diesel, are we being conned?
Discussion
Every time I take a walk up to town to buy a paper, I find myself gagging at the acrid smell thrown out of the exhausts of the many diesel cars that blast past me, inches from the pavement and this includes the ones with DPFs. Even without smoke you always get a really unpleasant odour from the tail pipe of any diesel and you just don't get it from a well maintained modern petrol car, and before anyone says it, yes I know petrol cars emit bad stuff too! I know diesel is good on Co2, but I just cant believe anything that emits stuff that foul smelling can be anything other than bad for you. This is not to mention all the older TDIs that seem to get smokier with age. So Im wondering, are we being conned, I mean in 10 years or so, are we going to suddenly get some health scare thing with diesel like we had with mad cows disease all those years ago? And what happened to bio diesel? That seems to have died a death. As good as modern TDIs are to drive, Im really hoping that hydrogen or something else can be introduced soon to make DERV history.
rb5er said:
McSam said:
government (slash EU) legislation focusing on entirely the wrong sort of emissions.
Exactly, like co2 is the big problem. Why would they think that? £££££££?Admittedly, in recent years the legislation is much stricter on hydrocarbon, CO and NOx emissions as well, but I do agree that the impression of a diesel being "cleaner" than an equally advanced petrol is ludicrous. The slightly misleading focus on CO2 as being the emissions just makes it appear that way.
Bezza1969 said:
Every time I take a walk up to town to buy a paper, I find myself gagging at the acrid smell thrown out of the exhausts of the many diesel cars that blast past me, inches from the pavement and this includes the ones with DPFs. Even without smoke you always get a really unpleasant odour from the tail pipe of any diesel and you just don't get it from a well maintained modern petrol car, and before anyone says it, yes I know petrol cars emit bad stuff too! I know diesel is good on Co2, but I just cant believe anything that emits stuff that foul smelling can be anything other than bad for you. This is not to mention all the older TDIs that seem to get smokier with age. So Im wondering, are we being conned, I mean in 10 years or so, are we going to suddenly get some health scare thing with diesel like we had with mad cows disease all those years ago? And what happened to bio diesel? That seems to have died a death. As good as modern TDIs are to drive, Im really hoping that hydrogen or something else can be introduced soon to make DERV history.
You're simply concluding that one type of pollution must be bad because you can smell it and the other must be less bad because you can't.What's your viewpoint on radiation and/or carbon monoxide?
We have been conned imo. In reality, when everything has been taken into account, especially historically, petrols are massively more harmful than diesels even if they smell nicer.
Things may have changed in the very recent year or three, but over the past 100 years or so petrols have used benzene and tetra-ethyl lead both of which are very harmful indeed to humans.
heebeegeetee said:
We have been conned imo. In reality, when everything has been taken into account, especially historically, petrols are massively more harmful than diesels even if they smell nicer.
Things may have changed in the very recent year or three, but over the past 100 years or so petrols have used benzene and tetra-ethyl lead both of which are very harmful indeed to humans.
And in years gone by diesels flung all manner of carcinogenic particulates around in clouds of black smoke. I don't see the past as being terribly relevant - had diesel engines been commercially successful in the 50s and 60s their design would have taken just as carefree an attitude to emissions as petrols of the time. That's how things were back then. Not relevant now, though, and you certainly can't blame the fuel that happened to be popular for the way society was..Things may have changed in the very recent year or three, but over the past 100 years or so petrols have used benzene and tetra-ethyl lead both of which are very harmful indeed to humans.
I do displike the smell most of the time, especially of modern diesels, think it stems from cycling as a lot of diesel drivers love to hoof it path leaving you in a cloud of the icky stinks with a whistle of turbo though a big truck can be welcome on a cold day as if it goes past you get a nice tow in warm diesely air.
The best engine smell is freshly b
ked old school petrol, very evocative as modern ones dont really smell of anything, I remember goign to the car auctions as a kid being slowly gassed by the old bangers so when I smell it now it takes me back and remind me where a few IQ points were lost
The best engine smell is freshly b
ked old school petrol, very evocative as modern ones dont really smell of anything, I remember goign to the car auctions as a kid being slowly gassed by the old bangers so when I smell it now it takes me back and remind me where a few IQ points were lostMcSam said:
nd in years gone by diesels flung all manner of carcinogenic particulates around in clouds of black smoke. I don't see the past as being terribly relevant - had diesel engines been commercially successful in the 50s and 60s their design would have taken just as carefree an attitude to emissions as petrols of the time. That's how things were back then. Not relevant now, though, and you certainly can't blame the fuel that happened to be popular for the way society was..
It's taken about 90 years to decide that diesel particulates are carcinogenic. I don't know what took so long or why it was so hard to discover, but it suggests to me that derv particulates can't be very carcinogenic.There's never been any doubt about the harm that petrol engines do. When it was decided to use TEL back (I think) in the 1920's it was known that it damaged the brains of children. Benzene has always been known to be highly carcinogenic, with no known safe level of use.
As you say, we weren't worried then so why worry now about something that has taken 90 years of very hard study to decide is carcinogenic. I know I'm not.
The real point of my post was that saying how harmful petrol engines were decades ago isn't very relevant, because they simply weren't encouraged to stop being so, and society wasn't that bothered. Diesel engines would have been no different were they popular back then too.
I'm definitely not interested in the carcinogenic-or-not debate, but it is quite plain - look at any proper emissions analysis - that a modern petrol is, in many many regards, "cleaner" than a modern diesel.
I'm definitely not interested in the carcinogenic-or-not debate, but it is quite plain - look at any proper emissions analysis - that a modern petrol is, in many many regards, "cleaner" than a modern diesel.
McSam said:
The real point of my post was that saying how harmful petrol engines were decades ago isn't very relevant, because they simply weren't encouraged to stop being so, and society wasn't that bothered. Diesel engines would have been no different were they popular back then too.
I'm definitely not interested in the carcinogenic-or-not debate, but it is quite plain - look at any proper emissions analysis - that a modern petrol is, in many many regards, "cleaner" than a modern diesel.
Diesels were in use, in commercial vehicles, and they've never had TEL or benzene added to them.I'm definitely not interested in the carcinogenic-or-not debate, but it is quite plain - look at any proper emissions analysis - that a modern petrol is, in many many regards, "cleaner" than a modern diesel.
I think you're completely wrong in your last statement. If you take all into account, evaporation emissions when fueling petrol cars, benzene emissions from filling stations, petrol cars needing more journeys to filling stations, more journeys by delivery vehicles to supply petrol as opposed to diesel, petrols being far dirtier when cold etc.
Bezza1969 said:
Every time I take a walk up to town to buy a paper, I find myself gagging at the acrid smell thrown out of the exhausts of the many diesel cars that blast past me, inches from the pavement and this includes the ones with DPFs. Even without smoke you always get a really unpleasant odour from the tail pipe of any diesel and you just don't get it from a well maintained modern petrol car, and before anyone says it, yes I know petrol cars emit bad stuff too! I know diesel is good on Co2, but I just cant believe anything that emits stuff that foul smelling can be anything other than bad for you. This is not to mention all the older TDIs that seem to get smokier with age. So Im wondering, are we being conned, I mean in 10 years or so, are we going to suddenly get some health scare thing with diesel like we had with mad cows disease all those years ago? And what happened to bio diesel? That seems to have died a death. As ste as modern TDIs are to drive, Im really hoping that hydrogen or something else can be introduced soon to make DERV history.
Sorted that for you.te as modern TDIs are to drive, Im really hoping that hydrogen or something else can be introduced soon to make DERV history.TX.
Bezza1969 said:
This is not to mention all the older TDIs that seem to get smokier with age.
Some of that is down to people not maintaining them properly. VAG diesels are especially prone I've noticed. How many people would take the inlet manifold off and clean it out together with the EGR valve plus all pipework? Not many I reckon. And some of the people who buy diesels will be misers who won't drive them hard, making the problem worse.Gassing Station | General Gassing | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff