Wapsi Square Forum

Ow ow ow.

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Also:
 
Volkswagen Offering Payments to U.S. Dealers in the Wake of Diesel Emissions Scandal

and

Department of Justice Reportedly Opening Criminal Investigation into Volkswagen Over Diesel Snafu

also and:

How Volkswagen Got Busted for Skirting EPA Diesel Emissions Standards

Software. It was the software.

I'm thinking of not buying any car made in the last 10 years - ever.

jwhouk wrote:Software. It was the software.

Yes, it was. The irony is, from what I heard on the radio, that an NGO had wanted to do a study to prove just how clean the VW diesels were, and that's when they discovered the fraud...

Mark 4:22 wrote:For there is nothing hid, which shall not be manifested; neither was any thing kept secret, but that it should come abroad.

Numbers 32:23b wrote:you may be sure that your sin will find you out.

jwhouk wrote:I'm thinking of not buying any car made in the last 10 years - ever.

I'm way ahead of you: my Suburban is a 1991...

The leagle beagle issue, it turns out, is the emission test law reads "when tested" and doesn't specify standards about other times. So, they've got an regular setting, a performance setting, and a Testing setting.

How many other cars out there have an ability to change performance settings, and how many of those alternates pass the emission tests? The "intent of the law" vs the "letter of the law" issue is always dangerous territory. That's how we got some recent Supreme Court decisions, sadly.

• "He's been stabbed in the back, he's been misunderstood
  It's a comfort to know his intentions are good..."

What IS it with VW and this fetish about poisoning customers with the exhaust system? It's like they just can't help themselves!

...Did this thread just get Godwin'ed?

jwhouk wrote:...Did this thread just get Godwin'ed?

NEIN! NEIN! NEIN!

Er, I mean no.

jwhouk wrote:...Did this thread just get Godwin'ed?

Nah. The early heater design on the Bug pulled air through a jacket around the exhaust system.

If you had even a slight exhaust leak, the carbon monoxide it would pick up could easily kill you.

AnotherFairportfan wrote:

jwhouk wrote:...Did this thread just get Godwin'ed?

Nah. The early heater design on the Bug pulled air through a jacket around the exhaust system.

If you had even a slight exhaust leak, the carbon monoxide it would pick up could easily kill you.

And the heater controls tended not to work well, if they were even still connected by the time you bought the car, so a lot of people just wired the outlet gates open in the fall and ran the heat full blast till May.

Some of the microbuses had an auxiliary heater that was basically a gasoline-burning furnace. That thing got the car nice and warm, but it just about doubled the fuel consumption. And it was a lit furnace riding down the highway. (In fairness, Ford used similar heaters in the 1960s Econoline vans.)

My 1964 Corvair used air cooled engine block air for heat, so you got to smell the engine. And, if you had a oil leak anywhere, you eventually had a blue windshield if you used the defroster!