The Environmental Protection Agency has accused Fiat Chrysler Automobiles of installing emissions software in 104,000 diesel Rams and Jeeps that violates the Clean Air Act.
According to the regulator, which made its announcement this morning, FCA failed to declare “eight auxiliary emissions control devices” during the EPA certification process. Those devices were installed on 2014, 2015 and 2016 Jeep Grand Cherokee and Ram 1500 vehicles equipped with the 3.0-liter EcoDiesel V6 engine.
The regulator has sent a notice of violation to the automaker.
During heightened EPA testing of domestic diesels that occurred in the year after the Volkswagen emissions scandal, the regulator discovered software installed on FCA vehicles created excess nitrogen oxide tailpipe emissions. NOx is the key ingredient in smog, which poses a danger to people with respiratory issues.
The findings show a “serious violation of the Clean Air Act,” said Cynthia Giles, assistant administrator of the EPA, during a conference call. “Some of the devices allow the vehicle to perform differently when being tested,” she added.
Giles said EPA is looking to FCA “to demonstrate why we shouldn’t conclude that these (devices) are defeat devices.”
Defeat devices installed on Volkswagen diesel engines were revealed to turn on emissions control functions when the vehicles were undergoing regulatory testing, while leaving them off during normal, day-to-day operation. In Volkswagen’s case, the NOx levels were up to 40 times the legal limit.
During talks with FCA, the regulator, which is working with the California Air Resources Board and Environment Canada, claims that the automaker didn’t offer a suitable explanation for the devices.
The certification process for 2017 model year FCA diesels remains on hold, pending the ongoing investigation. Owners of the two models needn’t take any action, however. The regulator claims that the vehicles, while in violation of pollution laws, remain safe to drive.
In a statement, FCA claimed it was “disappointed” in the decision to send a notice of violation:
FCA US intends to work with the incoming administration to present its case and resolve this matter fairly and equitably and to assure the EPA and FCA US customers that the company’s diesel-powered vehicles meet all applicable regulatory requirements.
FCA US diesel engines are equipped with state-of-the-art emission control systems hardware, including selective catalytic reduction (SCR). Every auto manufacturer must employ various strategies to control tailpipe emissions in order to balance EPA’s regulatory requirements for low nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions and requirements for engine durability and performance, safety and fuel efficiency. FCA US believes that its emission control systems meet the applicable requirements.
FCA claims it spent months responding to EPA requests for information. The automaker added that it has developed a possible solution to problem — a software update that “could be implemented in these vehicles immediately to further improve emissions performance.”
The 3.0-liter EcoDiesel engine allowed FCA to advertise attractive fuel economy figures in the face of stringent CAFE requirements. Ram claims the 1500 HFE sips diesel at a rate of 29 miles per gallon on the highway, while Jeep claims the diesel Grand Cherokee attains a 30 mpg highway figure.
[Image: Fiat Chrysler Automobiles]
Well, time to buy that HELLCAT you want soon since they don’t have the assets of VW to recover from something like this.
It won’t affect FCA anywhere close to how it affected VW. Something like 40%? of VW’s cars sold in the US were diesels, and VW was heavily pushing the diesel image for its brand in the US before the scandal. Every VW car except for the Tiguan, Eos, and CC had a diesel engine.
Most people are not buying FCA cars because of diesels, and FCA has never tried to make a diesel=FCA image in the US.
Those proportions have nothing to do with legal liability, or actual harm. Neither does the brand’s image. The total number of violating vehicles was six times smaller, but still very significant. I’d multiply 100,000 trucks x2 to factor in increased fuel consumption.
Another manufacturer has screwed the pooch here, and ought to be penalized just as harshly.
“I’d multiply 100,000 trucks x2 to factor in increased fuel consumption.”
The violation notice isn’t about fuel consumption.
Actual numbers included in the EPA FCA document:
46,067 2014 and 2015 Ram 1500’s
23,073 2014 and 2015 Jeeps
The EPA is “projecting” 34,688 more of these vehicles for 2016 because they don’t have the numbers yet.
They’re guessing 103,828.
Are they counting unsold vehicles built and sitting on dealer lots? I’m guessing they are. So FCA could drop those numbers some by quarantining unsold vehicles.
More fuel consumed means more emissions created, unless these trucks are twice as clean as cars with the TDI. If the FCA trucks are that much cleaner, why the violation?
the devil is really going to be in the details here. First of all, if it’s proven that these vehicles did exceed certified emissions levels, FCA will be penalized to some extent. The severity of those penalties compared to VW will hinge upon the reasons for non-compliance. If these vehicles operated with a different strategy when being tested vs. on the road, they’re going to get hit hard like VW. If it’s one of those things where occasional “edge cases” like specific load/temperature conditions invoked any or all of these AECDs for short periods, then it’ll be less severe. We shall see what we see.
But at any rate, Marchionne needs to keep his trap shut.
If it turns out that this is something that truly can be fixed via a software update, as FCA claims, then it won’t be nearly as bad as it is for VW. For purposes of comparison, VW has 83,000 3.0L diesels in the US that they need to address. About 25% of those will have to be bought back because they can’t be fixed, the rest will be handled with a recall/update/fix. The size of the settlement for those 83,000 is right about $1 billion, and easily 2/3 of that amount is for the buybacks. That’s huge money, but nothing compared to the $16 billion that they’re paying for the 2.0L (mostly because the cars are being bought back).
Yeah, there will be fines and penalties, maybe even criminal charges. But I’d be shocked if it ended up costing FCA much more than $1.5-$2 billion.
I am A HARD CHARGER, but even I wouldn’t JUMP TO ANY SUCH conclusions as those some are, yet (in terms of levels of pollution, the timeline, intent and extent of issues).
I do want to emphasize however, in general, that –
a) These defeat devices that have been installed on diesel engine equipped vehicles seem to be a wider-scale problem than initially discovered with the VW fiasco, so I wonder which OEM/Manufacturer will be fingered next, and that
b) Some of us TAKE SEVERE UMBRAGE IN RESPONSE TO EXCESSIVELY POLLUTING VEHICLES, since we genuinely ENJOY CLEAN AIR, WATER, AND ENVIRONMENT, GENERALLY SPEAKING (ahem).
*I needed to use some capitalization for emphasis as I haven’t done this in some time, and pollution pi$$es me the heII off, particularly given that I’ve been to both China and India, and essentially would never want to live in either place, no matter how high my salary or great the benefits offered.
p.s. Even the air quality in Denver, Los Angeles & Phoenix is bad enough that it would cause me great concern if I and my family members had to breathe it 365 days a year. I did not realize how be it was in Phoenix, in particular, until my trip there this past August.
I’m old enough to remember the many multiple smog days during summers in southern Ontario in the 80s and 90s. I’ll always remember that disgusting brown haze that just hovered over Toronto, combined with the stale humid air made it pretty difficult to breathe sometimes. There’s a good reason we have air pollution controls and regulations and the much better air quality we have now is a direct result.
Remember the smell of gas fumes in parked cars, open crankcase ventilation systems with that middle of lane perpetual oil stain? Welcome to unregulated automobile life. Can you just imagine the smell of a typical traffic jam with today’s volume of cars with 1960’s exhaust?
Denver’s much improved, actually, DW.
Denver’s (lack of) air quality (and quantity) is a key factor that has me thinking about leaving, after 40 years. Turns out that the western suburbs near Golden, where I live, are the worst ozone spots in the state. Yes, I was a TDI driver for ten years, why do you ask?
Interesting, I live in Dougco but my S.O. lives in Arvada, so I spend a fair bit of time in that part of town, and I don’t see much of a difference. Maybe it’s more pronounced when you get into the foothills?
And overall, I’d say it’s LOADS better all over the area than it was when I moved here 20 years ago. The Brown Cloud, in particular, isn’t nearly as bad as it used to be (and apparently it wasn’t as bad in the ’90s, when I moved here, as it was before).
If it’s improved, it’s still WAY worse than ANY area of Michigan.
I had a college professor who previously taught at The University of California Riverside who was absolutely shocked at how relatively clean the air was in Michigan, and went and on about this during our first lecture with her.
It was one of those sunny, crisp, late September or early October days here (I can’t remember when the semester even started during undergrad to be honest), and the campus tree leaves had started to change colors.
The other area besides Phoenix, LA and Denver (IMO) that had surprisingly a$$ quality air was Salt Lake City, at least when I was visiting there (just one time though). The air was really surprisingly nasty, with a dirty, visible smog hanging over the city.
Does this mean I wouldnt have to pay the rest of the loan on my GC SRT?
“FCA US intends to work with the incoming administration…”
Translation: Come on, Donald look the other way. Your pick for EPA doesn’t really believe in the agency anyway.
Trump won’t kill them, but in return FCA is now Donald’s gimp.
“FCA US intends to work with the incoming administration to present its case and resolve this matter fairly and equitably”
I’m getting ill just thinking about this factually correct statement.
Are you wearing your safety pin and attending your Trump Derangement Syndrome meetings? Do that and you’ll be fine in 14-15 years. Maybe.
What, we aren’t building a wall around Auburn Hills and making FCA pay for it?
How interesting that you appear to be suggesting that only some of us should care about companies ripping us off, selling vehicles that poison the air we breathe and lying about it.
Why not? Our political environment is taking a very Italian turn.
golden shower parties are the new bunga bunga parties
It means that the EPA has been a runaway tyrant under the current regime and that, HOPEfully, this will CHANGE under the newer, smarter, incoming administration.
If by “smarter” you mean “ignoring real issues to focus on self-interest” then you’re right, comrade, this is gonna be the smartest administration ever!
I’m amazed at how ignorant some people are thinking that eliminating the tools that gave us vastly improved air quality would be a good idea.
I live in OK and I can tell you that guy is a world class asshat. Good bye clean air and water. Hello dril baby drill.
Ouch. Can Chrysler Fiat pay the amount of fines that VW is looking at?
No, because VW’s scandal involves about 5x as many cars in the US.
$17B for 500 000 VW would mean around $3.5B for 100 000 FCA trucks. FCA doesn’t have that money. FCA doesn’t have ANY money.
Most of that cost in the VW case was to buy back cars and pay additional compensation to owners for the fraud. For the models that can be fixed, it’s much cheaper. As a point of comparison, look at the 3.0L VW settlement. It’s around $1 billion for 83,000 cars, and 1/4 of those cars are being bought back while the rest are being fixed. If FCA can remediate all of the cars without having to buy back and destroy them they’ll get by on the cheap, at least by comparison.
And just like that, FCA goes bankrupt. Good riddance, question is, who will buy up their assets? How crazy would it be if H/K bought Jeep/Ram to fill out the missing vehicles in their lineup?
I’d buy one with a 10 year/100,000 warranty standard.
Can you imagine the redesign(s) necessary to keep a FCA provided 10 year/100,000 warranty from bankrupting them?
Supposedly that was what the CEO of Hyundai told everyone when they instituted the warranty: “Either quality will improve or we will go bankrupt.”
Well until last Year FCA warranty was 5 yr 100k miles. For a while they had lifetime warranties but they did go bankrupt around that time soooo, yeah.
Why bother when they can teach dealers how to get out of paying warranty claims as H/K is so famous for?
Or make it non transferable and dare the customer to continue to put up with the terrible car long enough to take full advantage?
“Why bother when they can teach dealers how to get out of paying warranty claims as H/K is so famous for?”
Evidence or sources? Or just spouting out crap and stomping your feet like usual?
“FCA US believes that its emission control systems meet the applicable requirements.”
Perhaps this is a dispute about how to interpret the regulation, depending on time-weighting of the numbers, or some such issue.
The “incoming administration” won’t give a flying you-know-what about emissions, so if they can stall/delay things until then, FCA is in the clear. And, based on the language they used here, I think they know that.
Why would Trump be so helpful to a Dutch-British company?
Well 80,000 US employees would be pretty silly to ignore if he really is the jobs president. He seems perfectly willing to ignore most everything to keep jobs here so I doubt he would let fines hit high enough to cause layoffs. Not a fan of his but this does seem to be something he would act on.
It’ll be interesting to see how Mr. Law-‘N-Order-For-Folks-Whose-Last-Name-Ends-In-“Z”-Or-Attends-A-Mosque reacts to this particular piece of lawbreaking.
And let’s take a moment and remember who will be affected here: folks who buy diesel pickups. I’d ask what percentage of these folks voted for Trump, but what’s the point in stating it’s anywhere between 99.4 and 99.7%?
Prediction? More gaslighting. Like “well, the EPA is bad to begin with.”
But we shall see.
“The EPA is a disaster, probably the biggest disaster in the history of the country; destroying jobs, destroying industry, making manufacturing go down to very, very low levels. It’s something I’m going to have Bart Schroeder – great guy, very successful guy – take a very close look at and I’ll be taking steps because I can tell you right now, the EPA, during the Clinton and Obama administrations, has been a disgrace, an absolute disgrace, and it’s gonna stop – big league.”
“Very low levels” in this case meaning “highest output ever”.
I keep hearing this, but in what context? Charts?
As measured in units of inflation-adjusted dollars.
Here’s a chart to start you, note that current US manufacturing output is 4-5x what it was when the EPA was founded in 1970.
http://www.aei.org/publication/charts-of-the-day-world-manufacturing-output-2012/
If you don’t like that source I encourage you to find another (non-conspiracy) one, they’ll all say essentially the same thing because it’s a provable fact that the US makes more stuff now than we did in the past.
Manufacturing jobs are way down of course, but jobs are not the same thing as output.
“Manufacturing jobs are way down of course, but jobs are not the same thing as output.”
Automation. Yep. Job Robber #1.
And you know what amazes me about the blue collar folks who voted for Trump? He, and Republicans, want to eviscerate the one thing that could probably save what’s left of the (non robotic) blue collar workforce: unions. And they want to do it for a simple reason: to de-fund the political opposition.
Lots of newly cut off noses and spited faces. People do some silly stuff when they’re scared.
Got to think a bankrupcy could be possible here. It’s not like FCA are rolling in cash, they are already highly leveraged. Even a fine/ buyback that was 20% of the sum VW will end up paying out could sink them.
My guess is that another car maker will buy them up whilst their stock is cheap. Now that VW know how much they will have to shell out I wonder if they’d be tempted? Jeep + Alfa + US Sales boost would give them all they need.
The ironies would be endless if VW would up owning Jeep. “Who really won the war?”
VW-Chry-Feep could rule the world as a consortium of polluters and cheaters. That idea might just appeal to the new regime.
Wouldn’t be the first time such a linkup was proposed. Lee Iacocca proposed a merger between Chrysler and VW in the ’70s or early ’80s.
Mercedes already explored that option (sans AXIS Italian Fiat) and abandoned it in the mid 2000’s. If they had to manage Fiat also? Would have been an even bigger disaster. And since I have less faith in VW’s engineering and quality skills than Mercedes, I shudder (or laugh at) the idea of VW trying to manage a VW Fiat Chrysler house. Man in the High Castle doesn’t work in our Automobile Universe.
F***ing Fiasler…
Well, it’s not determined yet if this is a deliberate cheat or it just didn’t work effectively enough under certain conditions. If it’s a deliberate cheat, goodbye FCA. They don’t have the resources to weather it like VW could.
Lots of folks predicted early on that VW was finished. Obviously not the case. I highly doubt this will be the end of FCA, regardless if it turns out to be deliberate or not.
It depends on how they handled it. VW continued to deny the cheat, even once busted. They eventually started blaming rogue engineers.
If FCA is guilty and if the violation is as bad, FCA needs to learn from watching VW and fess up. The penalties will be a lot lower.
“Well, it’s not determined yet if this is a deliberate cheat or it just didn’t work effectively enough under certain conditions.”
HEY! We don’t need facts to get in the way of unfounded assumptions and jumping to conclusions. Clearly FCA wanted to poison as many people as possible, so that’s what they did. They probably put asbestos in the armrests and listening devices in the infotainment (linked directly to Trump’s secret underground Evil Planning Center undoubtedly).
The specific allegations in the EPA Notice of Violation:
AECD # I (Full EGR Shut-Off at l lighway Speed
AECD #2 (Reduced EGR with Increasing Vehicle Speed)
AECD #3 (EGR Shut-off for Exhaust Valve Cleaning)
AECD #4 (DEF Dosing Disablement during CR Adaptation)
AECD #5 (EGR Reduction due to Modeled Engine Temperature)
AECD #6 (SCR Catalyst Warm-Up Disablement)
AECD #7 (Alternative SCR Dosing Modes)
AECD #8 (Use of Load Governor to Delay Ammonia Refill ofSCR Catalyst)
They may well be able to explain a good deal of this. Time will tell.
Came here for this. Good work (not chiding your for once).
Now we need Danio’s or some diesel calibrator’s opinion (I have friends at CAT and GM that do both).
These modifications – on the surface – sound bad but might not be. Diesel burns a lot cooler than gas so some of these things might be necessary. And unlike the VW TDI, these engines use a urea tank and injection system.
I wouldn’t presume to know but all of this is passed along to me by a friend who owns a diesel repair shop. He didn’t seem to be overly alarmed by the allegations and sent me a pdf of the EPA letter, which I copied and pasted here. He did say that FCA would “have some ‘splainin to do” but thought they had valid reasons for most of it.
An interesting sidebar: The EPA FCA document that is being passed around the web is a locked Pdf file. You can’t copy and paste it without owning the full Acrobat package and running Acrobat’s built on OCR over it. I only ran OCR on the page with the specifics but the resultant document had several typos that didn’t exist in the original document. I suspect that explains why I’ve been seeing a lot of Pdf documents from the web that seem to have unexplained typos in them. I was beginning to think the younger generation just couldn’t spell.
This could be a Bosch issue. VM Motori developed the engine prior to FCA buying them.
Three different scenarios:
1. Bosch supplies and calibrates.
2. Bosch (or someone) supplies the software. The OEM calibrates it. (VW did this on their diesels).
3. OEM creates their own software and cals it.
If I were to guess, I bet the OEM calibrated post acquisition of VM Motori’s development. But you never know.
You’re right, they may sound bad, but it all depends on what they do for the calibration. And you’re right about the hardware – FCA will not have to do any recalls that involve hardware thus this doesn’t look like an intentional violation to save costs.
Full EGR shut-off at highway speed? Already #1 is pretty hard to explain, and the rest don’t look very promising, either.
But the FCA response to EPA is exactly the same as VW’s response in the summer of 2015: “Oh no, sir, we are fully compliant with all regulations.”
Unlike a gas engine, a diesel engine does not use throttle plates on the intake. Therefore it does not need EGR in certain part-throttle conditions to dilute the incoming air to maintain the proper air:fuel ratio for complete combustion.
If the correct amount of fuel is being injected to obtain a stoichiometric air:fuel mixture (neither too rich nor too lean) without using EGR, it makes complete sense to shut EGR off at that time. It wouldn’t surprise me if this condition happens sometimes during highway driving, and the computer knows when this condition is occurring.
what it’s going to boil down to is FCA is already in violation by not disclosing those items; that matter is pretty much settled. The critical question to FCA will be “under what conditions and how often do these defeat routines activate in on-road driving?” If the answer is “never” or “nearly never,” they’ll probably get off with a relatively minor fine. If the answer is a VW-like “all the time,” they’re hosed.
There’s still no proof that those software modifications are “cheats”. Nor is there any report that the modifications made are anything other than to improve performance and economy as the engine’s efficiency reduces those oxide emissions at different speeds and under load.
The first one looks troublesome the others look like reliability issues. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
+1 what tresmonos said. This is the kind of technical details I’d like to see, though I’m only guessing as to what a few of these really mean. The mainstream media articles I’ve seen so far have dumbed-down / summarized the issue too much.
Some of these “devices” may become active during the EPA test cycle, but the billion-dollar question is whether they were implemented to solve a legitimate technical problem or were designed to game the test cycle. i.e. was there intent to deceive on the test?
FCA will get in trouble regardless for not disclosing these “devices” to the EPA, but if there was no intent to deceive on the test then the punishment shouldn’t be remotely as bad for them as for VW.
We need more information. Volkswagen created an emissions control system that was only compliant with NOx limits during the test, was clearly designed to cheat, and they lied to the EPA when they got caught. Other manufacturers have made vehicles that could fail emissions limits under specific rare conditions like extremely low temperatures. My guess is that whatever FCA did, it’s unlikely to be as blatant a violation as what Volkswagen did.
No, no, just NO. We hate FCA, therefore they did it on purpose and must be burned alive. Justification of our opinions is all that matters, facts be damned.
If this really hits FCA hard my hope is a domestic suitor will come along and return Dodge, Chrysler and Jeep to American owned or at least owned by a strong foreign car company.
Are you thinking maybe Google will buy them out?
@kcflyer
I would say Korean, but other Asian manufacturers maybe like Geely, with Volvo and TATA with Jaguar/ LR
The Sweater: “Hello, Mr. President? I am guessing you saw that we’ve been fined $2b for non-compliant diesels. Let me say (long pause while The Sweater gulps down another forkful of pasta)…these regulations put in place by the prior administration are killer.”
The Don: “I know this! Regulations are choking manufacturing in America and the West in general. (motions over Melania, covers phone with hand, and whispers to her “watch this, honey” with a wry, Cheshire cat grin.)
“You know Sergio, I can make it so you don’t have to pay a fine at all.”
The Sweater: “Are you going to make me donate to your foundation like Hillary made me do….I swear to God almighty, that was not me rubbing katchup on that nubile young lass and licking it off her down in St Tropez two years ago….I swear it, Mr. President!”
The Don: “I don’t know anything about that, Sergio (covers phone again and whispers to Melania “when you go shopping tomorrow, get some organic katchup, lets see what that’s all about, babe.”)
“I tell you what…build and upgrade some plants here in the US worth $2B, and I will make that fine disappear and fire a few EPA heads to boot. Just one more thing I need, Sergio.”
The Sweater: “Anything Mr. President, you name it!” (downs a glass of Barolo like a redneck downs a Bud.)
The Don: “I want you to bring back the New Yorker and Imperial nameplates and make sure it has fine Corinthian leather!”
The Sweater: “But but but….have you seen no one buys sedans and coupes in America anymore, Mr. President.”
The Don: “Trust me, Sergio. It’s going to be YUUUGE!”
end of phone conversation.
The Sweater dials Maranello furiously….Hello? Yea…listen…crank out as many Ferraris as you can….lift the cap. You hear me…no more cap….no…***loud coughing*** no, more…CAAAAAP…capice?!?!”
LOL
I’m waiting for part two.
Part 2 is glorious. With the self-imposed cap lifted, there are now Ferraris in every driveway, courtesy of leasing and badge whoring. A dagger in the heart of the 1% elite, courtesy of The Don, who rocks an Imperial Hellcat stretch limo named Pepe le Zoom, painted in frog green.
Oh, and every FCA product has a Hellcat option. MAGA!!!
I like your world.
Me three.
Parte seconda should have a generous sprinkling of “fantastic” and “great people” throughout.
P.S. I cannot believe what goldmine Trump handed to the writers at SNL with that press conference.
trololololololololololololol
Bravo!
Molto buona!
Più eccellente!
That was tremendous. Really great. Loved it.
The plot thickens.
FCA calling VW. Uh, our diesel is having a hard time passing the emissions test. Could we possibly take a look at some of your lines of code for your engine controls (wink,wink)?
If this proves to be deliberate evasion of standards and deception of consumers, as in VW’s case, how long until diesel disappears entirely from light-duty vehicles?
The makers that went all-in on hybrids from day 1 are looking better and better positioned.
Clean diesel!
Clean coal!
No, you can’t get pregnant during your period.
Yes, I will love you in the morning.
And the other question: who wants to bet FCA isn’t the only light duty truck manufacturer being investigated? *Cough* GM…Ford…
And unless I’m off, isn’t the *current* standard that was supposedly violated the one from 2009?
Ford doesn’t have any light duty diesels, but the 2.8 Duramax in the Colorado /is/ a VM Motori design like the 3.0 EcoDiesel.
“Ford doesn’t have any light duty diesels”
What rules are the 3.2L diesel in the Transit vans subject to?
Even Transit 150s are over 8500 lbs. GVWR, so the 3.2 Duratorq doesn’t need to meet the same emissions regs.
I probably shouldn’t have used the term “light duty,” since depending on the context, that can mean Class 1-3 trucks, or just Class 2b and 3.
I think the I-5 PowerStroke is only on “250” and “350” models anyway. As you say, not light duty vehicles like Grand Cherokee and the half-ton Ram.
Ford does have a diesel half-ton on the way, but the engine is already on sale in North America in Range Rovers if I’m not mistaken.
…Yes, the 150 is only 3.7 and EcoBoost. Diesel doesn’t kick in until 9250 GVWR models, according to the build and price.
The diesel in the F-150 (3.0 Duratorq V6) is apparently an updated version of what’s been in the Land Rover Discovery, not the 4.4 V8 from the Range Rover. The 4.4 was considered, though.
Medium Duty Passenger Vehicle (MDPV,) which is a bit looser and only applicable to the Transit 150 Wagon. AFAIK the 3.2 in the van is only available on the Transit 250-350.
If I remember correctly the Colorado Diesel was one of the first to be tested post DieselGate and it passed the EPA test.
^This.
Correct.
Colorado/Canyon diesel was delayed due to more stringent EPA testing.
It passed.
Interesting. Thanks.
“According to the regulator, which made its announcement this morning, FCA failed to declare “eight auxiliary emissions control devices” during the EPA certification process. Those devices were installed on 2014, 2015 and 2016 Jeep Grand Cherokee and Ram 1500 vehicles equipped with the 3.0-liter EcoDiesel V6 engine.”
Ok but what do these do? Did any one of these numnuts think to test one of the production models in the way WVU tested to check levels coming out? This may turn out to be a breakdown in process as opposed to “cheating”.
WhiskeyRiver’s comment above is more specific about what each “device” does.
Thanks.
The problem is if the US don’t treat them the same as VW then the EU might well decide to retaliate.
The EU won’t retalliate because they are also fining VW and they will fry their own fish with FCA’s european product.
As far as treating them the same, they should if it’s the same violation. Right now it looks a little different because VW had hidden code designed to be deceptive. Here they have labeled code that has specific functions and may cause excessive NOx so it may or may not be the same thing and worthy of the same punishment.
They have labeled the code? I didn’t think so. Where did you see that.
As for Europe:
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-fiat-chrysler-emissions-docum-idUSKCN1174O3
Would be interesting to see who might buy FCA if they came up for sale. GM and Ford are obvious buyers, VW is a possible as are the Chine and Indians. JLR via TATA might be interested, simply because of the component sharing they could do….. Jaguar with Alfa and Land Rover with Jeep and Ram…..
Are they actually cheating, or are these controls similar to the (not likely used in daily driving by actual customers) transmission mapping everyone uses to cheat mileage figures?
It would be terribly fun if we could take every manufacturer to task for that one!
@iNeon…Agreed…My EB Mustang doesn’t even come close to Fords figures ..YMMV indeed !
Turbo cars are a lot of fun, but i’m getting older and I think I’d rather have a predictable driving experience over a Jekyll/Hyde type situation
Newer ones are far better, iNeon.
I just bought a ’17 Jetta with the 1.4 turbo, and yeah, you can catch the engine napping at low RPMs, but the power feels natural and progressive anywhere above 1500 RPM.
It’s night and day compared to the “flip the afterburner switch” sensation that you got in small displacement turbos I grew up with in the ’80s (Chrysler’s, in particular).
I, too, own a newer turbo– albeit a FIAT-sourced one. It goes like stink, sings a beautiful tune and gets fantastic mileage for doing those things so well– but it will always be a small engine carrying around too much car.
I will not say a 1.4l turbo engine is OK for a mid-size vehicle. It isn’t, and will never be.
can people quit with the stupid “gas mileage” argument? Your fuel economy is controlled primarily by your right clod-hopper. there’s nothing being “disabled” or “enabled” on the road to deliberately make your gas mileage worse.
emissions are not supposed to exceed the stated limits regardless of how you drive it, but because you can’t repeatably test “real world” driving conditions it has to be done via a known, repeatable test procedure. That at least one automaker has used that repeatable test procedure as a crib sheet doesn’t invalidate the procedure itself. Part of the reason EPA can assess such walloping fines is to DISCOURAGE CHEATING!!!
Do as we say, not as we do.
I remember that song now – “its the end of the Ram as we know it…”
Even if Trumpgov lets FCA off the hook, they will still have to face the wrath of CARB. And they will not be easily appeased. Here in California we take air quality very seriously.
There may be nothing to be on the hook for, but who needs evidence when you have assumptions and opinions?
If that were the case, then Trump should have fired his entire campaign staff.
When this story broke and I saw the headlines elsewhere, I first presumed it was an update on the recent class action lawsuit over the emissions systems in 2007-12 Rams with the Cummins 6.7 diesel. That is also still ongoing AFAIK.
The EPA’s EcoDiesel investigation may be related to this class action lawsuit. The webpage describes the behavior of some of the alleged defeat devices:
http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161201005646/en/Hagens-Berman-Consumers-Sue-Fiat-Chrysler-Bosch
#golden2husky: I’m amazed at how ignorant some people are thinking that eliminating the tools that gave us vastly improved air quality would be a good idea.
Once again an instant response without any reflection on the content of the comment. I never said we don’t need the EPA and I used sarcasm to make a point. The new administration may be able to return the EPA expectations to attainable levels and balance the tree hugger’s attempt to use the EPA to get rid of ICEs all together with the clear understanding companies cannot make a profit when strangled by unrealistic EPA and CAFE standards.
“The new administration may be able to return the EPA expectations to attainable levels”
except you and your ilk haven’t demonstrated that the current regulations are “unattainable.” ‘cos it seems at least GM and BMW have been able to attain them.
Me and my “ilk”? You don’t know that GM or BMW isn’t failing because we weren’t told FCA was in violation until yesterday. Interesting that it coincided with the exact date that VW plead guilty. And the EPA has to do their own damn research on what is attainable instead of just saying, “This is what we want, give it to us. You figure out how. We don’t care about logic or science we want it all, and we want it now.”
It is clear from your response that you just want to attack anyone who doesn’t fall in line with your narrow minded view. Get a life and move on.
“You don’t know that GM or BMW isn’t failing ”
Yes I do, because I pay attention to things:
http://www.gmc.com/gmc-life/trucks/2016-canyon-diesel-small-truck-fuel-economy-rating.html
” EPA has issued the “Certificate of Conformity” for the GMC Canyon diesel. The agency expressed no issues following its recent, extensive testing and evaluation of the emission control system on the Canyon diesel.”
http://www.vinereport.com/article/2016-bmw-x5-news-car-passes-the-extra-epa-emission-testing-bmw-confirms-resuming-of-production/5891.htm
“Environment Protection Agency (EPA) spokeswoman Laura Allen announced the good news Thursday and was quoted in saying, “Our screening tests found no evidence of a defeat device in the 2016 BMW X5.””
Anything else?
No, JimZ. In the future I will remember that your are jerk, but one that has time to backup their crap and thus not waste anybody’s time providing you a stage to show the world how smart you are. We will just ignore words like “found” no issues.
I have been schooled by you, you are so smart, you should try to have your own blog…
“companies cannot make a profit when strangled by unrealistic EPA and CAFE standards.”
So how do you explain that corporate profits and equity values are at all time highs?
Print baby, print!
Those standards are not unrealistic if BEVs and FCEVs emit absolute no pollutants (in and of themselves) and achieve more than double the current fuel economy standards at the same time.