Should TDi owners be worried?

My apologies if this has been posted before, but I found this article in Autocar magazine rather troubling

http://www.autocar.co.uk/opinion/industry/opinion-it-time-say-goodbye-diesel?

I am in two minds whether this is good investigative journalism or scaremongering, and the comments that follow are also quite interesting, though also far from conclusive. It does however strike me that there is a wave of anti-diesel sentiment (largely the fault of the VW scandal) just looking for an excuse and the issue of Nitrous oxide from earlier engines sounds like just the thing to launch a backlash.

What do others think?

John H

I only have to look out of my rear window at full throttle while i'm pumping out black smoke (remap) to see that it can't possibly be doing the environment any good. I would however never sell my A2 so i'll just get a bike rack and cycle the last few miles of my commute into the city

Sold our polo Bluemotion John this month and bought An A1 TSI
I saw you sold your TDI already!

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

They will find a method to make them pollute less.

Cangri said:

They will find a method to make them pollute less.

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Yes, DPF's and we all know how well they work

We owned a late B5 1.9tdi for 10 years and i find them boring compared to petrol equivalents.We bought it second hand so paid a hefty premium for it over the petrol equivalent.Wishing we had never bought it to be honest. Was it wise? No not really, as we would never have been able to recoup the extra £££ it cost with the amount of miles we used to do in it.I've lent the car to family as someone is in need and they're grateful for it but when i'm ready i will be killing it off. If i had bought an B5 S4 at the time,same money £6k, it would have been a better investment,not to mention enjoyment and i would still most probably love the car and want to keep it forever.Moreover the car would still be worth what i paid for it! Sadly our diesel is practically worthless.No one seams to hanker after an old diesel car,i can't blame them Lol and there's no doubt they are dirty when compared to petrol and the fuel is more expensive. Long live Petrol!

A2Steve said:

I only have to look out of my rear window at full throttle while i'm pumping out black smoke (remap) to see that it can't possibly be doing the environment any good. I would however never sell my A2 so i'll just get a bike rack and cycle the last few miles of my commute into the city

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all my TDI's have been remapped , ive never seen black smoke even under hard load, seems they may of squeezed every horse out with your remap ,,, the only time ive seen smoke is from the webasto on its first fire up of the year as billows out the blue smoke for a little while

JIGSAW said:

all my TDI's have been remapped , ive never seen black smoke even under hard load, seems they may of squeezed every horse out with your remap ,,, the only time ive seen smoke is from the webasto on its first fire up of the year as billows out the blue smoke for a little while

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Hi,

Many of our TDis will give out black smoke under load (including those that have not bee remapped), but you can normally only see it in certain circumstances.

If you are under load at night with a car following closely with their headlights on you can sometimes spot it, but not often.

The reason it is not often spotted is that when you are on a level road and you accelerate hard, the car behind is not close enough to illuminate the smoke. So I have only really noticed it when accelerating up hill

Steve B

JIGSAW said:

all my TDI's have been remapped , ive never seen black smoke even under hard load, seems they may of squeezed every horse out with your remap ,,, the only time ive seen smoke is from the webasto on its first fire up of the year as billows out the blue smoke for a little while

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I fully agree, my remap puts out no visible smoke even in the headlights of a following car in the dark.
A2steve - I think you may have something wrong on your engine

Cheers

depronman said:

I fully agree, my remap puts out no visible smoke even in the headlights of a following car in the dark.
A2steve - I think you may have something wrong on your engine

Cheers

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Yes,

Since the black smoke is caused by overfueling or insufficient air intake to match the fuel it shouldn't happen (unless it is due to deliberate overfueling as in some performance diesels) They sometimes carry stickers saying "Just because there is black smoke don't mean that it is broke!"

In my case it was just very occasionally that it happened and I could only see it at night.

Perhaps the Air filter is not at its best or there is an injection poroble (or the remap has caused overfueling).

But my point was that some people might not have noticed the black smoke.

Steve B

Nowt wrong, happened immediately after the remap. Only visible in headlights of following cars and only at full throttle. Its just overfuelling from a cheap remap. No boost leaks and impeccably serviced.

My car just done the ITP. You call it MOT.
The guy there was awed that a diesel car with over 230.000 km does not pull out any smoke.

I see black smoke when flooring it it (unmapped) and constantly remind myself that this engine design is probably 20 years old with mine now being 15 years old!

Absolutely no issue.