Regardless of the motives for the US consumer law, at least its working in the interest of consumers. It’s been widely established by commentators on both sides of the EU debate that it places German and to a lesser extent French car makers special interest at the heart of its policies.

I would say yes and no to that statement - I think the motives behind the US Government's handling of dieselgate is of importance, as, in my opinion, they go easy on US car manufacturers for the same reason that the Germans/EU have as regards VAG - they prefer to hit foreign competitors (including countries) rather than home-grown ones that have significant political influence, AND, more importantly, employ hundreds of thousands of people from their country who are eligable to VOTE.

I mean, would the US goverment be going after Ford or GM if they'd done the same - I think not. In my opinion, most Western countries consumer law is a waste of time, as business interests take precedence over proper (and fair to both sides) consumer protection. Occasionally the politicians and their underlings in the quangos virtue signal on consumer issues, normally when an important election is due or to deflect from other problems of their own making. The US themselves have spent decades, in my view, in propping up their failing motor industry with effective subsidies for making rubbish cars.

This waste to the planet as a whole is a scandal, VW should shipping these cars to a country where they are acceptable emmission wise, or consider the cost of changing the engines and anciilary mechanics to petrol. What about the rest of the Audi diesels? Surely any damage to the planet has already ocurred on the making of the vehicles in the first place. Like other views I think that is almost hypocritical to believe that the more developed nations are saving the planet with their politicaaly driven motives. If they are that concerned then we should stop manufacturing, liner cruising, flying, shipping countainers all over the world,wars, going to the moon, volcanoes, forest fires etc. The rapid increase in world population is unsustainable. The harm the human population has done to the planet over the last 100 years is evident everywhwere. You may say that you have to start somewhere but the reality is humans are selfish and governments need growth so making the right noises is seen to be doing something

Like other views I think that is almost hypocritical to believe that the more developed nations are saving the planet with their politicaaly driven motives. If they are that concerned then we should stop manufacturing, liner cruising, flying, shipping countainers all over the world,wars, going to the moon, volcanoes, forest fires etc. The rapid increase in world population is unsustainable. The harm the human population has done to the planet over the last 100 years is evident everywhwere. You may say that you have to start somewhere but the reality is humans are selfish and governments need growth so making the right noises is seen to be doing something

I agree entirely, although I think we would find it difficult to stop a volcano :-)

I am more worried about plastic waste getting into the food chain than the state of the air, its amazing how little attention has been made to something that a lot of people chuck out their car windows onto the road

and other waste thrown into roads parks and anywhere they cannot be seen dumping, one local road has an old trailer full of rubbish dumped almost in the middle of the road,thats just an example of how bad dumping is now !

Which is more polluting a diesel golf burning 1 gallon diesel to cover 70 miles or the eqivalent petrol car burning 2 gallons to go the same distance. When you take into consideration getting the crude out of the ground or sea(more cost) transport to refinery then to filling station twice as much petrol has to be moved for the equvalent miles. If governments want us out of our cars a vast improvement of public transport and availability is urgently required.

If governments want us out of our cars a vast improvement of public transport and availability is urgently required.

people have been telling them that for years, but didn`t you know they are deaf/not interested, probably got shares in oil

I think it is the fuel duty that is their main concern, about 58p per litre now (or £2.63 per gallon). If you were constantly being nagged by pressure group after pressure group to hand out more taxpayers' cash would you encourage people to buy less fuel and forgo the revenue?

The scientist who broke the news about VW s software fixes was driving a 1996 Honda Accord which probably emitted far more pollution than any VW/Audi diesel !

OF course, but it doesn't take into account all the polution caused by people over the same period buying three cars, which needed energy to (and thus CO2 emissions and otherpollutants produced):

• Mine the raw materials for the two new cars;
• Transport said raw materials to be refined into pure ones for use in industry;
• The refining process of the materials and processing all the way until usable metals, plastics and carbon composites are formed;
• Transportation of said refined materials to manufacturing plants and again from them to the car assemby plant;
• Design, test and manufacturer the car;
• Transport it to the local dealer plus storage and sales requirements;
• Provide marketing;
• Etc, etc.

If this was so much lower (per car, on average) than the difference in CO2, NO2 etc emissions from one generation of car to another, or even two generations apart, then we'd ALL be (by law) required to change our cars every 3-5 years.

Its the reason why (good) engineers never recommend, despite government 'campaigns' to do so, to change perfectly serviceable/reliable boilers that just happen to be (say) 15-20 years old and 20% less efficient than the latest ones. That and you never save the money you spend on buying and installing the new one over its lifetime (even if that's 15 years or more).

In my opinion, only change if the unit (car, boiler, whatever) isn't reliable (despite regular new parts) and is having a big knock-on impact on your life, including if parts get scarce and expertise is thin on the ground (and become thus very expensive to keep going [then it is worthwhile to change]), OR if the way it works isn't condusive to your needs and cannot be modified to suit reasonably easily/cheaply at no cost to reliability or other important criteria.

Why replace something that works acceptably?