to smoke or not to smoke

[gregozedobe]

I have been biting my tongue not to respond to some of the posts in this thread, but I can stand it no longer ! I know I am an old fuddy-duddy, but I am concerned about the lack of consideration for others (if not outright anti-social attitudes) revealed :

i love a good plume under hard acceleration (i always look in my mirror when i get up it for the soot hehe)

My gives a nice plume when I give it some, but nothing like this.....

I would love if I had a plume that big

I voted smoke 'em. I think the plume is hilarious. ...gunning it off the lights to see a cloud cover the 1.5 Lancer super ricemobile next to you is so funny. ... lmao.

Yep, nothing better than giving a tailgater a taste of diesel!

AMEN to that, love sooting everywhere!

cant wait to get a free flowing exhaust, then the soot will come

Imagine if you can, the thoughts of the other people around you when you are laying down that big black plume. Do you think they find it at all amusing ? Particularly if they have any kind of breathing difficulties or have a slightly "green" inclination (or just enjoy keeping their car clean). Try asking for the opinions of some of your "not car enthusiast" friends or acquaintences, the answers you get may surprise you.

If it happens to the wife of an influential politician do you think she might encourage her hubby to support some draconian anti-diesel legislation ? And yes, this legislation could be worded to directly control your beloved old "pre-emission" diesels too.

IMHO it is better to keep a lower profile (by not smoking excessively), in the hope that we can go on enjoying our diesels in the future without too much outside interference from government bodies, state pollution controllers, RTA etc.

[GoLfMan]

Imagine if you can, the thoughts of the other people around you when you are laying down that big black plume. Do you think they find it at all amusing ? Particularly if they have any kind of breathing difficulties or have a slightly "green" inclination (or just enjoy keeping their car clean). Try asking for the opinions of some of your "not car enthusiast" friends or acquaintences, the answers you get may surprise you.

If it happens to the wife of an influential politician do you think she might encourage her hubby to support some draconian anti-diesel legislation ? And yes, this legislation could be worded to directly control your beloved old "pre-emission" diesels too.

IMHO it is better to keep a lower profile (by not smoking excessively), in the hope that we can go on enjoying our diesels in the future without too much outside interference from government bodies, state pollution controllers, RTA etc.

if the greenies get offended at what is a natural diesel attribute, then they can also get offended at the amount of 6l V8's rolling around on the roads?

V8s produce more pollutants than our beloved diesels ( i also love a good V8!!!) and if the person has breathing difficulties they can just turn off outside air.

sooting once infront of someone isnt instantly going to make their car dirty, it might contribute to it, but then again so do alot of other factors... even us dieselers enjoy clean cars.... fancy that!

there is no way known that there would be anti diesel legislation passed, most of our logistics is carried out by trucks... diesel.... most car manufacturers now are bringing out diesels or have them as top selling models.... it just wouldnt make sense to make a draconian bill toward diesels and would backfire on the Govt' in a big way

your diesels soots out of the factory, its the way they are.... DPF's have trimmed it down but havent stopped it.

everyone has to tollerate everyone on the road, a bit of soot never harmed anyone!

[gregozedobe]

Warning, long and pedantic rant follows !

GolfMan, I must disagree strongly with your opinions (don't you just love a good, civilised, on-line debate by two passionate people with diametrically opposed points of view ? ).

I will attempt to show you my reasons, with no great hopes of persuading you to my point of view, but some hope of giving you an understanding why I ( and people with similar views) disagree with you.

Thank you for confirming my point : " I am concerned about the lack of consideration for others".

if the greenies get offended at what is a natural diesel attribute, then they can also get offended at the amount of 6l V8's rolling around on the roads?

V8s produce more pollutants than our beloved diesels ( i also love a good V8!!!)

( ah yes, debating technique #3, "Introduce an irrelevancy as justification")

Sorry, as the old saying goes, "two wrongs don't make a right". As I understood it we were discussing the large amounts of soot produced by some diesels, not other sources of pollution.

But to respond to your digression anyway, and show why it is different - These "6l V8's " almost certainly produce very little harmful emissions (unless their owners have been modifying them so they no longer meet the appropriate emisssions requirements). They certainly don't produce large quantities of visible pollution to draw attention to their prolifigate ways.

at what is a natural diesel attribute

(debating technique #9, "Slip in a modifier as a seemingly neutral phrase in another argument")

Excessive soot production is NOT a "natural diesel attribute". The amount of soot produced is an indicator that the motor is running "rich" (unable to get enough oxygen for complete combustion). In fact it shows the motor is not running as economically as it could be.

I believe that excessive soot during acceleration is due to three main factors:

1 "Performance tuning" of some kind,
2 Lack of maintenance work (eg injectors, injector pump),
3 Poor original design by the manufacturer (not very common these days).

and if the person has breathing difficulties they can just turn off outside air.

This statement is breath-takingly arrogant !!! I hope it was meant as a small piece of tongue-in-cheek throw-away humour. Otherwise do you seriously expect me to believe that your right to produce pollution is more important than someone else's right to breathe air that doesn't make them sick ?

To follow that argument further I suppose pedestrians, cyclists, sports car drivers and motorcyclists should all buy cars with filtering air recirculation systems, just so you can go around laying down "a good plume under hard acceleration" whenever the mood takes you ?

sooting once infront of someone isnt instantly going to make their car dirty, it might contribute to it, but then again so do a lot of other factors...

( debating technique #3 again)

But how many of those "other factors" are so immediately obvious and in your face, and can be specifically blamed on one obvious cause - the smoky diesel car just in front ?

there is no way known that there would be anti diesel legislation passed, most of our logistics is carried out by trucks... diesel.... most car manufacturers now are bringing out diesels or have them as top selling models.... it just wouldnt make sense to make a draconian bill toward diesels and would backfire on the Govt' in a big way

I didn't say anything about legislation that banned diesels. Much more likely are laws to require any diesel vehicle seen to be "smoking excessively" to get an on-the-spot fine and be subject a futher emission test before being allowed back on the road. There would of course be different limits for trucks than for cars (and most modern trucks are pretty good anyway). Legislation like this would be almost certain to get widespread public support.

your diesels soots out of the factory, its the way they are.... DPF's have trimmed it down but havent stopped it.

My TDI is exactly the way it came from the factory, and it produces near enough to no visible soot, let alone "a good plume under hard acceleration". So, sorry, DPFs HAVE stopped it as far as the general public's perceptions go.

Furthermore, I suspect that many of the non-DPF diesels that produce excessive soot are NOT operating the same as they were when they left the factory, ie they have been subject to some kind of "tuning" which has led to them producing more soot than they did as standard.

everyone has to tollerate everyone on the road,

( debating technique # 5, "Use of a 'motherhood' statement that everyone will agree with")

We don't tolerate dangerous speeding or dangerous over-taking or dangerous tail-gating, same as we don't tolerate excessively loud exhausts or unsafe cars on public roads. Why should we tolerate excessively smokey diesels just because a small minority have a personal liking for them.

Toleration is paired with Consideration, the same as Rights are paired with Obligations. Unfortunately many people like to claim only the first half of the pair.

If toleration is pushed too far it will at some point be withdawn (and remember, toleration can only be given to you by someone else, you cannot take it from someone just because you believe you are somehow entitled to it - that's how a lot of road rage incidents are started).

a bit of soot never harmed anyone!

I would absolutely love to see some links to some reputable, properly researched and peeer reviewed scientific studies with real medical content that even vaguely support this statement. The only ones I've seen link diesel soot with increased rates of some cancers.

If you really believed this, you should plumb the outlet of your exhaust into the cabin of your car. That way you could reap the full benefits of your "harmless" soot, and no one else would have anything to get annoyed about
(debating technique # 7a, "Take an argument to a ridiculous extreme to expose how wrong it is, with humour")

[mtj007]

I don't mind a little puff on take off but that is about it.

At least my "aggressive" driving style helps stop a buildup forming in my exhaust however it is a bit embarrassing when I get into my mum's Passat (which is driven nowhere near as hard) and punch it from the lights and leave the person behind me sitting in a black cloud. Once I had a little old lady behind me in her Mazda 2 when I was in the Passat and I punched it from the lights, as I looked into the mirror I saw her just sitting there in a cloud of smoke with the person behind beeping their horn at her.

I am sure other non-diesel people see the puffs/clouds of smoke and think that they are still filthy polluting cars.

Oh well, the fun of driving them makes up for it I guess although I can't believe I let myself get a Candy White diesel knowing how dirty the back of my mum's Candy White Passat looks after a week.

[Spoddy]

So if we want to reduce the soot under acceleration, how do we?

So if we want to reduce the soot under acceleration, how do we go about it without having to modify anything?

Is it simply servicing?
What about driving technique, like changing down to spool the turbo before enriching the fuel too much at lower revs?

With the DSG it is too easy to get lazy, as good as it is, it still relies on flooding the engine before it changes down and gets going.

When doing short trips (like my wife does) should it be in sports mode (after it warmed up) just so it runs in a better rev range?

Questions, questions, looking for some answers/opinions...

[Preen59]

Well, Josh.. Looks like Greg just cut you to ribbons.


My Caddy does pump a bit of soot under heavy acceleration, but not a great deal. It is also BETTER since i chipped it. It emits less soot under hard acceleration than it did in standard guise. It also has more power through a larger part of the rev range than before AND gets better fuel consumption!

I'm not a fan of sooty diesels but if my van chugs along getting better fuel economy than a petrol engine and emits less pollutants on average than a petrol engine, if it soots a little every now and then under acceleration, the people that complain about it can felate my metaphor.

[gregozedobe]

So if we want to reduce the soot under acceleration, how do we go about it without having to modify anything?

Is it simply servicing?
What about driving technique, like changing down to spool the turbo before enriching the fuel too much at lower revs?

With the DSG it is too easy to get lazy, as good as it is, it still relies on flooding the engine before it changes down and gets going.

When doing short trips (like my wife does) should it be in sports mode (after it warmed up) just so it runs in a better rev range?

Questions, questions, looking for some answers/opinions...

I don't pretend to be a DSG expert (I'm far too attached to my antiquated antediluvian manual gearboxes), but the general priciples are :

Soot is simply incompletely combusted diesel fuel (too much diesel for the available oxygen). This tends to happen when there is not enough boost (typically at low revs), or the injectors are over-fuelling (typically at full accelerator pedal at higher revs).

So if you change down gears manually to bring the revs up to where the turbo is producing good boost (say 2,000 to 2,500 rpm), then only use 1/2 or 2/3rds accelerator instead of 4/4s then you should get reasonable acceleration without too much soot. Watching in your mirrors (particularly at night with a car following) will tell you how well this technique works on your car. You will also get better fuel economy doing this rather than just mashing the accelerator all the way down.

If you wanted to drive in full auto mode then all I can suggest is to use the accelerator just enough to get the downward change of gears, then progressively add accelerator pedal as the revs (and boost) increase.

As far as servicing reducing soot goes then I assume the injectors need to be cleaned up and refurbished at certain distances to keep them working at peak efficiency, but I'm not sure how often that should be for TDIs (it was around 40,000Km on my landcruiser, but I get the impression the TDI ones work OK for much longer).

Of course if you have a DPF you don't get visible confirmation of how well you are doing, as they capture nearly all the soot anyway. But if you drive like I described you will be clogging up your DPF less (and saving the fuel needed to burn it off).

Hope that helps.

My Caddy does pump a bit of soot under heavy acceleration, but not a great deal. It is also BETTER since i chipped it. It emits less soot under hard acceleration than it did in standard guise. It also has more power through a larger part of the rev range than before AND gets better fuel consumption!

Sounds like your particular remap has increased the boost and also programmed a better balance (than stock) between boost and fuel delivery, hence better performance (power and torque) AND better economy AND less soot. A real win-win-win situation

As I have said previously, more soot = more diesel not being burnt completely = worse economy (it can also lead to very high combustion temperatures, with disastrous consequences for the engine)

[gldgti]

Ahh Greg - i was waiting for you to chime into this discussion, and i'm glad you have. Ofcourse, all the arguments you have put forward are undeniable, and I'm sure Golfman has learned a little from your 'long rant'.

I must say that this "greenies" generalisation needs some clarification - most REAL greenies arent out on the road except on a BIKE. then the other half-baked greenies, like ME (no really, i will prove it to you if you ever meet me) are the ones on the road trying to make as small an impact as they reasonably feel they can (like questioning your reasons for doing things, not just doing them).

becuase i am also a motoring enthusiast, i'm smart enough to know a smokey diesel is a better devil than a non-smokey V8. to further my point (whether you agree or not) i am also a cyclist and i've never yet been smoked badly by a diesel, and indeed, riding out of gosford up the big hill to kariong (on the side of a 2 lane highway) you really get a FIRST HAND EXPERIENCE of what cars blow out poo and what don't. EVERY V8 that goes past up the hill leaves a rasping taste in the back of my throat from the overloaded catalytic converter. every petrol 4wd is the same. only the old non-turbo diesels emit any smoke, and even the big trucks that labour like hell up that hill blow clean, hot exhaust out the stacks. some of the smaller rigid trucks with pedestrian level exhausts pleasantly surprised me. and every single petrol car labouring up that hill makes me feel ILL. am i exaggerating - not at all.

whats the problem here? petrol cars running rich produce such toxic emissions in such quantities that the catalytic converters are INVARIABLY overlaoded. its only the odd low pressure turbo Saab that doesnt go past without stinking, or really, any little petrol car that goes well. but all the bigger cars, big engine or not, are terrible.

so this has been a HUGE digression, but i'd really like to make it clear to as many people as possible, as a half-baked greeny car enthusiast, we need to be educated about whats a real problem and what isnt. i'm fairly sure i'd be happier to pipe my diesel exhaust into my car than i would a petrol one. (if i had to die, i'd rather pass out in a noodle shop than at the tailpipe of a V8

[Preen59]

Sounds like your particular remap has increased the boost and also programmed a better balance (than stock) between boost and fuel delivery, hence better performance (power and torque) AND better economy AND less soot. A real win-win-win situation

Not a remap, its a piggy back. Modifying injection timing only (i'm pretty sure).

I was merely trying to point out that not all "performance modifications" are at a detriment to the environment. No real reason to tell me anything i don't already know.

[gregozedobe]

Yes, what gldgti says about petrols is very true.

I'm glad that in Canberra there are lots of bike paths around where I can ride my bike away from the various gases that come from motorised tailpipes.

Given a choice between a quicker, more direct route next to a major road and a slower, longer journey away from cars I will avoid the cars every time, even if there are more hills away from the direct route (and all bike riders know what hills mean )

I think there isn't much emission testing done on petrols at WOT, so the engineers tune them to produce lots of power, and simply richen the mixture if they start getting too hot (interestingly enough, the exact opposite to what you need to do with a diesel). This does produce lots of (invisible) acrid gunk, despite the cat. If that hill you are talking about is the one I'm thinking of it is steep, heavily speed limited in the run-up, and pretty twisty too, so most car engines are working hard at lower revs rather than just cruising like they do most of the time, so it is pretty much a worst-case scenario.

Unfortunately, in the public eye (literally), the soot plume from a smoky diesel is far more obvious than the invisible fumes of a petrol, so as far as the uneducated Joe Public is concerned the diesel is much worse. That is why I crusade against smoky diesels so vigorously. I am prepared to put my money where my mouth is - after I had a NA Landcruiser diesel turboed, I took it back to be retuned to produce less smoke, even though that meant (slightly) less power.

[gregozedobe]

Not a remap, its a piggy back. Modifying injection timing only (i'm pretty sure).

I'm surprised you got such good results from changing injection timing only. That indicates the OEM injection timing is a LONG way from optimal.

[GoLfMan]

GolfMan, I must disagree strongly with your opinions (don't you just love a good, civilised, on-line debate by two passionate people with diametrically opposed points of view ? ).

Touche

I will attempt to show you my reasons, with no great hopes of persuading you to my point of view, but some hope of giving you an understanding why I ( and people with similar views) disagree with you.

A discussion thats one sided wouldnt be any fun would it

Thank you for confirming my point : " I am concerned about the lack of consideration for others".

Alas, i do not have a lack of consideration for others, Au-Contrare dear sir. But no matter how you look at it, if you were that deeply concerned about others and the general invironment, you would bike everywhere. However owning two newer low emissions vehicles is a great first step!

( ah yes, debating technique #3, "Introduce an irrelevancy as justification")

either your a lawyer, politician or just great at mass debating.... sorry had too

Sorry, as the old saying goes, "two wrongs don't make a right". As I understood it we were discussing the large amounts of soot produced by some diesels, not other sources of pollution.

Alas, this is true, but I ask you this, what is a large amount of soot? Not even perfectly tuned diesels will ever run entirely without sooting, nor will a petrol

But to respond to your digression anyway, and show why it is different - These "6l V8's " almost certainly produce very little harmful emissions (unless their owners have been modifying them so they no longer meet the appropriate emisssions requirements). They certainly don't produce large quantities of visible pollution to draw attention to their prolifigate ways.

Maybe so, but even laymans know that higher fuel consumption, ie more fuel burned, must meen more gas released

Excessive soot production is NOT a "natural diesel attribute". The amount of soot produced is an indicator that the motor is running "rich" (unable to get enough oxygen for complete combustion). In fact it shows the motor is not running as economically as it could be.

Again true, but as we can surely talk in laymans terms here, the general populous seems to think Diesels are dirty, sooty engines that produce huge amounts of pollution. I have seen many new diesels (VW's included) producing a decent puff of soot under acceleration. Yes its a sign of an engine not running as well as it should be I agree. The fact that there are a majority of diesel cars out there that DO soot as apposed to Petrol cars, leads me to say that my statement is somewhat correct

I believe that excessive soot during acceleration is due to three main factors:

1 "Performance tuning" of some kind,
2 Lack of maintenance work (eg injectors, injector pump),
3 Poor original design by the manufacturer (not very common these days).

I have seen plenty of new VW's (mine included, before chipping) that produce soot under acceleration, not a constant plume but a decent haze, enough to be seen in daylight. I have also witnessed it in a number of other manufactorers diesel cars. Are you saying that a brand new car is lacking in maintanence and has a poorly designed engine just because the emitting of soot?

This statement is breath-takingly arrogant !!! I hope it was meant as a small piece of tongue-in-cheek throw-away humour. Otherwise do you seriously expect me to believe that your right to produce pollution is more important than someone else's right to breathe air that doesn't make them sick ?
To follow that argument further I suppose pedestrians, cyclists, sports car drivers and motorcyclists should all buy cars with filtering air recirculation systems, just so you can go around laying down "a good plume under hard acceleration" whenever the mood takes you ?

From the fact that my statement takes your breath away, can I therefore assume that you are one of the people that suffer shortness of breath?
I am a cyclist and the cars that make my lungs burn are old pre emissions vehicles, especially old Mitsubishi's burning oil.
Therefore, yes it was tongue and cheek, however yes I do rather enjoy laying a "good plume" under hard acceleration. I can also tell you that the mood takes me quite frequently with a chipped TDI

But how many of those "other factors" are so immediately obvious and in your face, and can be specifically blamed on one obvious cause - the smoky diesel car just in front ?

I didn't say anything about legislation that banned diesels. Much more likely are laws to require any diesel vehicle seen to be "smoking excessively" to get an on-the-spot fine and be subject a futher emission test before being allowed back on the road. There would of course be different limits for trucks than for cars (and most modern trucks are pretty good anyway). Legislation like this would be almost certain to get widespread public support.

I do believe that its already legislated against (obviously not directly to diesels), and if your car were submitting an obscene amount of soot than you would have the EPA knocking on your door with a defect notice, diesel or not!

My TDI is exactly the way it came from the factory, and it produces near enough to no visible soot, let alone "a good plume under hard acceleration". So, sorry, DPFs HAVE stopped it as far as the general public's perceptions go.

Furthermore, I suspect that many of the non-DPF diesels that produce excessive soot are NOT operating the same as they were when they left the factory, ie they have been subject to some kind of "tuning" which has led to them producing more soot than they did as standard.

Open your eyes dear sir, next time a VW TDI floors it, have a look at the exhaust. I have seen many DPF cars producing soot. However I do realise what you are getting at, and we are not on the same page, our perceptions of levels of soot obviously do not see eye to eye. A DPF does eliminate most of the soot emitted but not all.

( debating technique # 5, "Use of a 'motherhood' statement that everyone will agree with")

**it amazes me how you have to categorise my statements, is this for your own benifit or for the masses that fail to see/comprehend what my statements infer?

We don't tolerate dangerous speeding or dangerous over-taking or dangerous tail-gating, same as we don't tolerate excessively loud exhausts or unsafe cars on public roads. Why should we tolerate excessively smokey diesels just because a small minority have a personal liking for them.

Toleration is paired with Consideration, the same as Rights are paired with Obligations. Unfortunately many people like to claim only the first half of the pair.

If toleration is pushed too far it will at some point be withdawn (and remember, toleration can only be given to you by someone else, you cannot take it from someone just because you believe you are somehow entitled to it - that's how a lot of road rage incidents are started).



I would absolutely love to see some links to some reputable, properly researched and peeer reviewed scientific studies with real medical content that even vaguely support this statement. The only ones I've seen link diesel soot with increased rates of some cancers.

If you really believed this, you should plumb the outlet of your exhaust into the cabin of your car. That way you could reap the full benefits of your "harmless" soot, and no one else would have anything to get annoyed about
(debating technique # 7a, "Take an argument to a ridiculous extreme to expose how wrong it is, with humour")

no where in my statement did I agree with excessively smokey diesels, infact I too dislike old diesels that smoke constantly. You sir have taken my rhetoric much to seriously and need to lighten up! I already know that dierectly inhaling soot for an extended period of time will have severe health effect, Im not suggesting you use your freindly diesel exhaust as a breathe freshener.
If you feel so strongly about the effects of vehicle emissions on the general populous, ride a bike and sell your cars...
Until that point, I will proudly continue to enjoy my "antisocial" activities in single handedly dirtying cars and getting Politicians spouses offside by emitting a "decent plume" under hard acceleration

**dont take it all to seriously now its just a friendly discussion about soot

[GoLfMan]

I'm surprised you got such good results from changing injection timing only. That indicates the OEM injection timing is a LONG way from optimal.

my TDI has the same chip and spits out quite a bit of soot compared to what it did stock!!

[Buller_Scott]

Try it at night with headlights behind you

i DO see some at night, which is always fun.

kinda makes me want to de-badge the (1.9 tdi) on my hatch lid, just to confuse people...

[GoLfMan]

i DO see some at night, which is always fun.

kinda makes me want to de-badge the (1.9 tdi) on my hatch lid, just to confuse people...

wait until you chip it