How to drive a diesel

[Rawas]

Jim 314
Have you had any of these issues with your wife's XC90?
1-At the gas station; gas hose pipe will stop filling even if the tank is not full.
2- Hot center console: area around audio and ac controls gets uncomfortably hot even when both are switched off?
Thanks

[Jim314]

Originally Posted by Rawas

Jim 314
Have you had any of these issues with your wife's XC90?
1-At the gas station; gas hose pipe will stop filling even if the tank is not full.
2- Hot center console: area around audio and ac controls gets uncomfortably hot even when both are switched off?
Thanks

I have not noticed any tendency of the XC90 petrol 3.2 to stop fuel filling prematurely, at least no more than any other vehicle I've owned.

I have not noticed a hot center console but I will check for it. The only faults we have found were

1. The original (single) CD player failed in the first year. The drive would run and make a whirring sound with no CD in the drive. This was replaced under warranty, but the new single drive was found to be defective at installation. They later installed a multiCD player and it has worked for 5 years, though we rarely use it.

2. The AM radio unit failed about a year out of warranty. The dealer says it will be ~$US 500 or more for a new Volvo replacement and my wife won't spend that.

Could these faults be due to local heating in that area?

[Rawas]

Thanks,
Sorry for taking you away from the main topic, but do you know if the fuel tank has any accessible vents? mine is an 2008 with 26000 Km.

[RobbieH]

Originally Posted by Bernard333

I have driven both ways over the St Bernard pass quite a few times mainly to save paying the tunnel toll but also because its a nice drive but takes an extra few hours to go over the top rather than through it . My car is a Euro 3 V70 D5 manual , never had a problem with heat build up or brakes fading on the way down mainly because engine braking is good and thats with a fully loaded car . Its 8000 feet as you go over the top and fairly steep on each side but it cant be that difficult as diesel powered coaches full of tourists easily manage the same route and I would assume they need more assistance from engine braking than a car ?

Eggsactamundo Same with my barge including some entertaining routes round the Alps over the last couple of years.

Due to personal reasons a majority of my driving over the last few months has been motorway stuff. It looks like I use anticiptation plus engine braking (taking foot off the pedal) so well that I actually have some corrosion problems on the outer edges of the rear discs.

Pretty much driving mine like I would petrol but still average 38-40mpg (over my driving style and routes). I use the full rev range, more so after the remap as it still pulls all the way, whereas pre-map it ran out of puff at higher revs. Joining motorways can be interesting when the outside lane sees a Volvo estate pulling rather quickly into the lane (traffic conditions allowing)

[Jim314]

Originally Posted by Rawas

Thanks,
Sorry for taking you away from the main topic, but do you know if the fuel tank has any accessible vents? mine is an 2008 with 26000 Km.

Petrol doesn't foam like diesel fuel (or at least used to do) and so I don't think petrol fueling has the premature shut-off problem that diesel fuel delivery does. I don't recall a vent valve in the area of the fuel filler on the XC90 3.2 petrol.

I have known some petrol owners who insisted on overfilling and I am sure some diesel owners are the same or worse. On Fred's TDI Page there is the story of the guy who drove 1400 miles on one tank in his TDI VW Passat. What's the point?

There is supposed to be an air space above the fuel after filling up. This allows the cool fuel to expand without damaging the vapor recovery system.

[LJD]

1400 miles , one tank , Tdi ??

this must be one bloody big tank !

[Jim314]

See it here http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?p=268702.

The Passat did have a large tank and this guy surely used 'overfilling', that is, repeated topping off and burping to put fuel in what is supposed to be an air space for expansion. This is not recommended but will not cause damage if the car is not allowed to sit and heat up before it is driven to use some of the fuel. personally I wouldn't overfill, but some people get a kick out of going an amazing distance on one tank of fuel.

[rippedoffagain]

Originally Posted by Jim314

The way I had it figured was that it was US government policy to provide the American public with cheap petrol to enable commuting in private autos and to promote employment in the auto manufacturing and servicing industries.

I wish our government would see sense like that. Over here they prefer to make life as difficult as possible for anyone who is not lucky enough to work within a couple of miles of home. They think its ok to charge us something like 70% tax on fuel, and then charge us road tax on top of that, but that's another subject altogether.

Originally Posted by Jim314

Cutting off fuel does not cause engine braking. It is the air pumping resistance on the motion of the pistons that causes engine braking. Diesels, due to no restriction of intake air, don't have any pumping resistance. The lack of pumping resistance is one of the reasons diesels are more efficient than petrol engines.

The Land Rover Defender must have an automatic control system which detects a downhill attitude and automatically applies the friction brakes. Alternatively, the Defender may have an exhaust restriction or special hill descent throttle which engages and provides engine braking.

I beg to differ, but I know this to be wrong. Every diesel vehicle I've ever driven has much more engine braking capability than any petrol engined vehicle I've driven. I think its because of the higher compression to be found in diesel engines.

[Jim314]

Originally Posted by rippedoffagain

I wish our government would see sense like that. Over here they prefer to make life as difficult as possible for anyone who is not lucky enough to work within a couple of miles of home. They think its ok to charge us something like 70% tax on fuel, and then charge us road tax on top of that, but that's another subject altogether.

[snip]

Every diesel vehicle I've ever driven has much more engine braking capability than any petrol engined vehicle I've driven. I think its because of the higher compression to be found in diesel engines.

The downside of encouraging private ownership of cars is the need for construction of a vast road system and high morbidity and mortality rates due to crashes.

My wife is a retired secondary school teacher. She had a number of pupils aged 16 and 17 who were too exhausted to do their school work properly becausing they were working 30 hrs and more a week at exhausting low end jobs to make car loan and liability insurance payments.

The high compression of the diesel does not act as engine braking at low fuel flow rates. At diesel engine without a turbocharger has zero engine braking.

See http://www.thedieselstop.com/forums/...raking-209213/

Post #6 I've had a 2006 Cummins and a 2002 Powerstroke, both [manual] 6 speeds, and neither one of them had much 'engine braking'. In fact, driving downhill if I were to let off the throttle, both trucks would just keep going faster and faster until I slowed them down with the brakes, or they hit redline. With an auto maybe the programming for the transmission causes the engine to feel like it has an "engine braking" effect?

The energy expended in resisting the compression stoke is returned in the power stroke even if practically no fuel is injected. There is no net retardation like in the petrol engine.

In the petrol engine the intake air is pulled into the cylinders from the intake manifold at a pressure below the ambient atmospheric pressure and exhausted into the exhaust manifold at higher pressure, namely ambient atmospheric pressure. This gives a net retardation.

[SourDiesel]

Originally Posted by Jim314

Cutting off fuel does not cause engine braking. It is the air pumping resistance on the motion of the pistons that causes engine braking. Diesels, due to no restriction of intake air, don't have any pumping resistance. The lack of pumping resistance is one of the reasons diesels are more efficient than petrol engines.

The Land Rover Defender must have an automatic control system which detects a downhill attitude and automatically applies the friction brakes. Alternatively, the Defender may have an exhaust restriction or special hill descent throttle which engages and provides engine braking.

You mean hill descent control? Nope, its not that sophisticated - it only got ABS a couple of years ago! My understanding of Jake brakes is they are designed to reduce wear on consumable parts - i.e. brake pads rather than compensating for lack of engine braking. In Europe we have retarders which do a similar job (without the noise!)

This http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JG-c7...e_gdata_player is all done through engine braking, even think about touching the friction brakes and you'll lock the wheels, loose control and slide down to the bottom