DIESEL SCAPEGOATS - WE ARE SCRAP?

[HERBIEMERCMAN]

Hi, Everyone, I have just had my e-300 td, 7 seat est resprayed, new suspension parts, new turbo, ss exhaust, 18 inch wheels, the list goes on, i bought the car new in 1997.
So i do 5,000 miles per year, never in the cities where all the masses are and big poluters, and not just diesel cars poluting, also company car owners do high mileages.
The politicians who just consider the situation in London and other big cities put a "one size covers all" on the answer by waging war on all old diesel cars, it's a rip off, and most of us in this club are the scapegoats.
I think they should allow the low mileage car owners, who give a mileage limit to their insurance companies a dispensation clause, they could also put a £20 charge for entering the big cities.
What do you think. Herbie.

 

[JBell]

They just want the old polluting cars gone, it is that simple.

You doing 5k a year creates more pollution than a company car driver in his new E350 bluetec doing 30k

 

[Naraic]

They just want the old polluting cars gone, it is that simple.

You doing 5k a year creates more pollution than a company car driver in his new E350 bluetec doing 30k

Interesting. So the pollution factor of old diesels is more than six times a modern up to date one.

 

[Steve@Avantgarde]

I would run your old bus on bio fuel and not worry.

 

[d215yq]

They just want the old polluting cars gone, it is that simple.

You doing 5k a year creates more pollution than a company car driver in his new E350 bluetec doing 30k

Really? I'd bet the E350 bluetec driver in the realworld is using more fuel and thus creating more CO2 and pollution. Not to mention the pollution created building it.

As for cars being banned from cities, it's often just the central zones that you'd be mad to drive in anyway. There's a lot of fuss here about all older diesels being banned from Barcelona next year, but it is a part where unless you lived bang in the centre and had an expensive garage to park in you really would never enter anyway.

 

[A.J.]

I have just reluctantly changed to petrol, I love the way that a diesel drives but I think there is a lot of grief to come like fuel taxation on diesel, additional congestion charges and probably even certain areas banning diesel engined car altogether. I was going to change the car anyway but with all of the anti diesel lobbying and so forth i decided to go petrol.

 

[LostKiwi]

I've always been a fan of petrol. I had a brief foray into diesel with a Volvo S40 equipped with the 2.0 TDCi Ford engine and it put me off for life (aside from the Defender - but that was a truck so diesel suited it).

I do find it funny the way everyone was happy to jump on the diesel bandwagon and reap the benefits of fuel economy and artificial CO2 based tax breaks but are now complaining when the tax breaks are removed and the total pollutant effect is being taken into account.

 

[M80]

Diesel cars' emissions far higher on road than in lab, tests show | Business | The Guardian

Maybe our politicians should consider this first.
The contradiction of the ever more stringent EU standards is that they consume more fuel to pretend to be cleaner.

Take away EGR and DPF's and the consumption improves significantly, so pollution reduces while it seems the cleaner output may still not be achieved.
Then there is the use of the materials to produce the filters.

So let's go electric with the mass produced batteries that must be consuming the worlds resources, and the energy is still produced some where, nuclear perhaps.

Meanwhile the Gov'ts get to increase their revenues from penalising the said to be dirty cars and from the sale of new cars as they make old one's less economically attractive.

In a few years the petrol cars will be the bad un's, for some reason.

 

[LostKiwi]

In a few years the petrol cars will be the bad un's, for some reason.

They had their turn at being the bad boys when diesel became popular.

 

[JBell]

Really? I'd bet the E350 bluetec driver in the realworld is using more fuel and thus creating more CO2 and pollution. Not to mention the pollution created building it.

It's the NOx and PM

http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/car-ne...emissions-standards-what-do-they-mean-for-you

 

[A.J.]

Diesel cars' emissions far higher on road than in lab, tests show | Business | The Guardian

In a few years the petrol cars will be the bad un's, for some reason.

That is exactly it, what about Cows, should they have a pollution tax too ??

 

[nicholas15]

It's the NOx and PM

http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/car-ne...emissions-standards-what-do-they-mean-for-you

Thanks, interesting.
So as I read it, petrol cars are allowed twice the CO emissions but only 75% the NO emissions allowed for diesel cars.
So what is the comparable "harm" of CO versus NO?

 

[LostKiwi]

CO has less direct health issues associated with it (at the levels we're talking about) whereas NOx and PM have direct health issues (breathing related).
Asthmatics react extremely badly to NOx (and some studies suggest NOx can be a trigger to the development of asthma) and PM is a direct contributor to lung cancers.

 

[Craiglxviii]

Before anyone here can have this discussion one must first define "harmful emissions". So far the various regulatory authorities have had 6 different measures, and at various times two of those have been mutually exclusive

So what's the big baddie? Micro particles? CO? CO2? NO? NO2? Something else?

 

[M80]

I've considered that diesel's are far too complicated with greatly increased risk of more going wrong under the bonnet.
But it seems Euro 6 is affecting petrol cars, in truth I'm not expert on how, but the consideration for increasing complexity is worth factoring.

 

[JBell]

So what's the big baddie? Micro particles? CO? CO2? NO? NO2? Something else?

It's all bad and we are all doomed!!!!

 

[LostKiwi]

As I understand it NOx is the biggest baddie in the pipe. NO under sunlight produces NO2 which is the gas responsible for visible smog.
The lungs have small hairs inside them called cilia which are part of the bodies defence mechanism for dealing with foreign objects. The cilia push dust and other foreign matter (including airborne bacteria) out of the lungs and into the gastrointestinal tract where they are destroyed. The presence of NO2 paralyses the cilia (much the same effect as phosgene) and allows this matter deeper into the lungs. There it can cause odema (pools of the mucus created by the lungs to assist the cilia in ejecting foreign matter) which then goes on to cause infection. The effects of NOx on the cilia are immediate but the cilia will recover in 24 hours if the NOx is removed.
The effects of PM and CO are much slower - PM in particular can take years to have an impact, but in conjunction with NOx (which stops the bodies mechanism for ejecting it) gives rise to much longer term health issues.

 

[umblecumbuz]

Waiting on the quayside in Livorno for a ship to Malta, I got chatting to the Italian parked alongside who had a diesel 4x4 and was towing his boat to Malta for summer fun.

His Jeep was old but immaculate. He told me that, in his region of Italy, older cars are being forced off the road by being targeted with large annual road tax increases. He was angry, as his beloved and well cared for Jeep would have to be scrapped next year as the road tax increase would be higher than the value of the car,

He did very few annual miles, and kept it just for towing his boat.

Somehow, if diesels are to be hit, there should also be an annual mileage concession or a sliding scale for older cars to suit those owners who do very little driving.

Umble

 

[LostKiwi]

I've considered that diesel's are far too complicated with greatly increased risk of more going wrong under the bonnet.
But it seems Euro 6 is affecting petrol cars, in truth I'm not expert on how, but the consideration for increasing complexity is worth factoring.

Euro 6 is a problem for direct injection petrol engines. These run at higher compression ratios and generate higher NOx as a result.
In general the lower the cylinder pressures and temperatures the less NOx but the more HC (PM) as the engine is less efficient.
The high cylinder pressures is why diesel cars have a bigger NOx issue than petrol ones.

I had this all explained to me 20 years ago by my ex-chemistry teacher when we were discussing the use of diesel as a car fuel. He was dead against it for the NOx and PM reasons.

 

[d215yq]

Somehow, if diesels are to be hit, there should also be an annual mileage concession or a sliding scale for older cars to suit those owners who do very little driving.

Umble

But it also depends on the type of driving. I may do many miles but 95% of my driving is on empty motorways/a roads where NOX and PM are unlikely to be an issue. Compare that to a london driver doing 5k pa. When I am in a city I simply always have walked cycled or taken public transport, mainly because it is nicer, quicker and cheaper than with a car.

I understand there are disabled people/deliveries but apart from that I really can't see the need for driving in the city centres, even though I've lived in cities (not the centres) and always had a car. Whenever I get in my car it is always to exit the city and never for less than 3 miles as that would be walked or cycled instead.

The alternatives are simply healthier quicker and cheaper. If emissions in cities really are a problem than rather than make ever more complicated cars to fudge ever more unrealistic tests instead it should be made incredibly expensive for people to drive into cities in any car. Make any city subject to a congestion charge 50 quid a day with zero exceptions and then if a car really is necessary people can always offer their empty passenger seats on the many car sharing websites that exist such as blablacar so as to share this cost and take more cars off the road. Would ease parking and congestion too.