Blue HDI

[Gibbo2286]

Wonder how much Citroen will be charging at every service for this .


http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/181311457101" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Mainly consists of water and urea,, that's p**s isn't it

[Richard_C]

I've done some quick diesel/petrol sums. Model for model the base 100 bhp diesel engine is about £2k more expensive than the 82 bhp petrol. Assume that you might get £1k more resale/trade in for the diesel after 5 years. If you can get real world 65mpg from diesel and 47mpg from petrol, current prices and add a 0.25p/mile for your blue stuff assuming dealers charge £50 to fill it up at 20k services, the break even is about 8000 - 9000 miles a year depending on how you finance that initial extra £2k. I see that the diesel is group 18 insurance, the petrol group 10. Not sure what that means in real money. For most, the petrol is probably a better deal, and I speak as someone with 3 diesels in the drive.

[Lighty]

I've done some quick diesel/petrol sums. Model for model the base 100 bhp diesel engine is about £2k more expensive than the 82 bhp petrol. Assume that you might get £1k more resale/trade in for the diesel after 5 years. If you can get real world 65mpg from diesel and 47mpg from petrol, current prices and add a 0.25p/mile for your blue stuff assuming dealers charge £50 to fill it up at 20k services, the break even is about 8000 - 9000 miles a year depending on how you finance that initial extra £2k. I see that the diesel is group 18 insurance, the petrol group 10. Not sure what that means in real money. For most, the petrol is probably a better deal, and I speak as someone with 3 diesels in the drive.

This is a sensible post, working on these vehicles day to day itis clear that the diesels are far more expensive to maintain, you have to put smelly fuel in, which can get on your hands & feet.
By the time your " blue HDI" is 5 years old, it may be that the diesel bubble has burst completely, and folk relies that Euro 6 emission rules have ended our love affair with the tractor engined cars.

[Bob L'eponge]

By the time your " blue HDI" is 5 years old, it may be that the diesel bubble has burst completely, and folk relies that Euro 6 emission rules have ended our love affair with the tractor engined cars.

But the latest direct-injection petrol engines (unlike the latest diesels) can't meet Euro 6B /C standards, especially for particulates. (In fact they produce many times more particulates than older, non-direct injection designs.) Consequently, before long petrol engines will also have to use particulate filters and 'GPF' will be a new acronym that everyone will have to get used to. ('Gasoline Particulate Filter'.) As both diesels and petrol engines will be equipped with very similar technologies, petrol engines won't offer any real 'advantages' in terms of the need for emission control systems.

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[Bob L'eponge]

My ECU man is already removing ad blue systems from Audi VW products, so guess they are not perfect.

Give the willingness of so many to by-pass the pollution-control systems on their cars, I guess that Oxford street is likely to have one of the world's highest levels of nitrogen oxide pollution for some time yet...

[Lighty]

My ECU man is already removing ad blue systems from Audi VW products, so guess they are not perfect.

Give the willingness of so many to by-pass the pollution-control systems on their cars, I guess that Oxford street is likely to have one of the world's highest levels of nitrogen oxide pollution for some time yet...

It all comes down to money in this country for sure, my son and I were discussing yesterday how often car owners are " weighing up " wether it's worth spending money on a car because of its value.
Compared to much of Europe, especially let's say Holland , owners will spend whatever it takes to keep a car in decent condition, so for example you will see many old cars with Michelin tyres.
Here in the UK, punters think nothing of fitting budget tyres at the first change
Can't see this changing anytime soon.

[Bob L'eponge]

It all comes down to money in this country for sure, my son and I were discussing yesterday how often car owners are " weighing up " wether it's worth spending money on a car because of its value. Compared to much of Europe, especially let's say Holland , owners will spend whatever it takes to keep a car in decent condition, so for example you will see many old cars with Michelin tyres. Here in the UK, punters think nothing of fitting budget tyres at the first change Can't see this changing anytime soon.

Me neither. Much of the problems arises from the fact that the UK is much more status-orientated than most of Europe, and traditionally cars have been seen as a primary means of expressing ones position in the hierarchy. In turn, running the newest car possible has always been a favourite way of 'Keeping up with the Jonses'. Add the overflow from the fleet sector and the UK car market is, as a consequence, chock full of used vehicles that are ridiculously devalued after just a couple of years. These low used values then discourage people from spending money on cars that aren't worth much than the cost of repairs or a new set of Michelins. Here in France most people most to see cars as being just a way to get around, not status symbols, so they keep them for longer, buy new vehicles less frequently and so used prices are much more buoyant. By way of illustration, I got 3000 Euros for the last car I sold, a sound but nine-year-old Fiat Marea Weekend JTD with over 250,000 km on it! In the UK it would have been worth just its scrap value.

[Northern_Mike]

Indeed. I was talking to my cousin in Colombia last night. She has a 02 plate Clio that she lends to her bro and mum if they need it. I think she's 28 and they all work in decent careers. I told her I'd just bought another car and she expressed surprise that we could afford 2 cars. She told me any 02 plate car over there would cost the equivalent of at least £3500... she simply wouldn't believe I paid £550 for the C5 .

Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk

[addo]

It's worse here, we ape the UK market values but the cars are not at all rusty.

[Richard_C]

One unintended consequence of all this emission complexity is that people might hold on to older, smokier cars for far too long. Of my mini-fleet, the 1.9 TD synergie is the simple one but it's the least city friendly. I suppose it all depends on fuel cost, the higher it gets the mores sense it is to run later and more fuel efficient motors.

If people are justifiably scared of unexpected maintenance costs and money remains cheap, low interest rates for the manufacturer and dealer, we might end up with most people buying/leasing new on 3 year with warranty and maintenance all thrown in. Only the brave will buy second hand. A lot of perfectly good kit may be scrapped far sooner than it needs to be. It always strikes me odd that people drool over fine slaughtered animal hide seats, or lovingly polished hardwood dashboards, in something that will be crushed after 3500 hours actual use (100 k miles at 30 mph average, plus a bit).

I'm sure cash and money have different impacts on buyer behaviour, we pay for fuel in cash or card, but we see it as a real and immediate cost, all the rest, depreciation, interest and so on, is money. Just as much impact on our budget but less visible, not sure that spending more cash on the weekly fill up but less money overall will seem 'cheaper' for many.

Anyway, my next small car will likely be petrol. Not for a while though. Having looked at the specs a C3 Picasso might be a better bet for me than a Cactus....no split rear seat, how can I get 3 people and awkward shaped musical instruments in. But that's just me, I doubt many people need the split.

[Mandrake]

One unintended consequence of all this emission complexity is that people might hold on to older, smokier cars for far too long.

I'm not sure that I agree with that. At least for petrol engines "older" cars haven't been smoky pollution producing dinosaurs for a long time now. Near universal adoption of three way catalytic converters and fuel injection appeared in the late 80's and was cemented in the early 90's.

On paper my 1997 3 litre V6 petrol Xantia (which is certainly now an "old" car) gets a bad rap for pollution - as the approximate £240 a year tax disc cost shows.

And yet look at the emissions report from the last MOT - HC of 4 ppm (maximum allowed 200 ppm) and CO below 0.01% for both slow and fast idle. (max allowed 0.3% and 0.2% respectively)

It's as clean as a whistle and beats the latest Euro requirements by an order of magnitude, the only thing you'll ever see coming out of the tail pipe is condensation. I can guarantee you'll see a LOT of much newer not so well maintained cars that don't perform nearly as well in the tests, so it's more about maintenance of the car than purely age nowadays...newer is not necessarily better.

Sure, a larger engine produces more CO2, but that's an unavoidable result of combustion, (for old and new engines) but it's arguable whether CO2 is a pollutant when it's part of the O2/CO2 cycle between plants and animals - an engine produces CO2 just like a human being (or a herd of cows) does exhaling...which is then used and recycled by plants.

The emissions cost of scrapping old cars and manufacturing (and delivering!) new cars always seems to be overlooked - if you look at the figures the pollutants that are generated just in making the raw materials that go into producing a car is staggering, not to mention the cost to transport the completed cars by plane, boat and truck to the buyer. It really does cause less emissions to keep even a moderately old but well maintained car on the road than it does to scrap it and produce a new one to replace it. (At least for petrol cars)

It really does upset me to see the wanton abandonment of older but perfectly good cars just so someone can keep up with the Joneses - they might think their new car is environmentally friendly but was it really environmentally friendly to bring yet another car needlessly into the world and scrap a perfectly serviceable one ?

The reality is that it's Diesel engines that have always been the bad polluters - soot and NOx in particular. You can't use a 3 way cat in a Diesel because its inherently a lean burn engine, and the particulate matter needs special treatment.

As the emissions regulations tighten up more and more its Diesels that are going to struggle and need a crap load of bolt on emissions control devices that cost a fortune and need expensive maintenance or are expensive to replace when they fail. The DPF is just the first in a probably long line of devices.

Somebody mentioned that gas direct injection petrol engines (GDI) don't do as well in emissions as conventional port inlet injection systems - if that's true then when the emissions regulations tighten further manufacturers will just go back to the tried and tested common rail inlet injection system that has been with us for 25 years - big deal. GDI engines may offer some advantages but at this point in time they are still experimental and in a small minority and it may prove to be an evolutionary "dead end" just like single point petrol injection was. (One or more injectors located at the throttle butterfly instead of one over each inlet valve - used for a short while in the 80's)

I predict a significant swing back to petrol cars in the UK over the next 5-10 years for all those who aren't doing mega high mileage with long work commutes due to the increasing complexity and repair costs of modern Diesel engines. In many countries there was never a swing away from petrol in the first place.

In New Zealand where I grew up Diesel cars were an oddity that nobody took seriously. It wasn't until the late 90's that Diesel cars had any market penetration at all and they're still a small minority as far as I know. Except for buses, trucks and heavy vehicles, Diesel is very much the odd man out there...

[Hell Razor5543]

I remember reading somewhere that the 'green' protesters were strongly suggesting that the Eden Project in Cornwall should become accessible via public transport only, as all the cars that were going there were generating massive amounts of CO2. What was conspicuously absent from their blurb was the fact that it only took 6 trees to absorb that amount of CO2!

[Bob L'eponge]

I remember reading somewhere that the 'green' protesters were strongly suggesting that the Eden Project in Cornwall should become accessible via public transport only, as all the cars that were going there were generating massive amounts of CO2. What was conspicuously absent from their blurb was the fact that it only took 6 trees to absorb that amount of CO2!

How did you work out that figure?

It is often claimed that a growing tree can absorb as much as 10 - 20 kg of CO2 per year. Not all of this is retained. For example, in a deciduous tree the CO2 used to grow leaves will be returned to the atmosphere as the leaves fall and rot each autumn. Eventually the same will happen to the CO2 stored in the trunk, unless it is somehow preserved forever after the tree dies. However, the average amount of CO2 a tree absorbs over its lifetime is much much less than this, not least because a mature tree will lose as much CO2 through respiration and decay as it absorbs during the process of photosynthesis. For example, the Forestry Commission has estimated that each of its trees at Kielder lock up an average of just 2kg of CO2 per year.

http://www.forestry.gov.uk/pdf/6_planti ... _trees.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

For arguments sake, lets say that we are trying of offset CO2 emissions from cars by means of planting new trees, which can lock up an average of 10kg of CO2 per year.

When the Eden project opened, a typical car produced about 140g of CO2 per km or 14kg per 100 km. So, if someone visited the Eden Project and drove 200 km in total, they would have generated 28 kg of CO2, more than a single young tree would be able to absorb in two years.

As we are talking about the CO2 generated in a single day, it makes sense to compare this to how much CO2 a tree can absorb in a single day as well. Ignoring seasonal variations, an 'average' tree would absorb around 27g of CO2 per day, so to absorb the 28kg of CO2 from that one car, on that one day would need 1037 trees.

I understand that the Eden project averaged over one and a quarter million visitors per year in its first 4 years, or about 3500 per day, with an average vehicle occupancy of 2 that would amount to 1750 vehicles per day. If each made a round trip of 200km on average, then it would need 1,815,000 new trees to be planted in order to absorb the CO2 generated just by people visiting the Eden project!

If we took a more realistic view and, instead of looking to constantly plant new trees, we looked at the amount of CO2 a managed forest could absorb, then going by the Forestry Commission's figures, we would need a forest that contains about 9 million trees. This is a lot more trees than '6'!

[Richard_C]

Interesting thought, Eden Project.

I had a look on Transport Direct for a hypothetical family weekend away from where I live in Cambridge. The interesting bit was CO2: their suggested public transport combinations = 45.3Kg per person. Small car 132Kg, but put 4 people in the small car its 33Kg. The only lower option was coach at 30.5, but the bus/coach combination would make it an enjoyable 32 hours of travel out of 48 away, hmmm. Transport Direct doesn't have bus or coach fares for the journey, but I'm sure for 4 people it would be a BSL (British Standard Lot).

Public transport fares are no so silly that its cheaper fro me to drive into Cambridge and street park for 4 hours than it is for 2 of us to use the park and ride: its cheaper to pay for long term parking at Heathrow than for two to go by coach or train: go figure the environmental sense of that.

Anyway, way off topic now ..... sorry. It started as Blue HDI. If I buy a blue coloured does it make me look responsible?

[DickieG]

Personally I'm reserving judgement on these new generation low cubic capacity high output engines such as Fords Ecoboost and the like as it's far too early to realise the long term results when it comes to reliability and emissions. After all it only after engines such as HDi's had been out for several years that the issues such as stuck injectors, blocked DPF's and Nox came to light.

The idea of a tiny 3 cylinder engine having a big hair dryer stuck on the side to produce a high power output and amazing economy arouses the suspicion in me,,