7 ms·

While I certainly don't buy the "pesky engineers" argument, it's actually somewhat plausible Porsche didn't know about the cheating (beyond what everyone knew,

by bri3d 11y ago

While I certainly don't buy the "pesky engineers" argument, it's actually somewhat plausible Porsche didn't know about the cheating (beyond what everyone knew, which was that the stated mileage and emissions were virtually impossible to achieve by any known mechanism). Since they dropped a VW manufactured engine (3.0 TDI) into a shared VW chassis (Touraeg) and built the Cayenne around that, there's a good chance the engine and engine management were treated as a black box and simply integrated at face value.

danjayh 11y ago
While I'm certainly not making excuses for VW cheating, I think that maybe the EPA needs to revisit its diesel emission standards. The EPA standard is the strictest in the world, and they have successfully ruined many diesel powered devices. Examples: 1) I was recently looking at compact tractors. To meet the standards, new tractors are fitted with Diesel Particulate Filters. Even if they don't flat-out fail (which happens too often, and costs thousands of dollars to fix), these filters require "regeneration", which is code for "a light comes on on the dashboard, your tractor stops moving, and runs wide-open throttle for 20 minutes while you stare in bewilderment". Google Kubota B3350 Regeneration if you want lots of fun horror stories. 2) Diesel commercial trucks. My uncle drives a large cube van over the road. When his truck goes into regen mode, it doesn't require wide-open throttle like a compact tractor, but it does lose power and tops out at 40-50MPH. If you are on a freeway where the flow of traffice is at 80MPH, this is dangerous and a major problem. 3) Diesel pickup trucks: Many trucks, in an effort to avoid additional hardware above and beyond the DPF, have taken to injecting fuel during the exhaust stroke. The idea is to have the unburned fuel get pumped through the engine and on to the DPF, where it burns and increases the temperature to the point that the carbon burns out of the DPF. Problem is, when you inject fuel into an engine during the exhaust stroke, it dilutes the oil in the cylinder, reduces lubrication, and causes premature wear/engine failure. In the two cases I am familiar with, diesel motorhomes and diesel compact tractors, the value of used vehicles has increased quite a bit in response to the fact that all of the new ones suck. My Dad owns a gravel pit, and he (along with everyone else in the industry) buys and re-builds existing vehicles from the frame-up to avoid having to purchase new products, which are unreliable, sometimes dangerous, and uneconomical to maintain. Google "glider truck kits" -- it's basically the idea of purchasing all the parts of a new vehicle (except the powertrain), and then manually taking the powertrain from a worn-out truck, re-building it, and installing it into the glider kit. This is often done at an expense that is similar to that of purchasing an entirely new vehicle. Many equally horrible solutions to this problem are employed. Some designs incorporate a fuel burner directly into the exhaust design. Others require a separate tank of catalytic fluid that must be filled regularly. One thing that all of the designs have in common is poor performance and piss-poor fuel economy. Many vehicles from multiple manufacturers have had trouble with catching on fire due to emissions control systems. If the EPA wants to make tough rules that will force manufacturers to produce products with the best available technology and encourage development of new technologies, that's one thing. When the EPA makes rules that result in dangerous and/or non-functional product designs, I think it's time to back off just a bit until the technology has come closer to being able to reasonably achieve the regulated cleanliness levels. It's completely insane to make a truck that will force you to slow to 40mph while you're driving it, or to make a tractor that will force a farmer to take an unplanned break in the middle of the day (remember -- farmers work all day long, and daylight is a limited, precious commodity to them). EDIT: To be completely clear, if you are doing work with the tractor that can be done at full RPM, you don't necessarily need to park it. However, if you're doing something that requires lower RPM (using a PTO attachment that needs low RPM like a post-hole digger, or a spreader, etc ... or doing low-speed work on a tractor with a geared transmission), then it's time to go get some coffee. Personally, the two major things I want to do with a tractor are run a large snowblower and maintain our horse pasture. For the horse pasture it's not a big deal, but if I need to clear the driveway before leaving for work in the morning, an unplanned 20 minute wait is completely unacceptable.
- selimthegrim 11y ago
  I thought that DEF wasn't a big performance killer? (limp mode with low levels notwithstanding)
  - bri3d 11y ago
    The parent poster is talking about DPF (Diesel Particulate Filters), which remove soot from diesel exhaust and require manual cleaning and/or the regeneration process mentioned (where the soot is essentially burnt out of the catalyst). DEF is a fluid which is injected across a catalyst in a process called SCR (Selective Catalytic Reduction) which is designed to remove NOx from the exhaust stream. SCR (and the use of DEF therein) replaces extensive EGR (Exhaust Gas Recirculation), not the use of a DPF. Catalytic reduction instead of EGR reduces the load on the DPF and increases economy, since dirty exhaust is not being recirculated and combustion is more efficient. However, they're complimentary systems, not replacements for one another.
    - selimthegrim 11y ago
      Yes, I own a VW TDI, I know the difference between the two. AFAIK, EGR adjusts the combustion temperature so as to avoid an overly NOx-producing lean burn. I was responding to the blanket characterization he made in this statement quoted below. >Many equally horrible solutions to this problem are employed...Others require a separate tank of catalytic fluid that must be filled regularly. _One thing that all of the designs have in common_ (emphasis mine) is poor performance and piss-poor fuel economy. Many vehicles from multiple manufacturers have had trouble with catching on fire due to emissions control systems.
- sliverstorm 11y ago
  Of course, gasoline cars went through similar pains in the 70's, and eventually came out better than ever. Emissions controls were really what drove electronic fuel injection [0], which was unreliable at first but far superior to carburetors today. [0]: See motorcycles, which stuck with carburetors as long as possible, until they were forced to implement electronic fuel injection around 2005 due to tightening emissions standards.
Nelson69 11y ago
Surly Porsche has their own quality assurance and compliance engineers though? And they're proper Teutonic Engineers, right? I mean, they're Porsche engineers... They'd just take an engine from their parent company and not see that it lives up to the Porsche marquee? Maybe it's possible, but if it is, Porsche is really not the Porsche I think it is or want it to be.
- bri3d 11y ago
  The A4, Q5, Q7, Touraeg, Phaeton, and a lot of other VW vehicles which used the same 3.0TDI have the exact same rated power, which suggests that the engine calibration probably was shared as well. So I think it's plausible that Porsche dropped the engine in, went through their usual drive testing and tuning, and never thought about the emissions since they were already handled on the VW side.
  - TheHolyLancer 11y ago
    Porsche have a bit more go juice than a lot of the other stuff. If they did a ECU remap (likely) coupled with some hw changes to the engine (maybe, maybe not), they would likely have at least suspected something. Like, I can tune my Lancer Evo, with stock parts, to around 360 chp / 290 whp from 291 chp / 220 whp. This will put more strain on the parts, to nuke the little gas mileage, up the emissions (no CARB), and void the warranty on the drivetrain. In order to do that the ECU needs to be flash (by say cobbs tuning) and if there was a cheating thing they will need to be aware of it or else it'd be likely gone in the flash. If I was to put on new parts and make it go even more... Then for sure you need a new tune to make it actually work properly.
    - bri3d 11y ago
      The rated horsepower on the 3.0 TDI in the Cayenne is the exact same as in all of the other applications I listed - do you have any source that it had a different map installed? I'm kind of basing my whole theory on the concept that it didn't because the rated output is identical.
fineman 11y ago
I doubt it. Manufacturers, and especially ones like Porsche, routinely test the quality and performance of their subcomponents. If they didn't they'd be negligent. The only plausible answer is that they used the same broken metrics that the engine had been programmed to defeat.
interdrift 11y ago
Why would a set of engineers make such a decision? This is clearly a decision which should be taken only by the SEO? What could their motivations be?
- rustynails77 11y ago
  I think someone else said it in this thread. You either make it work, or you will be replaced by someone that can. So... the engineers comply. I once had an engineer come to me saying that he was being victimised by other engineers about a technical solution. I took my most trusted engineer and asked him to independently review the code. He came back and said the code was crap and needed to be rolled back. We rolled it back, a code walkthrough was performed on this code and we went into testing. When that function failed, I approached my most trusted engineer. My translation of what he said it "I didn't like the guy"... So, I've learned that even great engineers can be compromised, despite many claims I see on the Internet. Regarding Porsche's knowledge, I agree with another poster in this thread who said that Porsche may have tested the unit in the conditions that didn't show the emission problems. Without further information, i'd give Porsche the benefit of the doubt.
9935c101ab17a66 11y ago
So either (a) the engineers did no QA, no MPG-testing/no environmental testing at all with cars that shared an engine, but differed in significant ways (car body, shocks, weight and AERODYNAMICS) and so they had no idea, which means (b) VW must have known that other divisions of the company had the same problem as the TDI because they were literally using the same engine without testing it. Either way, it's bad or it's very fucking bad.

by bri3d 11y ago

danjayh 11y ago

While I'm certainly not making excuses for VW cheating, I think that maybe the EPA needs to revisit its diesel emission standards. The EPA standard is the strictest in the world, and they have successfully ruined many diesel powered devices. Examples: 1) I was recently looking at compact tractors. To meet the standards, new tractors are fitted with Diesel Particulate Filters. Even if they don't flat-out fail (which happens too often, and costs thousands of dollars to fix), these filters require "regeneration", which is code for "a light comes on on the dashboard, your tractor stops moving, and runs wide-open throttle for 20 minutes while you stare in bewilderment". Google Kubota B3350 Regeneration if you want lots of fun horror stories. 2) Diesel commercial trucks. My uncle drives a large cube van over the road. When his truck goes into regen mode, it doesn't require wide-open throttle like a compact tractor, but it does lose power and tops out at 40-50MPH. If you are on a freeway where the flow of traffice is at 80MPH, this is dangerous and a major problem. 3) Diesel pickup trucks: Many trucks, in an effort to avoid additional hardware above and beyond the DPF, have taken to injecting fuel during the exhaust stroke. The idea is to have the unburned fuel get pumped through the engine and on to the DPF, where it burns and increases the temperature to the point that the carbon burns out of the DPF. Problem is, when you inject fuel into an engine during the exhaust stroke, it dilutes the oil in the cylinder, reduces lubrication, and causes premature wear/engine failure. In the two cases I am familiar with, diesel motorhomes and diesel compact tractors, the value of used vehicles has increased quite a bit in response to the fact that all of the new ones suck. My Dad owns a gravel pit, and he (along with everyone else in the industry) buys and re-builds existing vehicles from the frame-up to avoid having to purchase new products, which are unreliable, sometimes dangerous, and uneconomical to maintain. Google "glider truck kits" -- it's basically the idea of purchasing all the parts of a new vehicle (except the powertrain), and then manually taking the powertrain from a worn-out truck, re-building it, and installing it into the glider kit. This is often done at an expense that is similar to that of purchasing an entirely new vehicle. Many equally horrible solutions to this problem are employed. Some designs incorporate a fuel burner directly into the exhaust design. Others require a separate tank of catalytic fluid that must be filled regularly. One thing that all of the designs have in common is poor performance and piss-poor fuel economy. Many vehicles from multiple manufacturers have had trouble with catching on fire due to emissions control systems. If the EPA wants to make tough rules that will force manufacturers to produce products with the best available technology and encourage development of new technologies, that's one thing. When the EPA makes rules that result in dangerous and/or non-functional product designs, I think it's time to back off just a bit until the technology has come closer to being able to reasonably achieve the regulated cleanliness levels. It's completely insane to make a truck that will force you to slow to 40mph while you're driving it, or to make a tractor that will force a farmer to take an unplanned break in the middle of the day (remember -- farmers work all day long, and daylight is a limited, precious commodity to them). EDIT: To be completely clear, if you are doing work with the tractor that can be done at full RPM, you don't necessarily need to park it. However, if you're doing something that requires lower RPM (using a PTO attachment that needs low RPM like a post-hole digger, or a spreader, etc ... or doing low-speed work on a tractor with a geared transmission), then it's time to go get some coffee. Personally, the two major things I want to do with a tractor are run a large snowblower and maintain our horse pasture. For the horse pasture it's not a big deal, but if I need to clear the driveway before leaving for work in the morning, an unplanned 20 minute wait is completely unacceptable.

selimthegrim 11y ago
I thought that DEF wasn't a big performance killer? (limp mode with low levels notwithstanding)
- bri3d 11y ago
  The parent poster is talking about DPF (Diesel Particulate Filters), which remove soot from diesel exhaust and require manual cleaning and/or the regeneration process mentioned (where the soot is essentially burnt out of the catalyst). DEF is a fluid which is injected across a catalyst in a process called SCR (Selective Catalytic Reduction) which is designed to remove NOx from the exhaust stream. SCR (and the use of DEF therein) replaces extensive EGR (Exhaust Gas Recirculation), not the use of a DPF. Catalytic reduction instead of EGR reduces the load on the DPF and increases economy, since dirty exhaust is not being recirculated and combustion is more efficient. However, they're complimentary systems, not replacements for one another.
  - selimthegrim 11y ago
    Yes, I own a VW TDI, I know the difference between the two. AFAIK, EGR adjusts the combustion temperature so as to avoid an overly NOx-producing lean burn. I was responding to the blanket characterization he made in this statement quoted below. >Many equally horrible solutions to this problem are employed...Others require a separate tank of catalytic fluid that must be filled regularly. _One thing that all of the designs have in common_ (emphasis mine) is poor performance and piss-poor fuel economy. Many vehicles from multiple manufacturers have had trouble with catching on fire due to emissions control systems.
sliverstorm 11y ago
Of course, gasoline cars went through similar pains in the 70's, and eventually came out better than ever. Emissions controls were really what drove electronic fuel injection [0], which was unreliable at first but far superior to carburetors today. [0]: See motorcycles, which stuck with carburetors as long as possible, until they were forced to implement electronic fuel injection around 2005 due to tightening emissions standards.

Nelson69 11y ago

Surly Porsche has their own quality assurance and compliance engineers though? And they're proper Teutonic Engineers, right? I mean, they're Porsche engineers... They'd just take an engine from their parent company and not see that it lives up to the Porsche marquee? Maybe it's possible, but if it is, Porsche is really not the Porsche I think it is or want it to be.

bri3d 11y ago
The A4, Q5, Q7, Touraeg, Phaeton, and a lot of other VW vehicles which used the same 3.0TDI have the exact same rated power, which suggests that the engine calibration probably was shared as well. So I think it's plausible that Porsche dropped the engine in, went through their usual drive testing and tuning, and never thought about the emissions since they were already handled on the VW side.
- TheHolyLancer 11y ago
  Porsche have a bit more go juice than a lot of the other stuff. If they did a ECU remap (likely) coupled with some hw changes to the engine (maybe, maybe not), they would likely have at least suspected something. Like, I can tune my Lancer Evo, with stock parts, to around 360 chp / 290 whp from 291 chp / 220 whp. This will put more strain on the parts, to nuke the little gas mileage, up the emissions (no CARB), and void the warranty on the drivetrain. In order to do that the ECU needs to be flash (by say cobbs tuning) and if there was a cheating thing they will need to be aware of it or else it'd be likely gone in the flash. If I was to put on new parts and make it go even more... Then for sure you need a new tune to make it actually work properly.
  - bri3d 11y ago
    The rated horsepower on the 3.0 TDI in the Cayenne is the exact same as in all of the other applications I listed - do you have any source that it had a different map installed? I'm kind of basing my whole theory on the concept that it didn't because the rated output is identical.

fineman 11y ago

I doubt it. Manufacturers, and especially ones like Porsche, routinely test the quality and performance of their subcomponents. If they didn't they'd be negligent. The only plausible answer is that they used the same broken metrics that the engine had been programmed to defeat.

interdrift 11y ago

Why would a set of engineers make such a decision? This is clearly a decision which should be taken only by the SEO? What could their motivations be?

rustynails77 11y ago
I think someone else said it in this thread. You either make it work, or you will be replaced by someone that can. So... the engineers comply. I once had an engineer come to me saying that he was being victimised by other engineers about a technical solution. I took my most trusted engineer and asked him to independently review the code. He came back and said the code was crap and needed to be rolled back. We rolled it back, a code walkthrough was performed on this code and we went into testing. When that function failed, I approached my most trusted engineer. My translation of what he said it "I didn't like the guy"... So, I've learned that even great engineers can be compromised, despite many claims I see on the Internet. Regarding Porsche's knowledge, I agree with another poster in this thread who said that Porsche may have tested the unit in the conditions that didn't show the emission problems. Without further information, i'd give Porsche the benefit of the doubt.

9935c101ab17a66 11y ago

So either (a) the engineers did no QA, no MPG-testing/no environmental testing at all with cars that shared an engine, but differed in significant ways (car body, shocks, weight and AERODYNAMICS) and so they had no idea, which means (b) VW must have known that other divisions of the company had the same problem as the TDI because they were literally using the same engine without testing it. Either way, it's bad or it's very fucking bad.