DI petrols have higher NOX than than non DI petrols but the NOX is way lower than diesels. We have 2 DI petrols now and neither have any smoke and mirrors filters, AdBlue tanks etc. and are according to the EU perfectly legal to drive.

VAG have clearly said its only one specific diesel engine in 1.6 and 2.0 formats that is affected by the cheating software.

But who knows what might come up later. People may even begin to realise that Hybrids are probably the biggest cheating culprits. They may well have low emmisions when running in mainly electric mode on test but once out of town the 1.8 petrols (or 3 litre in the Lexus) are just as dirty as any petrol engine.

And the biggest cheat must be the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV, 150 mpg my ar53. One chap I know is happy with his since going to shops uses no fuel but once out of battery it does about 35 mpg and that is most of the time.

Lets out all the cheats regardless of how they do it (legal or not). No one will convince me a 2 tonne SUV with a petrol engine is clean.

If I owned a recent VW product, which I don't, I would be making a beeline for a decent scrapyard or breakers and getting hold of a spare ECU that fitted my VW, just in case the inevitable forthcoming ECU emissions correction update turned my VW into a slug - just saying!

but reducing such emissions to at or below their legal limit ALL THE TIME.

That may well be the real situation/solution but surely no one with any common sense believed much of the claims and hype, did they honestly?

We all know or have been able to guess the whole emissions debacle, just like the trickery that is the MPG test, was a big fiddle all round, £30 VED low emission Diesels that go like a scalded cat by burning large amounts of fuel once up to boost leaving a trail of soot behind enough to cover the withdrawl of a pocket battleship...OK we've been disguising it recently by harnessing it and burning it off via increased fuel use and massive heat, but its still there and has to be dealt with.

No one surely believed their sizeable car that went like hell yet cost almost nothing to tax was 100% kosher due to it's miniscule emissions, did they? really?

People as they always do thought mainly with their wallets, they largely wanted as large and fast as they could get for as little BiK cost.

Pollution is one massive problem, cars are just one source, the root cause is there are too many people in the world and the ever faster increase of numbers is going to cause massive changes to all our lives, possible the repercussions will hit us all sooner than we'd like, it might well have started already, glad i most likely won't be around in 30 years to see the results.

I wonder if Mazda's approach by focusing on lightening the cars and using lightly-stressed larger engines (in their petrol engined cars at least) is the way forward? Ironic, considering that was, up until the mid 90s, the exact way that VW designed their engines, which, in the main, did last.

I have driven a new Mazda 3 with the 2litre petrol fitted. A very nice car and possibly the best looking in its class but the engine is poor compared to the VAG 1.4 TSi in my Leon. Despite the fact its 2 litres it had little low down push and needed to be revved to get it going, driven like that it did not appear to be economical. In comparrison the VAG 1.4 TSi pulls strongly from 1500 rpm to the redline which means you rarely have to exceed 3000 rpm in normal driving, its way better than any diesel.

I had 2 Golf GTI's in the 80's and 90's both fitted with the 1.8 8v engine. Both were totally reliable but compared to the TSi they were slow and thirsty. Things have moved on (at least with small turbo petrols).

Edited by skidpan on 30/09/2015 at 13:24

My son has recently bought a new Mazda 3 2L petrol, he did test drive a leon said it was much faster but still like the mazda better, so bought one.

It might be slower but everthing about it smells of reliabilty, a detuned 2L engine with no turbo to go wrong, has got to be a sound buy.