20 minutes ago, sepulchrave said:

the theoretical correct answer is to buy a newer model of car for lower emissions

Fixed.

I actually know of a person who has taken an old power unit from a Tesla Model S and put it into a VW Splitty Campervan. Have not seen it yet, but the anticipation is wonderful. But really haven’t considered it for the Fabia..............yet!

First off- how often do you give it a blast. On my car, I'd had emissions just below the limit and EGR/shut off valve problems for a while. This year, I decided to fuel up at a place a few miles up the road, and with a DC on the way- a chance to open it up.  This year,emmissions were a lot lower. So it's not all about buying a car with lower emissions.  That said, mine is a toddler with only 95k  on the clock, and for the past few years only doing circa 2.5k between MOT.

Secondly- has anyone looked at the Wheeler Dealer engine clean episode, where Ed took a car way over the top on emissions, gave it the treatment and  brought the figures down to half the pre-treatment ones. Cost- I can't remember, but certainly a lot less than £100

1 hour ago, Wino said:

Fixed.

 

No, newer engines do have better emissions, they're just not as good as they claim, a Euro 5 engine is not dirtier than a Euro 4 just because there was a scandal.

 

It's the law of diminishing returns, a manufacturer has to spend twice as much to get a 10% improvement, it's the same with performance, you try and get 10% more power out of a BMW 3.2 M3 engine, it's damn nearly impossible, the engine was almost perfect when it left the factory.

So not worth changing engines, or cars, in the pursuit of emissions improvements that may only be a tiny bit better, on some measures.

The cleanest new diesel engines in real world testing are cleaner than dirty petrols, depends on which you'd like to compare. As it stands, you would have to get a car averaging 80mpg to offset the carbon used in building a new car compared to keeping your older fabia.

21 minutes ago, Wino said:

So not worth changing engines, or cars, in the pursuit of emissions improvements that may only be a tiny bit better, on some measures.

 

Exactly.

 

15 minutes ago, amwphotos said:

The cleanest new diesel engines in real world testing are cleaner than dirty petrols, depends on which you'd like to compare. As it stands, you would have to get a car averaging 80mpg to offset the carbon used in building a new car compared to keeping your older fabia.

 

Precisely, by far the greenest thing you can do is to STOP CONSUMING, buy a decent secondhand specimen and run it into the ground, do this for every major purchase, cars, washing machines etc.

 

I don't buy anything big new, I only buy quality older things, I have Bosch and Miele stuff and I fix it if it goes wrong, I hardly ever have to throw anything away because it's beyond repair.

My old Bosch dishwasher packed up recently, I took the circuit board out and found I just needed to reflow all the solder joints, popped it back in and hey presto good as new.

Edited 22 November, 20178 yr by sepulchrave