Diesel hate? ..wtf?
Discussion
The basic problem is that the NEDC emissions testing cycle was so far off the reality of how the things were used that manufacturers - even without VW-style cheating - could optimise the performance in-cycle to hit the tighter and tighter emissions limits and then do what the hell they liked outside those parameters to ensure that people bought them. So under the gentle accelerations of the test cycle all is fine, when Johnny Salesrep clogs it between the speed cameras, not so much.
The new WLTP and RDE tests will provide a level playing field for technologies to optimise emissions in more realistic scenarios - hopefully we will see engine technology develop to give us the performance and efficiency we want without screwing up the air quality.
The new WLTP and RDE tests will provide a level playing field for technologies to optimise emissions in more realistic scenarios - hopefully we will see engine technology develop to give us the performance and efficiency we want without screwing up the air quality.
RobDickinson said:
Exige77 said:
Where’s all the electrickery going to come from for all these EV’s ? Sure we can make the Cars/trucks/buses, even the dumper trucks, but how to power them ? It’s not a quick fix
The national grid dont seem worried.Ive always had a hate for diesels, and knew the government was wrongly advised.
Its a scandal they pushed the scrappage scheme so people all bought them.
They have never been clean or quiet.
I enjoyed the tweeked versions I have had when I did the miles, but the engines are really a constant speed engine suitable for generators, and ships.
They have a very narrow power band.
The government allowing these things to avoid tax while taxing petrols highly on the basis of CO2 alone is disgusting.
Its a scandal they pushed the scrappage scheme so people all bought them.
They have never been clean or quiet.
I enjoyed the tweeked versions I have had when I did the miles, but the engines are really a constant speed engine suitable for generators, and ships.
They have a very narrow power band.
The government allowing these things to avoid tax while taxing petrols highly on the basis of CO2 alone is disgusting.
Mr2Mike said:
steveL98 said:
I was a petrol fan always until I borrowed an Octavia tdi. The torque, smoothness, flexibility in slow traffic, excellent drive on twisty roads and 65mpg, made me a believer in the diesel for a commuter and tourer. As a motorist, what's not to like?
The harshness, the noise, the smoke (from the pre-DPF engines at least), the all or nothing power delivery, the disgusting filler nozzles that mean you have to wear gloves to refuel. Probably a few more as well.Mine is a Octavia and my daughters is a Fabia. both 2003 and subject to commuting here in SW Scotland and regular trips to Bognor Regis. There's no harshness, no undue noise, smooth and flexible power delivery (both are great overtakers on B roads). Never had a problem filling one. My Octavia at the speed limits (A713, A75, M6, M42, M40, A34, A27 etc.), will use 3/4 of a tank (£60) from Ayrshire to Bognor and is used for regular camping trips.
I understand the 'all or nothing' comment as its the way diesels were 20 odd years ago when I borrowed a Citroen BX and was put off diesels for years, but that's not the case these days. As for smoke, I wish it did smoke a bit and spew some carbon as my turbo is getting a bit carboned up and occasionally going into 'limp home' mode (easy fixed by turning off and on). Ive tried additives and flooring it for mile in low gears, but only the long motorway trips seem to sort that out.
Twice when she got the Fabia, daughter tanked up with unleaded, and after filling to the neck with more diesel, we ran the car for miles and kept it topped up until it was back to diesel again, never to suffer.
steveL98 said:
I was a petrol fan always until I borrowed an Octavia tdi. The torque, smoothness, flexibility in slow traffic, excellent drive on twisty roads and 65mpg, made me a believer in the diesel for a commuter and tourer. As a motorist, what's not to like?
Narrow rev range, boost threshold lag, noise, vibration, weight, smell, reliability, nasty to refuel. Regular adblue refilling for latest ones. I have yet to drive one that I "liked" let alone would want, although I freely acknowledge that I've only driven 2l diesels with a manual gearbox and a big 3l twin turbo diesel with an autobox would undoubtedly be much better.
Exige77 said:
RobDickinson said:
Exige77 said:
Where’s all the electrickery going to come from for all these EV’s ? Sure we can make the Cars/trucks/buses, even the dumper trucks, but how to power them ? It’s not a quick fix
The national grid dont seem worried.If you want to keep driving an IC vehicle, better get one now with a historic ticket before the demand and prices go through the roof. I forsee a future govt enforced scrappage scheme for current vehicles, possibly after they're ten years old..
The times they are a-changing.
Here’s my view on Diesel hate, it’s easy to make a very large portion of the driving population look bad and rubbish the previous reasons for going diesel, and it is political. Funny that when the use of Diesel surges and the demand for petrol dwindles there is a sudden political drive to go back to petrol or EV.
I deliberately bought an EU6 car and yes it’s a Diesel. I lessened my environmental impact by buying pre-owned and I can afford new.
As some people on here have pointed out the level of pollution produced by shipping outstrips all other forms of ICE engines and planes by a frightening margin. Two stroke diesels that generate massive pollution often in environmentally sensitive areas, why not focus on the problem as a whole?
I deliberately bought an EU6 car and yes it’s a Diesel. I lessened my environmental impact by buying pre-owned and I can afford new.
As some people on here have pointed out the level of pollution produced by shipping outstrips all other forms of ICE engines and planes by a frightening margin. Two stroke diesels that generate massive pollution often in environmentally sensitive areas, why not focus on the problem as a whole?
GT119 said:
daemon said:
GT119 said:
Diesel is the motoring equivalent of SPAM
That doesnt even remotely make sense.There is nothing wrong with diesel as a fuel, however when a mix of bug business and politics influence peoples buying habits then we end up with the mess we are in now.
If we take a trip down memory lane to when the shift towards diesel for the average family car started, the typical family saloon was a vectra/mondeo/passat with many on company car schemes. Company car tax was based purchase price and the majority of family sized cars were probably 2.0l petrols with around 150bhp and around 9sec 0-60 time. At the time I was fortunate enough to run a 2.5v6 company car and was happy(ish) with sub 30mpg.
Around this time common rail (and for VW PD) technology was making its way into the normal car with BHP for diesel getting over 100 and performance becoming more respectable. Fuel prices were rising and for people doing above average miles the diesel was a sensible alternative. This also coincided with more concern over global warming and CO2 suddenly becoming classed as a pollutant. Going further back in time the issues had been acid rain and reducing sulphur etc from fuels.
This gave the government an opportunity to be seen to be doing something for the environment and probably raising some more cash by tweaking first the company car tax rates and then VED to be based on CO2 emissions. At the time when my lease was up I replaced the v6 with a much slower 2l diesel. At this time there was no DPF to worry about and the diesel engines had got better so typically now around 120-150bhp from a 2l, they were still considered reliable workhorses, more efficient than the petrol equivalent and now about on a par in terms of performance.
Everyone knew that diesels emitted particulates that were bad for our health, buses and taxis had been doing so for years, but whilst the bulk of diesel cars were owned by high milers going up and down the m/way the emissions got quickly dispersed and cities didn't get any worse.
Couple a tiered VED system that looked at 1 thing only CO2 (directly linked to fuel efficiency) and increasing prices at the pump with ever improving performance and crazy mpg claims (thanks to NEDC) for diesel then it is no surprise there was a rush to replace your petrol with a shiny new diesel. If you set a target for the manufactures which the VED bands essentially are then it is inevitable that they will find the easiest way to achieve it, i.e. tune the car to perform well in the test, no one cares what happens after.
Now with everyone used to the way diesel delvers power, better mpg than they used to get (though no where near the claims), society realises that this increase in diesel (combined with a general increase in traffic) is causing health issues in our cities. Non one is going to suddenly give up the power and economy and low tax they have just got used to so we try and fix the diesel with ever more complex add ons, DPF's etc. These work well when the diesel is used in the environment it is best suited, good long runs at steady rpm etc not around town on short start stop runs. Now we have people who bought a diesel because of the tax and promised economy who find it breaks because of all the bolt on emission stuff. Can you blame them when the easiest most robust cost effective option is a dpf removal and egr delete.
Manufacturers have found they can apply the technologies developed for diesel to petrol and we have GDI engines. This is probably the first big advancement in petrol engine technology for some time and we can get near diesel economy from petrol, but they sound like a diesel at idle and it would seem start to suffer some of the same fine particulate and NOx issues.
Ultimately the average driver doesn't care about how many grams of co2 the car emits, what they care about is how much at the pump. LPG burns much cleaner than petrol or diesel but you lose say 5-10% economy. Due to price this is more than compensated at the pump, however it would never be a favoured solution by government due to overall increase CO2 emission. With government support 10-15 years ago it could have been part of the solution but I would say that boat has sailed. The future is, short term, IC engines with lots of add-on gubbins to try and keep the exhaust emissions cleaner ( likely reduced reliability) and the continued swing to EV.
As for diesel engines being refined, yes a big 6-8 pot in a rangie or exec saloon once on the move they are. 4 pots in the everyday hatchback, they are alot better than they were but when you jump from a diesel straight into the petrol equivalent (particularly if not GDI) the difference is immediately evident.
I strongly believe that buses and taxis etc should have been targeted first, a vehicle that stops every few yards must be ideal for regenerative braking but telling stagecoach to swap their fleet in a short timeframe would not go down well, nudging the general public who these days seem to favour a few year lease deal is a much easier target.
If we take a trip down memory lane to when the shift towards diesel for the average family car started, the typical family saloon was a vectra/mondeo/passat with many on company car schemes. Company car tax was based purchase price and the majority of family sized cars were probably 2.0l petrols with around 150bhp and around 9sec 0-60 time. At the time I was fortunate enough to run a 2.5v6 company car and was happy(ish) with sub 30mpg.
Around this time common rail (and for VW PD) technology was making its way into the normal car with BHP for diesel getting over 100 and performance becoming more respectable. Fuel prices were rising and for people doing above average miles the diesel was a sensible alternative. This also coincided with more concern over global warming and CO2 suddenly becoming classed as a pollutant. Going further back in time the issues had been acid rain and reducing sulphur etc from fuels.
This gave the government an opportunity to be seen to be doing something for the environment and probably raising some more cash by tweaking first the company car tax rates and then VED to be based on CO2 emissions. At the time when my lease was up I replaced the v6 with a much slower 2l diesel. At this time there was no DPF to worry about and the diesel engines had got better so typically now around 120-150bhp from a 2l, they were still considered reliable workhorses, more efficient than the petrol equivalent and now about on a par in terms of performance.
Everyone knew that diesels emitted particulates that were bad for our health, buses and taxis had been doing so for years, but whilst the bulk of diesel cars were owned by high milers going up and down the m/way the emissions got quickly dispersed and cities didn't get any worse.
Couple a tiered VED system that looked at 1 thing only CO2 (directly linked to fuel efficiency) and increasing prices at the pump with ever improving performance and crazy mpg claims (thanks to NEDC) for diesel then it is no surprise there was a rush to replace your petrol with a shiny new diesel. If you set a target for the manufactures which the VED bands essentially are then it is inevitable that they will find the easiest way to achieve it, i.e. tune the car to perform well in the test, no one cares what happens after.
Now with everyone used to the way diesel delvers power, better mpg than they used to get (though no where near the claims), society realises that this increase in diesel (combined with a general increase in traffic) is causing health issues in our cities. Non one is going to suddenly give up the power and economy and low tax they have just got used to so we try and fix the diesel with ever more complex add ons, DPF's etc. These work well when the diesel is used in the environment it is best suited, good long runs at steady rpm etc not around town on short start stop runs. Now we have people who bought a diesel because of the tax and promised economy who find it breaks because of all the bolt on emission stuff. Can you blame them when the easiest most robust cost effective option is a dpf removal and egr delete.
Manufacturers have found they can apply the technologies developed for diesel to petrol and we have GDI engines. This is probably the first big advancement in petrol engine technology for some time and we can get near diesel economy from petrol, but they sound like a diesel at idle and it would seem start to suffer some of the same fine particulate and NOx issues.
Ultimately the average driver doesn't care about how many grams of co2 the car emits, what they care about is how much at the pump. LPG burns much cleaner than petrol or diesel but you lose say 5-10% economy. Due to price this is more than compensated at the pump, however it would never be a favoured solution by government due to overall increase CO2 emission. With government support 10-15 years ago it could have been part of the solution but I would say that boat has sailed. The future is, short term, IC engines with lots of add-on gubbins to try and keep the exhaust emissions cleaner ( likely reduced reliability) and the continued swing to EV.
As for diesel engines being refined, yes a big 6-8 pot in a rangie or exec saloon once on the move they are. 4 pots in the everyday hatchback, they are alot better than they were but when you jump from a diesel straight into the petrol equivalent (particularly if not GDI) the difference is immediately evident.
I strongly believe that buses and taxis etc should have been targeted first, a vehicle that stops every few yards must be ideal for regenerative braking but telling stagecoach to swap their fleet in a short timeframe would not go down well, nudging the general public who these days seem to favour a few year lease deal is a much easier target.
GT119 said:
daemon said:
GT119 said:
Diesel is the motoring equivalent of SPAM
That doesnt even remotely make sense.
Edited by GT119 on Friday 27th April 11:49
All motoring is bad for health, all motoring is generally quite nasty and kills millions a year. The only food analogy that I think works is the production of meat might have the same effect on the planet as motoring does.
Fastdruid said:
steveL98 said:
I was a petrol fan always until I borrowed an Octavia tdi. The torque, smoothness, flexibility in slow traffic, excellent drive on twisty roads and 65mpg, made me a believer in the diesel for a commuter and tourer. As a motorist, what's not to like?
Narrow rev range, boost threshold lag, noise, vibration, weight, smell, reliability, nasty to refuel. Regular adblue refilling for latest ones. Adblue would be a faff, but it's worth bearing in mind that at least the additives for diesel are benign and safe to handle. The additives which petrol has required since about 1920 have been and are extremely dangerous and would never be allowed to be handled by the public.
AC43 said:
What an odd thing to post on an enthusiasts' site.
Sound is a massive part of the experience for me.
It's been a huge factor in the purchase in all of my cars.
A bad engine ruins the entire car as far as I'm concerned.
Indeed.Sound is a massive part of the experience for me.
It's been a huge factor in the purchase in all of my cars.
A bad engine ruins the entire car as far as I'm concerned.
Is the reason why I have a quiet cry to myself when I see 430d and E350d convertibles and the like. Engine noise is a big part of the roof down experience.
And then you lower the roof on your crappy diesel and you're met with the rattly sounds of a taxi.
Brett748 said:
I love my F30 330d, the engine is fantastic.
I wouldn't want a diesel engine in my Triumph but for a motorway saloon a big six cylinder diesel is awesome.
It's all about the application.
Completely agree with this. I wouldn't want a diesel engine in my Triumph but for a motorway saloon a big six cylinder diesel is awesome.
It's all about the application.
Hating a fuel makes no sense. Drive the car and judge the end product. I've thoroughly enjoyed every x30d/35d BMW I've driven. Terrific performance, especially with an autobox.
thiscocks said:
Because thick people believe the government
and the thick government believe politically-motivated scientists. 
Let's not forget that the number of deaths caused by polluted air is essentially a made up number.
BBC - Reality Check: Does pollution cut short 40,000 lives a year?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-3912...
457892345 said:
For the emissions side of cars and how much they pollute it wouldn't impact my decision on what fuel type i choose personally but accept whatever the people in the knows findings are, if diesels are made completely uneconomical due to the subsequent taxation i would obviously switch to petrol.
Really where i don't understand diesel hate at all is in terms of usability. Firstly any petrol Ive been in is far noisier than my diesel when on the move, at idle i can't hear it over low volume radio but if i completely turn it off the familiar minibus chugging is present but certainly not intrusive, never bothered me in the slightest and a petrol engine would likely be just as intrusive albeit a different sound and there is no shaking or vibration to be felt either, When stepped on i much prefer the sophisticated, almost subdued sound of it revving up, just enough to give you a sense of speed but not enough that you start feeling anti social, I can appreciate the tone of an exhaust but the loudness of a big engined petrol detracts from the experience rather than adds anything imo.
In terms of acceleration and speed i feel a 6.5sec 0-60mph diesel ''feels'' faster and better than a 6.5sec 0-60 petrol off the line and the way it makes its power so effortlessly and smoothly its lovely around the bends and when paired with 55 profile tyres and a smooth road gives a sensation of flowing like your on a magic carpet, compared to the way power climbs then falls then climbs again in a comparable petrol.
While i understand everyones different and has their own viewpoint i can't help but think the people that ''hate'' diesels just haven't driven the right one.
Let me some up why some people "hate" diesels:Really where i don't understand diesel hate at all is in terms of usability. Firstly any petrol Ive been in is far noisier than my diesel when on the move, at idle i can't hear it over low volume radio but if i completely turn it off the familiar minibus chugging is present but certainly not intrusive, never bothered me in the slightest and a petrol engine would likely be just as intrusive albeit a different sound and there is no shaking or vibration to be felt either, When stepped on i much prefer the sophisticated, almost subdued sound of it revving up, just enough to give you a sense of speed but not enough that you start feeling anti social, I can appreciate the tone of an exhaust but the loudness of a big engined petrol detracts from the experience rather than adds anything imo.
In terms of acceleration and speed i feel a 6.5sec 0-60mph diesel ''feels'' faster and better than a 6.5sec 0-60 petrol off the line and the way it makes its power so effortlessly and smoothly its lovely around the bends and when paired with 55 profile tyres and a smooth road gives a sensation of flowing like your on a magic carpet, compared to the way power climbs then falls then climbs again in a comparable petrol.
While i understand everyones different and has their own viewpoint i can't help but think the people that ''hate'' diesels just haven't driven the right one.
Edited by 457892345 on Thursday 26th April 20:47
1) A lot of diesel engines sound like a petrol engine with a knackered bottom end. As a result, whilst a petrol engine can be said to "sing" at high revs, many diesel engines rattle and cannot achieve the audibly pleasing higher notes that a petrol engined car can.
2) The steadily building power delivery of a big engined N/A is exhilarating, there's something about holding on as the power builds through the rev range. A turbo-charged diesel engine is the exact opposite, you get a short sharp slug of torque which quickly dies off before you have to change gear and repeat.
3) Many older diesels dump black soot out the back at regular intervals, which is not visually pleasing.
For me, those are three of the main reasons why petrolheads tend to prefer petrol engined cars, but it's all subjective. Many petrolheads prefer larger capacity naturally aspirated V8, V10 and V12 engines over smaller turbocharged engines, despite the latter having many advantages.
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