The VW Bug

Speckled Jim on 25/09/2015 - 10:09

So the Volkswagen group are set to announce the full scope of their deception later today:
http://www.volkswagenag.com/content/vwcorp/info_center/en/ne…

My bet is this will extend to all VW group marques (Audi, Skoda and Seat) as they fall under the same corporate umbrella with the same values and objectives, and many engines/transmissions are shared.

The story is an interesting one to me, as I've been reading UK car mags exclusively the past few years. Every new car ad you see (or usually flick past) features very prominent MPG and CO2 figures, so it's become something of a numbers game.
Always with the disclaimer that the results were achieved in accordance with EU mandated testing etc. and "may not reflect actual usage" or somesuch.

Top Gear mag recently questioned the wisdom of buying Lexus hybrids over the diesel opposition, when the performance and efficiency were basically identical. The suggestion was it's preferable to dodge the battery and slight weight penalty. In another test, a SkyActiv (petrol) Mazda came off second-best to the diesel opposition but this time because the torque was lacking compared to the 1.6 and 2L diesels.

If VW could do this, one has to wonder how many auto makers are fiddling the system? Because the deception is a simple one to achieve; if the system detects something plugged into the OBD port, it lies.

DSG, TDI, RIP VW?

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Comments

  • frostman on 25/09/2015 - 10:39
    +2

    They're all scammers, but i'll never by a VW because of this story in my life

    My brand new CX5 was presented with 7L/100 KM (urban) and highway was 6/L/100k
    My wife drives it 95% of the time and the Tacho says we average 12L/100km. My wife isn't exactly a rev-head driver so their stats are rubbish.

    Either that, or they test it in Japan going down-hill in Neutral.

    • tomleonhart on 25/09/2015 - 12:17
      +1

      I remember reading somewhere that the fuel efficiency stat is all rubbish. They test it in a lab with favorable conditions and at a certain rpm.

      Certainly not the RPM we all drive at and certainly not the conditions that we all drive in.

    • Baysew on 25/09/2015 - 12:27
      +5

      YMMV

    • jzdhgkd on 25/09/2015 - 15:15
      +1

      You don't have to be a "rev-head" to get poor economy.

      • Accelerating quickly especially just before you hit a red light or to "catch up" to the person in front, braking excessively and then accelerating again to keep pace
      • Making multiple short trips
      • Having the air-con on all the time
      • Never checking tyre pressures and running lower than recommended
        and probably lots of other things can lead to poor fuel economy.

      If your wife is anything like the typical SUV driver I see on the road, there is no doubt that some fuel economy could be improved with a change in driving habit.

      But yes do keep in mind that test are done under lab/ideal conditions which we never see on the road. You're much better off using the published figures as a relative comparison between different cars rather than an absolute number for any one particular car.

    • Domingo on 25/09/2015 - 15:27
      +1

      You'd use more petrol going downhill in neutral than going downhill in gear.

      In neutral, you need to feed more fuel into the engine to keep it running than when it's in gear going downhill, where gravity exerts a force on your car that provides some of the energy required to keep the engine turning over.

      • jaybmate on 25/09/2015 - 17:20

        This is for auto transmission?

    • chumlee on 25/09/2015 - 18:00

      They don't test it in real life driving as it would be difficult to have all cars tested in the same conditions (same road, same driver, same weather, same road condition, same tyres etc etc) so you can compare one car against another.

      As it's only to be used for comparison sake, the fuel efficiency test are done with an engine running in a factory on a belt.

  • vikingbrad on 25/09/2015 - 10:50
    +3

    Great name for the incident by the way.

    From what I've read the vehicle could detect when it was in lab conditions when all the drive wheels were turning and the others stationary. It would then change its engine setup to comply to the standards.

    In real world, with those settings, the car would perform badly so the software would disable the enviro settings to get better performance.

    Unbelievable that top level management did not know about the fraud.

    • rompastompa on 25/09/2015 - 11:47
      +1

      Great name for the incident by the way.

      You could take it with a kombination of definitions? I bet the Poloticians are angry about this. It's no longer beetleing the competition. Passat, do you like the puns? I'll stop golfing around…

  • scotty on 25/09/2015 - 10:56
    +2

    From a software engineer's point of view, no it's not a bug. It's a feature :) Maybe not malicious, but certainly deceptive.

    • Islund on 25/09/2015 - 11:41

      With the company in question - deception is a design IMO

      4 years back I purchased a Golf with a 1.4L engine and 7 speed dsg gearbox.

      After numerous issues with the gearbox I had to get a new gearbox within the 1st 6k and new piston rings in the engine not much later.

      They went out of their way to deny that there was a problem - ever!

      • Speckled Jim on 25/09/2015 - 12:41
        +1

        I'm disappointed for you, others in your position and a wee bit for myself.

        Reason being, I wanted a demo/near-new Skoda Rapid TDI as our next car. A manual would have been the pick as I'm from a time of such things.

        There's still the other advantages of diesel to consider, but then other makers (even Honda) have oil burners now. This event has put me off the VW group altogether.

        It will be interesting to see where this goes, as I'm sure others have fiddled the system. In the UK, it could be seen as the manufacturer being on the consumers side. After all, below a certain CO2/km value means the congestion surcharge is waived, plus road tax is (was?) lower.

      • [Deactivated] on 25/09/2015 - 14:09
        +1

        My 4 year old Golf has had 3 gearboxs a timing chain at 10k! and 2 partial engine rebuilds now the MFD speed is stuck at 34km ha ha see mr policeman I was not speeding.

    • frostman on 25/09/2015 - 11:41

      You'd think that smaller companies like Hyundai would engage in these childish tactics, not a giant name like VW.

      • SydStrand on 25/09/2015 - 14:44
        +2

        A company like Hyundai has to keep its nose clean because a scandal like this would destroy their brand, and they desperately need to build their reputation. I'm not surprised that it was an established car maker like VW who thought they could get away with this.

      • [Deactivated] on 25/09/2015 - 14:56
        +2

        They probably all do it. VW got caught.

        • SydStrand on 25/09/2015 - 20:48

          I wouldn't be surprised if more automakers get caught out. That said, the researchers who uncovered this scandal did their initial testing with a BMW, Passat and VW; and the BMW produced the expected emissions, so it's obviously not universal.

    • SydStrand on 25/09/2015 - 14:49

      Exactly. Every time someone releases a tool to quantify performance, someone else will find a way to juke the stats. It's like that time Samsung phones detected when users were running benchmarking software, so the phone would push out incredible numbers that weren't representative of normal usage.

    • [Deactivated] on 25/09/2015 - 14:56
      +1

      "benchmark cheat"

      • Samsung goes legit, stops cheating on benchmarks with …
      • HTC admits boosting One M8 benchmarks; makes it a feature
      • So This is How Allwinner A80 Cheats at Antutu Benchmark…
      • Nearly All Mobile Device Makers Cheat on Benchmarks …
      • Cheeper on 25/09/2015 - 15:25

        Power consumption figures shown on appliances are usually false.

    • Cheeper on 25/09/2015 - 15:29

      and admitted to be intentional too Scotty.
      It wont change the perspective for the potential purchaser unless they are an ultra greenie that lays awake at night calculating their own vehicles emission output. It is still a VW.

  • frostman on 25/09/2015 - 11:42

    Did they found out who or how this deception was identified?

  • ilikeradiohead on 25/09/2015 - 12:57

    The deception wasn't about CO2 emissions or MPG, it was about NOx emissions. In the USA the EPA does the tests, but they do them in a certain way which enables them to be gamed. In Europe, it's a joke, the car companies test themselves and do stuff like remove wing mirrors and seal cracks to reduce drag. Sauce.

    The entire thing is a joke though. The whole point of it is to better inform consumers, and all it does is deceive them. All the companies do it though, VW just used even less ethical means of deception than the others.

    I wonder how we test stuff here, being such a small market. Maybe we use UK results or something?

    • salbee28 on 25/09/2015 - 17:07
      +1

      According to this article, we don't do independent testing, just take the figures given by the manufacturers as correct.

      http://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/volkswagen-dies…

      “From the Australian point of view, we don’t know if the same situation applies here to VW or anyone else because we don’t do emissions testing in Australia to know whether the figures are representative,” said Jack Haley, vehicle engineering expert for the National Roads and Motorists Association.

      “We don’t even check the fuel consumption figures. That may be an issue for Fair Trading whether motorists are being mislead by the figures that are very difficult to replicate in normal driving.”

      Mr Haley said the government “just accepts the manufacturer’s figures” because Australia doesn’t have a laboratory that could handle the volume of vehicle emissions tests that would be required.

    • Speckled Jim on 25/09/2015 - 18:56

      If it runs ultra-clean and NOx is reduced, the other numbers would also improve. Thus disclosing my recent UK influence regarding CO2 & MPG being so heavily emphasised in the ads.
      Ironically, they don't mention Nitrogen.

  • Cheeper on 25/09/2015 - 13:02
    +1

    If you are looking at vehicle economy purely from the litres consumed point of view and nothing else you will always get a very distorted figure.
    The true cost of owning & operating a car is the amount of $'s that disappear from your pocket during the term of ownership.
    Depreciation alone can be 10 or 20 times what is saved on fuel expenditure per year, then when you add in insane servicing costs for some makes the picture becomes even gloomier.
    Looking at it with all relevant costs lined up some so called economy cars are not that at all.

  • elf888 on 25/09/2015 - 15:37

    are we able to get refund on my car due to the inappropriate advertised?

    • Flying Ace on 25/09/2015 - 15:45

      There are class actions about to get under way in the US

  • moo on 25/09/2015 - 17:33
    +2

    I'm hoping for some super cheap Tiguan or Amarok as a result of this whole fiasco. Let's face it, we all love a good bargain.

    • Speckled Jim on 25/09/2015 - 18:42

      New winner.

      Actually, if there's reliability concerns, is it a bargain? Might just keep the Hyundai a bit longer.

      • No on 25/09/2015 - 19:53

        What are the reliability concerns?

        • Speckled Jim on 26/09/2015 - 12:14

          ^^^ low mileage motor rebuilds or replacements?

          Hadn't come across that before.

  • [Deactivated] on 27/09/2015 - 18:00

    I bought one of those el cheapo SKODA hatches - you know - "never heard of 'em - wouldn't buy a cheap VW DSG knock off" everyone hated them

    • We loved it so much we bought another Fabia RS just like the first
    • never had a day's trouble on the road or on the track.

    A Polo GTi made in the Czech Republic to a higher standard and a lower price.
    Re-sale? Who cares. Never selling them.

    I've had 30 different cars in my life and these SKODA's are the quacker's crackers.

    My point? - This might be a big issue for VW but it's their second in five years. Ford, Holden, and Toyota have had over twenty. Each. Individuals may experience their own issues - but in the big picture Euro is simply better made.

    • Speckled Jim on 28/09/2015 - 10:14

      Thanks for the reassuring feedback, but I'm still not rushing in.

      This is despite reading glowing reviews for just about every recent Skoda (Fabia/Rapid/Octavia/Superb/Yeti) but DSG aside (cos manual for me) this event is a confidence-sapper.

      That is, unless the bargains start rolling in as a possible result of the fallout?

  • hashtagbargain on 15/10/2015 - 08:06

    Anyone have any affected cars? What are your thoughts? Have you spoken to the dealer? What are our options?

    I feel betrayed by the company who falsified claims for financial advantage. I also feel bad about driving something that pollutes so bad. I'm angered that the value of my car will dip significantly.

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