E-PTO and regens while working

[troverman]

The point in that VW story, I believe, is that VW cheated and lied.... and cheaters/liars should be called-out regardless of any “benefit” they claim. (BTW, the “benefit” claimed was mostly large profits into their own coffers. The fines/penalties deprived them the profit from their cheating.). Seems fair to me.

VW never actually "lied." The government simply said cars will be tested to see if they meet minimum federal emissions standards. VW figured out a way around that. It would be one thing if the consumer was really being cheated or harmed. In this case, they totally were not. They got a vehicle that drove well and achieved excellent fuel economy. The environment in the US also benefited. The EPA was embarrassed and decided to use the opportunity to punish and advance a different agenda. Nobody bought a TDI because they were so pleased at how low NOx emissions were. Nobody even knew what NOx was prior to this debacle. People bought the TDI because of its excellent fuel economy, and unlike a Prius actually looked nice and drove nice. Nobody was cheated, and anyone who though pulling the TDIs off the road was to protect the US environment is a fool.

There are literally tens of thousands of older diesel vehicles still on the road, from pickups all the way up to 18 wheelers. The kid next door who uses a 20 year old Ford F-250 with a 7.3L diesel Powerstroke to run his lawn mowing business emits more NOx is a year than a TDI will emit in 10 years. But of course, the old pickup is perfectly legal. People need to think for themselves and stop letting the government pull the wool over their eyes.

 

[GeoHorn]

VW never actually "lied." The government simply said cars will be tested to see if they meet minimum federal emissions standards. VW figured out a way around that. It would be one thing if the consumer was really being cheated or harmed. In this case, they totally were not. They got a vehicle that drove well and achieved excellent fuel economy. The environment in the US also benefited. The EPA was embarrassed and decided to use the opportunity to punish and advance a different agenda. Nobody bought a TDI because they were so pleased at how low NOx emissions were. Nobody even knew what NOx was prior to this debacle. People bought the TDI because of its excellent fuel economy, and unlike a Prius actually looked nice and drove nice. Nobody was cheated, and anyone who though pulling the TDIs off the road was to protect the US environment is a fool.

There are literally tens of thousands of older diesel vehicles still on the road, from pickups all the way up to 18 wheelers. The kid next door who uses a 20 year old Ford F-250 with a 7.3L diesel Powerstroke to run his lawn mowing business emits more NOx is a year than a TDI will emit in 10 years. But of course, the old pickup is perfectly legal. People need to think for themselves and stop letting the government pull the wool over their eyes.

No, VW Lied.

“The EPA agency had found that Volkswagen had intentionally programmed turbocharged direct injection (TDI) diesel engines to activate their emissions controls only during laboratory emissions testing, which caused the vehicles' NOX output to meet US standards during regulatory testing, while they emitted up to 40 times more NOX in real-world driving.”

'It Was Installed For This Purpose,' VW's U.S. CEO Tells Congress About Defeat Device

Michael Horn testified on the same day German prosecutors raided VW offices at its headquarters in Wolfsburg, seizing documents and records as they investigate the emissions scandal.

www.npr.org

 

[troverman]

No, VW Lied.

“The EPA agency had found that Volkswagen had intentionally programmed turbocharged direct injection (TDI) diesel engines to activate their emissions controls only during laboratory emissions testing, which caused the vehicles' NOX output to meet US standards during regulatory testing, while they emitted up to 40 times more NOX in real-world driving.”

The VW cars passed the test, and that was the standard that needed to be met. There was no language regarding test mode vs real world. I call it a clever work around, to make a diesel vehicle be viable to sell at reasonable prices. Ever wonder why a diesel pickup costs $10k more than the same truck with a gas engine? It's the DPF, EGR, SCR, systems. The TDI cars had the DPF, which prevented the soot. They did not have the SCR / DEF system, which lowers NOx emissions. An SCR system is very expensive, because it requires a heated DEF tank, heated pump, heated lines, a dosing module injector, and a pre / post NOx sensor. (Kubota tractors over 74HP must have this too now). There are ways to lower NOx without SCR, such as introducing large amounts of EGR back into the engine cylinders, or by increasing the richness of the mixture by using more fuel. Neither method is beneficial to the performance or longevity of the engine. I'm sure VW was using one or both of these strategies during test mode, then ran the engine hotter and leaner during normal road mode. 40x the legal amount of NOx sounds pretty bad, but as I mentioned, it is still well less than older diesel vehicles.

 

[GeoHorn]

It passed the Test...because they CHEATED AND LIED.

It did not meet the standards they CLAIMED it met.

 

[SDT]

I agree, but agencies like CARB and the EPA still need to justify their existence and requisite large budgets....

Bingo.

SDT

 

[SDT]

Maybe other Kubota tractors are different, but the two I've had with a DPF (an MX and a Grand L) don't match your times. Mine need to regenerate far more frequently than every 50 hours, and a regen lasts 20+ minutes for me, not 10. Furthermore, my older L4310 from 20 years ago, with a 4-cylinder engine, was definitely more efficient.

Bingo.

So do mine.

My M9960, L6060 and B3350 all regen much more frequently than every 50 hours, regardless of the work being done.

SDT

 

[troverman]

It passed the Test...because they CHEATED AND LIED.

It did not meet the standards they CLAIMED it met.

Well, we aren't going to agree on the technicality here. That's fine. The end result of the EPA's actions resulted in harming the environment more than if they left the situation alone. Which causes me to question the EPA's raison d'etre...

 

[GeoHorn]

Well, we aren't going to agree on the technicality here. That's fine. The end result of the EPA's actions resulted in harming the environment more than if they left the situation alone. Which causes me to question the EPA's raison d'etre...

How did that hurt the environment? It removed the offending vehicles from service and/or repaired them in a recall. (The U.S. solution did not apply to European vehicles...so no action was taken in that case by EPA, therefore NO CHANGE occurred...)... therefore no further harm was inflicted.

IN short, the EPA enforcement action against VW did NO harm to the environment.

It doesn’t matter how one might “feel” about EPA regs as far as this event goes.... It’s a matter of public record that VW violated the intent and publicly admitted it.

 

[troverman]

How did that hurt the environment? It removed the offending vehicles from service and/or repaired them in a recall. (The U.S. solution did not apply to European vehicles...so no action was taken in that case by EPA, therefore NO CHANGE occurred...)... therefore no further harm was inflicted.

IN short, the EPA enforcement action against VW did NO harm to the environment.

It doesn’t matter how one might “feel” about EPA regs as far as this event goes.... It’s a matter of public record that VW violated the intent and publicly admitted it.

Simple...it took thousands of 50mpg vehicles off the road and exchanged them for 30-35mpg vehicles.

 

[GeoHorn]

Simple...it took thousands of 50mpg vehicles off the road and exchanged them for 30-35mpg vehicles.

That is still incorrect. It did not take ”thousands“ of 50 mpg vehicles off the road and exchange them for 30-35 mpg vehicles. The VW models involved were only 34 mpg vehicles to begin with (and that is VWs’ Own Data). The owners of the cars were offered a choice of buyback, compensation, or a free fix (a software fix). In some vehicles a fuel system upgrade of injectors were offered.

Don’t know where you got your info but it’s readily available online if you care to look.

 

[NHSleddog]

Try reading the whole sentence. Maybe even the whole paragraph. The 10 minutes of regen time is compensated for by the increased efficiency COMPARED with old style engines. The choices people have right now are tractor with dpf and regen, or an older tractor without, and with a lower efficiency engine.

Furthermore, 10 or even 30 minutes out of 50 hours (3000 minutes) is a decrease in that efficiency for 0.3 to 1% of its operating time. Perfect solution, no. If you know how to use these machines and they are in working order, they are not wasting massive amounts of fuel doing regens. B3350 excepted.

Try reading? Thats funny.

I read what you said and understood it completely.

Try this again,

How about creating all the new efficiencies (direct injection etc.) WITHOUT saddling it with this new scheme that takes it (the efficiencies) all back. Your point was that all the added crap doesn't matter because they made it more efficient. My point was lets just make it more efficient and skip all the added crap.

We would be SAVING millions of gallons of fuel, AND we would not be burning millions of gallons of a new chemical (def) as well.

 

[SDT]

Try reading? Thats funny.

I read what you said and understood it completely.

Try this again,

How about creating all the new efficiencies (direct injection etc.) WITHOUT saddling it with this new scheme that takes it (the efficiencies) all back. Your point was that all the added crap doesn't matter because they made it more efficient. My point was lets just make it more efficient and skip all the added crap.

We would be SAVING millions of gallons of fuel, AND we would not be burning millions of gallons of a new chemical (def) as well.

Bingo.

SDT

 

[Botamon]

That is still incorrect. It did not take ”thousands“ of 50 mpg vehicles off the road and exchange them for 30-35 mpg vehicles. The VW models involved were only 34 mpg vehicles to begin with (and that is VWs’ Own Data). The owners of the cars were offered a choice of buyback, compensation, or a free fix (a software fix). In some vehicles a fuel system upgrade of injectors were offered.

Don’t know where you got your info but it’s readily available online if you care to look.

And I wonder where you get YOUR data?

I have a close friend that had a VW TDI that he loved. He was NOT given any choices - he was told he WOULD give the vehicle up because it was illegal, and would be compensated at current blue book price. 34 mpg? He routinely got 51 mpg with his.

So the government took his TDI. He used his "compensation" to buy a used Dodge Charger with a big V8 engine and now gets 16 mpg. Really helping the environment there.

 

[Thunder chicken]

And I wonder where you get YOUR data?

I have a close friend that had a VW TDI that he loved. He was NOT given any choices - he was told he WOULD give the vehicle up because it was illegal, and would be compensated at current blue book price. 34 mpg? He routinely got 51 mpg with his.

So the government took his TDI. He used his "compensation" to buy a used Dodge Charger with a big V8 engine and now gets 16 mpg. Really helping the environment there.

Hi Botaman, I’m not trying to start a war of words just making sense of your friends situation.... I’m curious what state he’s located?
I have an affected VW TDI. A 2012. Up in canuckland, we had a choice as Geo mentioned. I’d never saw mention on the VW fourms of anyone being forced to sell it back. Mind you for a lot of folks depending on the mileage on their cars it made sense to financially for sure. I opted to let them ‘fix’ it and give me a nice cheque. Then I cut it all off and tuned it and get in the 50-60 mpg range.
To the OP, I read through the manual for the 7060 and I thought I had to increase the RPM to above 2200ish, or till the light stopped flashing but like has been mentioned already, it must be a heat thing as well, but the book makes no reference to a specific rpm to go above during regen. So mowing while in EPTO must be fine as the machine would be working up a bit of a sweat enough to do a regen. I’ll run into this at some point in the next month and let ya know.

 

[Bark]

This is a question for those of you with the E-PTO option on your Tier IV tractors----
Thought I'd throw it out here first to see if there are any real-world stories about how the E-PTO affects regens.

Just had to remind myself of what we were talking about here

 

[torch]

The VW models involved were only 34 mpg vehicles to begin with

That is true. A buddy of mine had one and complained that it never got the mileage it was supposed to. I used to kid him about his lead foot. Then the scandal and recall hit and I had to eat crow.

 

[Botamon]

I was wrong and I have to apologize to Geohorn for my post above.

Called my friend that used to have the Jetta TDI last night. He said that he had essentially two options - sell the car back, or have it fixed once a "fix" was available that was EPA approved. Since an EPA-approved fix was probably months away, and since the "fix" was almost guaranteed to drop his fuel mileage from the 50-51 mpg he was getting, he opted for the buy-back.

 

[troverman]

I also had experience with a 2012 Golf TDI 6-speed manual. It routinely got 48-50mpg. The TDIs were one of the few vehicles that exceeded EPA estimates. Check out fuelly.com (https://www.fuelly.com/car/volkswagen/golf?engineconfig_id=103&bodytype_id=&submodel_id=) for the Gold TDI. In 2015, the fuelly average was over 41mpg; most were average mid-upper 30s. That is real-world total average, city and highway. Getting 50+ on the highway was not at all unreasonable.

VW initially gave everyone a check, even lessees. Then, in the US, everyone was given the option of a buyback at or above book value, or the option to repair and another check. Unfortunately, the repair option degraded both the road performance and the fuel economy.

A Prius would achieve better mpg in the city; the TDIs were substantially better on the highway and were a vastly nicer vehicle than a Prius. Virtually everyone who had VW buy back their TDI ended up in something getting considerably worse fuel economy, and hence the environment was harmed.

That's all for me on this topic. Sorry for my helping to derail.

 

[GeoHorn]

No one owes me any apologies...but thanks for the courtesy.

The claim that the environment was harmed because of EPA enforcement is what is patently false.

The ORIGIN of the problem was VWs’ cheating. Any and All harm which occurred, if any, resulted from and originated from VWs’ decision to lie and cheat.

They aren’t the only mfr’s who did it. Volvo, Renault, Mercedes, Jeep (owned by Fiat), Hyundai, Citroen, BMW, Mazda, Fiat, Ford and Peugeot were also caught in similar scandals.