D5 / Diesels: A moral question on emissions and alternatives

[BritInSweden]

I love my 2005 V70 D5, more than is probably healthy, but every day I am being persuaded more to scrap her or at least the engine.

The issue is emissions. Which is wideley discussed on here but I wanted to get an updated take on it as news keeps pouring in how bad diesels are and it's not going to get any better.

I live in Sweden. Road tax for my soot belching Euro 3 is £700 per year. I drive 7000 miles per year. I have small kids who breathe in that soot and so do other folks in the world. So financially and morally i feel i should say goodbye to what is the best most reliable car i ever owned.

But I love the car! Everything about it except the engine emissions. So what are the options?

Do you think it will be feasible / practical that retrofit ad blue / SCR or equivalent technology is going to save us and the world as it is with commercial vehicles now?

Should i consider swapping the engine to an lpg, bio fuel? Any guesses how much it might cost? Or indeed worth it?

Or keep the D5 for parts and shell out £4000 odd for a more environmentally friendly v70 which I probably can't afford. Guess this is the bifuel v70. Are they any good?

Any help appreciated as to are partners to fund a cheap retrofit SCR kit that's going to make us and the world much richer 😃

Thanks in advance!

[canis]

The environmental solution is to continue using the car until the end of it's natural life. Otherwise you've got the environmental costs of building the thing in the first place, and the env. costs of dismantling/recycling a working vehicle, all on your conciounce.

The perfect solution is hydrogen. Hydrogen produced by electrolysis in equatorial desert regions boosting 3rd world economies, saving farmland for food production in temperate zones instead of these wretched bio-fuels.

Alas, the world makes strange decisions. We've got deserts doing nothing, solar panels on britsh houses (seriously, wtf?), charging electric cars in the name of environmentalism, and as everybody with a solar-powered garden ornament knows - the batteries don't last.

The problem (apart from economics) is the storage and carriage of potential energy from source to use. Hydrogen solves this, and these new high compression electrolysis machines look very promissing.

As a species, we really need to get our sh1t together.

[davidsmith1307]

My plan is to reduce my NOx footprint by getting a petrol model as well and splitting the mileage.

Well that's the excuse I've told my wife...

[BillDD5]

I have had the same moral tussle, especially as I have just swapped my worn-out E4 D5 for an E3 model. Realistically this will probably be the last Diesel car that I run.
My way of helping things is to to attempt to reduce the mileage I cover; a change of jobs nearly two years ago meant that I covered 25k miles in the last 12 months and over 30k in the previous year. However, recently I have been able to cut right down thanks to 'tele-conferencing' so hope to be less than 10k p.a. from now on - still mostly work-related commuting. A Diesel is still economically viable for me at the moment. After that it will be petrol or lpg.

As Diesel engines go I feel that the D5 is probably one of the best on the road - no fiddling with the emissions software by the makers too...!

Just my opinion.
Bill

[richard]

Personally a think NOX emissions are only an issue in densely populated and polluted areas.
Depends where you live.

[The Edge]

I think if we hark back to the days of coal fires in every home, factories belching out soot in all city centres every where a big part of me wonders what on earth are we worrying about now? The city centre environment is better now by far than to was 30 years ago diesel cars or no.

Emission control on even a E3 car is pretty decent, OK there is still soot but in comparison with a 1980's/early 90's car its a drop in the atmosphere.

Sure, diesel is on its way out but there is no way i'll be prematurely scrapping my E3 D5 even though, as discussed, it's probably the last diesel car i'll run.

[blueacid]

I'm wondering about the same point; I often drive in the city in my E3.

While on a global scale it's better to run the car until the bitter end, contribution to urban pollution really isn't desirable either.

I think if you're not often in the city, keep the car. Otherwise, time to perhaps weigh up an alternative?

[volvoid]

If you sell the car, somone else will be running it and you may breathe in its filth yourself.
I wonder what we arent being told about the latest petrol cars ?
Fumes, catalyst factories polluting whole counties, birth defects ????

[BillDD5]

Another point raised earlier in the thread was the amount of emissions (CO 2 and otherwise) from car manufacture. Running a car for a long time puts off the need to manufacture a new one - and the emissions created so doing.

Also it is not often mentioned how many natural resources that go into the batteries in these so-called "hybrid" vehicles and the effort made and distances travelled by components used in their manufacture - more CO 2 emitted.

[jnmonaghan]

I think the writing is on the wall for diesel,especially in cities.
A quote I came across recently on a VW Polo forum, you might find interesting--

A vile invention --
Dark was that day when R. Diesel conceived his grim engine that begot you,vile invention,more vicious more criminal than the camera even,metallic monstrosity,bale bane of our future,chief woe of our Commonweal.How dare the law prohibit hashish and heroin,yet licence your use,who inflate all inferior egos?Their addicts only do harm to their own lives: you poison the lungs of the innocent,your noise dithers the peaceful,and on chocked roads hundreds must daily die by chance-medley.Nimble technicians,surely you should hang your head in shame.Your wit works mighty wonders,has landed men on the moon,replaced brains by computers and can make a "smart bomb"It is a crying scandal that you cannot take the time or be bothered to build us,what sanity knows we need.

Jude