the front end making it easier to tighten a line in a corner, less tyre and brake wear and obviously much cleaner etc.

We have traveled 700km on 2/3 of a tank involving tortuous mountain roads and lots of braking, so when we fill today am expecting ~1000km from the 53L tank.

[Llanigraham]

I would have felt the same as Graham until this little 3pot of ours which has the performance characteristics of a diesel, incl economy but much lighter over the front end making it easier to tighten a line in a corner, less tyre and brake wear and obviously much cleaner etc.

We have traveled 700km on 2/3 of a tank involving tortuous mountain roads and lots of braking, so when we fill today am expecting ~1000km from the 53L tank.

 

It might, but it can't tow my caravan!!

[Sad555]

Performance characteristic of a diesel ? Is that 0-60 8.4 and top speed 124 and 50ish mpg with s*** loads of torque.?

[clv101]

So, what are the potential options for government?

 

The CO2 issue isn't going away - despite some politicians publicly distancing themselves from climate change, so a bulk return to petrol seems unlikely unless we can squeeze even more efficiency from petrol motors.

Increasing the duty on diesel but not petrol doesn't seem politically viable due to obvious uproar from commercial users, and anyway the air quality problem is only in cities. VED could be increased for diesels - however that does NOTHING for the existing fleet on the road apart from causing them to be scrapped slightly sooner. VED for NEW diesels could be increased significantly to dissuade their initial purchase, however there is a real risk of throwing the baby of with the bathwater - diesels are still great for motorway and rural use (and that's were the big miles are anyway).

 

I suspect it'll come back to differential congestion charging, charging diesels more to enter specific urban areas - but outside of London the infrastructure just doesn't exist to do this.

 

Any other options?

 

Unfortunately it seems the Euro 5 vs 6 is likely to be the threshold for any new policy, 5 and below bad, 6 good. Yeti diesels are currently all Euro 5, however the TDI 184PS currently in the Golf is Euro 6 so expect that fine motor to show up in a Yeti soon!

[looby]

Or is it the fact that cars are becoming so economical and efficient that the tax take has to be increased or am I just being cynical?

[Ryeman]

Performance characteristic of a diesel ? Is that 0-60 8.4 and top speed 124 and 50ish mpg with s*** loads of torque.?

230nm fm a 1.2

Mixed driving 57mpg

~9 to 60

Top speed more than enough.

[Huskoda]

Its kind of daft since CO2 doesn't really harm anyone directly. Long term climate change perhaps. But NOx and particulates are killing people right now since they are toxic and carcinogenic. Once the warranty on our Kia is up, its going to be replaced by a petrol too as I see no future for it.

[900000]

Diesel won't die I know. I was being a bit facetious. But their tax will go up and they will become less popular to people that don't tow and don't need the torque. Yes a car with a micro-engine (like the new QQ and X-trail, et al) can get me everywhere I want to go 95% of the time, with less emissions and as fast. But when I hook my ton+ of plastic up, my Yeti still accelerates with gusto. I can overtake with ease if required and I feel very confident in the car being in control and not the caravan. But with a micro-engine with 12 torques (as Clarkson would say) and hundreds of horsepowers at 8000rpm?! They are engineered for fuel efficiency and not to tow big things. So I'll probably stick with my diesel too.

[freedie]

230nm fm a 1.2

Mixed driving 57mpg

~9 to 60

Top speed more than enough.

 

You've got a good imagination David!

[Llanigraham]

230nm fm a 1.2

Mixed driving 57mpg

~9 to 60

Top speed more than enough.

 

230nm fm a 1.2

Mixed driving 57mpg

~9 to 60

Top speed more than enough.

 

I thought the Aussies spoke a version of English......................................................????

[countryboy]

230nm fm a 1.2

Mixed driving 57mpg

~9 to 60

Top speed more than enough.

I imagine that in the future, 230 nm torque from a 1.2 petrol engine may be feasible, however that will be using camshafts optimised to produce max torque and then needing to rev to 8000+ rpm in order to produce a reasonable power output which will make them a lot less useable in the real world compared to a good diesel. Petrol engines will never be able to produce useable output and efficiency like a diesel until they can be produced to use a compression ratio approaching 17 to 1 as opposed to the 10 to 1 that is the norm now and I doubt that will happen as the volatility of the fuel will stop such developments. If in the future more manufacturers adopt the Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) and Adblue route to NOx control, then the NOx output from a diesel engine will be virtually zero and the arguments put forward by the Dispatches will be nullified over night.

Ian

[fordfan]

, then the NOx output from a diesel engine will be virtually zero and the arguments put forward by the Dispatches will be nullified over night.

There lies the fundamental problem in our thinking, when you mention engine (above), you mean the vehicle that has had all manner of devices and computer control added on to it to clean up what comes out of the engine.  These are fine for the time that the car is under warranty, when it gets to over 3 year old and is on its second or third owner, that's when the work arounds to replacing/fixing failing emissions equipment start and when it gets to the 7.5 year old average age of UK cars, they won't be worth spending the money on.

 

Diesel will always be a horrible smelly fuel and that's before you burn it.  You only have to see the big soot stain on the concrete outside our MOT bay to see how dirty it burns, even the ones fitted with particulate filters smell toxic.  A cleaner burning fuel is the way to go, LPG or Hydrogen, even electricity produced in nuclear power stations would be a healthier option to power cars.