I just got finished reading about the news on the main page about the VW Scandal and it occured to me yet again…how silly this really is. VW is being crucified in my mind because they admitted to lying more than anything else. Something that should happen to Politicians more often if you ask me. But here we go…proceeding to rake a car company over the coals and perhaps even endanger their viability. All for what? Tailpipe emissions of a Diesel vehicle… Why dont we poll the US citizens about what that means to them. If they werent told it was “Bad” they’d never know or care.
The regulations of the EPA have become so politically and monetarily motivated that they have managed to make a Nature and Environmental conscious citizen like myself…look at their organization in a new light…a bad light. Now I’m all for clean Air and an Environment…who isn’t? But if you ask me…the government and big corps polluted the hell out of every facet of every environment they ever existed in…for decades. They Still do today…but now have another country do the “Dirty Work” for them. Now that some people and corps have already made their money…its time for them to start strangling other businesses OUT of business if you ask me.
Do we REALLY need to damage VW this badly over fudged numbers? Do you really think the number of VW diesels here in the US are going to pollute our environment into being unlivable…or even partially degraded? You think this is the first instance of fudged pollution numbers from a corporation ? Or even one that makes any kind of difference while some other countries spew Massive Metric Tons of pollution into the environment DAILY ? Countries that have US backing in business deals so they can profit while they do the polluting and we do nothing about it in the name of the “Environment”… Hate to break it to you…but if we are the “World Police” and we all share the “Environment”…does this make any sense at all?
Its all starting…or rather continuing to seem like one big corporate strong arm move…and or some political BS to make someone money by hurting the competition or eliminating it alltogether…Or insert whatever you like here…
Again…What do I know? I’m not political and probably cannot fathom the level of corruption even if it was printed out in front of me on Gods own notebook. But I think this is a harbinger of more bad things to come… and come from other strange unforeseen directions.
So. . VW got caught.
But what I wonder most is . . with the inception of all electronic system controls these days . . you’d think that perhaps ALL. . . yes ALL of the computers are probably tweeked to kick into a more efficient mode when triggered to a ‘‘test’’ mode.
They very nearly sold me one of their clean diesel wagons a few years ago. And not just ANY wagon, the actual white one with all of the flashy art wrap touting the clean diesel technology. It seriously meant something to me that the car got such great mileage & was clean technology. So for me it’s more about taking advantage of customers than the actual damage to the environment. If something puts them out of business it may be more because their own customers feel betrayed and lied to. We won’t be back to a VW dealership.
None of the backlash falls upon the customer tho… Or does it @ccatx ? I honestly dont know.
In all honesty…these VW Diesels perform well and get great mileage as well as live long long lives. Just because they dont meet some specific new EPA Diesel regulation on some particular particulate… Doesn’t mean they are bad vehicles or even big polluters, in fact they are far from it. They are fine vehicles…
We should be looking at the EPA a little harder about their ever tightening regulations…they are “Regulating” a lot of companies out of business…and yet on the other hand…the same govt that supports this branch…inflicts Horrific damage to the environment…either first, second or third hand.
Its getting a little silly to be honest. What do you think the Millions upon Millions of other Diesels are doing out there in the world ? The ones with absolutely Zero regard to emissions ? I think the damage inflicted on the Environment by these vehicles far far outweighs a new VW diesel in fact the new VW Diesel pollutant level is laughable compared to these old diesels out there. So its a few ticks off the new “regulations” recently set. What about the tens pr perhaps hundreds of millions worldwide that have zero regard for the environment? Since we are talking about the environment…which encompasses the Globe…not the USA.
If they want to go after any polluters…there are far better targets out there… No ?
In the absence of any real life actual tailpipe testing, anything is possible! Computer analog “testing” without direct government oversight begs for cheating and the VW results are no surprise!
Letting the current owners off the hook since an actual technical fix is not available is admitting that this is a RULE problem, not an actual environmental problem.
I remember is the past when the Canadian government introduced strict rules for shipboard discharge of sewage and grey water. Any ship in the port of Montreal had to discharge its tanks into a shore based sewer conduit.
The problem was that at that time the good city of Montreal dumped all of its sewage straight into the St. Lawrence River., so the ship’s bilge made a neat round trip through the Montreal sewers and straight into the river.
I don’t know who coined the term “The law is an ass”, but it happens more often than not.
What makes VW any worse than Honda, Mack, Volvo, and Navistar just to name a few others who have done the same thing.
I wonder how many car owners who think “Crucify VW…” as they motor around for eons with a Check Engine Light on or as they dump some illegal substance down the drain at their home…
The municipal governments in my area alone have intentionally and illegally created more pollution than VW could ever even think of.
True… I seem to be on the fence between the Laws that are Girded Too Tight…and you @MikeInNH
A big part of me feels like we are on a Down Hill Toboggan Ride straight toward a time where the laws are becoming such that we will all be criminals one day.
How often do you get to use Toboggan in a sentence tho…couldn’t pass it up…
My own belief is that if you look hard enough, 95% of the population is already guilty of some innocuous crime. Then even the truly innocent can end up in the slammer for being in the wrong place at the wrong time if they don’t have the $20,000 to pay a lawyer. That’s why I’m ready for a hard hard U turn before it’s too late, or at least a good J turn. A little off topic. And no, I’ve never been arrested or detained and belong to the Sheriff’s Association but believe in fairness and freedom.
Nope, we’re all in this together and laws need to be respected but there are always groups that use laws to socialize, indoctrinate, or compel their particular views on others-inappropriately.
I was never convicted of a felony either (convicted being the operative word). They knew the rules, they cheated, got caught and busted. If you want to roll the dice be prepared to pay the price. Not saying a little more pollution here or there is the end of the world, but they knew the rules.
And these VWs are gross polluters as far as NOx is concerned. 40X the standard, which is higher for diesel than gas engines to begin with. No minor infraction here. VW could have cleaned them up, put in the Adblue system, VW chose to cheap out. Now they are facing the consequences.
They’ve been testing other vehicles, haven’t found this kind of problem elsewhere. They are finding that there’s a loophole in the regs regarding cold weather operation, sounds like it’ll be addressed.
