This Car Is ILLEGAL 

Thanks again to Manscaped for sponsoring today’s video! Get 20% Off + Free International Shipping + 2 Free Gifts with promo code “ALBON” at manscaped.com/ALBON What do you think about VW's punishment? Did they get off easy? Or was the EPA too hard on them?

Im really surprised they managed to criminally charge the CEO and top execs as usually it never gets blamed on a personal level.

You left out the bit where Mercedes made a deal to avoid any and all prosecution for their emissions cheating. The entire software trick can be traced back to Bosch. Almost everyone that used Bosch DME was able to use the software cheating. Most brands did, but they just didn't get targeted by the US government.

Good coverage. Some small and big details you forgot to mention. 1. VW's TDI engines met Euro 4 (2005-2008) specs but failed w/ Euro 5 (2009-2013). 2. Meeting Euro 5 requires DEF (urea) injection into the exhaust -- a total (expensive) rework of the exhaust system. 3. VW CEO Winterkorn had ambitions to beat Toyota to become the world's largest automaker. 4. Top management was pressuring the entire organization to keep up sales/profit margin targets. 5. Mid-level VW engineers came up with the software cheat, but approval had to go up the command chain. 6. It's a subject of debate how far up the VW Management (not Engineering) org the scandal went.

Back in 2015 some independent engineers performed independents in Europe using a similarly specced Passat and the numbers they got 2.5x above the legal limit, not 40 times like reported in the US, then they performed the same test on an Opel Zafira and the results for that were above the reading range. Strangely, I didn't hear anything about this back home in the US.

This needs to happen in other industries. Like big Pharma and food processing companies.

I was an (off highway) diesel engine engineer when this scandal broke out. My coworkers and I laughed and laughed and this case became our go to engineering ethics case study for a few years until the Boeing 737 Max / MCAS disaster...

It's rare for corporate fraud to end up with hefty penalties and real jail sentences, this time even their high profile lawyers didn't have a leg to stand on. I really wish to see the same on securities fraud and white collar crime.

I was using used fry oil thrown away by restaurant's. I would then put it throught a personal filtering system so that it was back to it's original vegetable oil, and used it in modified diesel car engines. Works great.

VW has enough money to quickly recover from it. They thought they were sneaky enough, and three college guys outsmarted them. Such is life!!

The sad part is, they were fantastic cars, got great mileage, and were loved by everyone. Cars already on the road are now selling for ENORMOUS sums.

This is the best explanation of Dieselgate I've ever watched, props to Albon for making it so interesting

The Mercedes diesels here in Australia during this time were tested using actual on road tests, & they passed. In fact, their V6 diesels sold here in Australia are very quiet, almost impossible to tell the difference between the diesel & petrol ones, unless you look at the fuel cap.

Those TDI engines are amazing.

Anyone whos been remapping these for a long time will know VAG has been at this for decades. On the old vp pump engines (1997-) there's a spike in the timing map so extra timing is given at around 55-60mph. Timing increases economy but creates nox emissions. This is easily verifiable and was well discussed on ecu tuning forums back in the day.

Yesterday, I drove my '03 VW Jetta TDI Wagon 550 miles. I'll drive it another 200 today. When I stopped at my motel last night, my fuel gauge was still showing about half full (if lies a little right at that spot, it probably burned about 10 gallons out of the 16 1/2 gallons that the tank holds). During my trip, my odometer rolled over 562,000 miles. I have two 1,000 mile/tank of fuel on this car. I have a spreadsheet with every drop of fuel put into my car since I bought it new. My overall fuel economy for that 562,000 miles is 52.9 MPG. I love this little car. Surely, I'll have to do major work on this car soon or replace it. I'll replace it if I can find an '03 VW sitting in some persons garage with 100,000 miles on it. I bought this car new. At the time, the Europeans had a sulfur restriction on diesel fuel, American-refined diesel was too high in sulfur to be sold in Europe so it could not be exported. Diesel was typically 10% cheaper than gas at the time. EPA instituted a restriction about 2007 that dropped sulfur in American-produced fuel to match the European. Once the US oil companies switched over to producing low-sulfur diesel fuel, it could be sold in Europe so they exported as much as they could, so diesel prices went up a little. Today (June, 2023) diesel is within 5% of the price of gas where I live. When I bought my VW, I paid $1000 for the diesel option. EPA said that I'd get 41 MPG around town and 48 on the highway --- my best tank of fuel achieved 61.8 MPG and that was a real trip going somewhere from Canada to North Carolina, across the Appalachian Mountain chain. At 390,000, I figured up. I calculated my exact fuel cost for that 390,000 miles (that's on my spreadsheet, too). I took the EPA results for a 2.0 '03 gas TDI Wagon, and factored that by my increase in actual over EPA mileage (which is *way* favorable to the gas car because only a diesel could beat the "Your Mileage May Vary" figures, but I gave that). I took my fuel cost, added the $1000 cost premium and compared it to what I'd have spent of gasoline if I'd bought a gas car. At 360,000 miles, I has spent $21,000 less in fuel driving my diesel. I paid $21,000 when I bought it. So, I figure that about 8 years ago, VW gave me a new free car and I've been driving that car -- no payments, no interest, no high property taxes -- for only the price of fuel. (I do all my own maintenance except timing belts, no spark plugs, no tune-ups, my maintenance costs have been much less for 20 years, too.) "Progress" says that I can't buy a new car like the one I own and love. So, I'll keep it and love driving it. And I don't have to go to prison for doing it.

I’m a Car guy and My friends and I knew about this from the testing results of the college investigation. We all wondered why it wasn’t a bigger story at the time. Well that eventually changed.

He has enough money to get away, and outlive the rest of his life in comfort. I don't think he is too bothered.

I'm a retired USA expat living in the Philippines now. I get tremendous fuel economy from the used 2001 Ford Ranger diesel I purchased last year. For a 20 something year old pickup truck it passed the mandatory tailpipe emissions test with flying colors it doesn't produce black smoke and has plenty of power for a 4 cyl diesel. I owned 2 US versions of the Ford Rangers prior to this one while still living in the states and only wish the diesel engine option was available then.

A great example of how important it is to have _independent_ regulatory bodies. Imagine how much more of these scandals would emerge if there isn't any lobbying or conflict of interest. That is where the real focus should be.

My friend still owns one of the recall TDI and he just installed a bigger turbo and an AWD system still runs and drives reliable

Now i know why we received in the recent years here in Morocco a huge batch of VW Golfs and Jettas with orange turning indicators. Everyone knew that those cars were from the US and they were well equipped and suspiciously cheap. Also compared to the fuel consumption we used to get from 2.0l tdi's with the same horsepower, those cars were consumming much more fuel. Ironically, morocco hosts annually a climat international event but at the same time diesel cars represents pretty much 90 percent of cars on road.

Love this kind of stories where a huge company do something bad and they got caught not by some official people, but some random dude. Just like the "spygate" story

The interesting thing is how deathly silent VWs competitors were during this scandal. Nobody tried to capitalize on this. My suspicion is others are doing similar crap, VW just was the one that got caught.

I own two Deisel vehicles and I love them both. I have 22 GMC Sierra 1500 with the 3.0l Duramax and I get around 31 MPG highway! I have an 08 Hummer that I had retrofitted with a 6.6l diesel and it went from 10.5 MPG with the 6.2l gas to 23 MPG, more than doubling its fuel capacity, plus it almost tripled the engine performance. Overall I'll never buy another gas engine again in my life.

"Exploited and burned to ash by yet another case of corporate greed" what a punchline!

This is eye opening. I've been shopping around for a new vehicle lately and of course I strongly consider mileage, emissions, and cost. Now knowing that diesel has everything I want yet isn't available due to the fact that I live in the wrong place is heartbreaking. I only wish that the true could be known.

WOW! I had forgotten about this Diesel-Gate event. Thanks for a great video!

Such an eye opener well done telling the public what scams car manufacturers will try to get away with

Honestly these episodes SHOULD BE LONGER! Albon is THAT good. Love the channel.

I really do enjoy contents like this, Guff!! I've been watching your vids since "Here's why you can't afford" episodes!!! Anyways, I always looking forward for your future contents like this!!! And also, please do some documentaries of 24 hours of Le Mans endurance race if it's okay with you!! Surely that everybody would love that, and also touge racing. That's all and thanks once again!!! Keep on doing this man!!

I have zero sympathy for Volkswagen. in 2017 I got a 2008 Touareg from an auction missing only the key FOB. the dealership refused to do anything besides sell me a $300 dollar laser cut key/FOB after proof of ownership and would not program the key to the car at any cost. After being unable to do a thing with this car I sold it to a junk yard for 500 dollars because I did not have thousands of dollars to purchase diagnostic and key programming computers/equipment nor any straight forward information on how to do it myself... Good riddance VW and your terrible customer service (Manhattan Beach VW) LOVED THIS VIDEO!!!

Your clips comments and subjects are great to watch, with true facts about 👍 Thank you so much

The fact that they had the audacity to keep going after the initial discovery by the college students blows my mind.

i used to be a VW tech here in Spain, even in my time working there (2019-2021), wich was way after the Dieselgate, the effects were clearly visible, tons of ¨software updates¨ on any TDI model from 2009 to 2015 and thats here in Europe, were they really didn't give the people that came up with this more than a slap on the wrist and telling to think what they did in the corner, the overall quality of the cars has gone down significantly too, the interior for example in the new MK8 Golfs feel and look like shit compared to the previous gens, which can only mean cost-cutting to manage the massive efects of the scandal. It is sad though, VW used to be a ver cool car company, that made interesting, funky, good quality cars at a decent price, but they have become a ghost of the former shelves. And to think they should've just taken what Mercedes had, I mean, is not like they have been doing diesel for like 80 years at that point and have demostrated the had it mastered or anything, you know

Love ur content, just came across ur channel, it's hard finding anything to keep my attention, finally something I can watch and stay interested in

These dieselgate cars are still on the road here in Czechia and I think most americans would be surprised just HOW MANY of them there are. And I understand why, they are reliable, fuel efficent and not so expensive to buy.

If you lived through the 1970s and 1980s here in the States, you'd understand WHY diesel-powered cars have had a bad reputation. Aside from the extra cost of the car and fuel, and the lack of performance, the early GM diesels suffered catastrophic breakdowns. (Engine heads blowing off, crankshafts literally breaking in half, and other fun stuff guaranteed to leave you stranded at the roadside.)

While we're talking about mpg, my previous Dacia Sandero 1.5 dci, was extremely efficient. Upto 800 miles on a 9 gallon tank. Happy days of motoring

Well done documentary. Very informative. Worth watching.

A nice documentary with some nice humour. Thanks :)

During the scandal, I was amused to hear that the upper management didn't know what had been going on. It was all because of some renegade engineers. Yeah.

Thanks for summing that up. But how did the device work?

It's worth noting that if they properly used these emission control override systems to only engage to boost scalability of the engine beyond what could be done with emission controls engaged, and properly disclosed their existence to regulators as a way to further boost efficiency while still reducing emissions during standard driving, it wouldn't have been an issue. However, they simply hid it, lied about it and tuned it for maximizing performance without care for emissions. Basically if they would sell it to regulators as a way to make the car dynamically self-balance the emission/scalability problem it would have sold to regulators as a plus, not as a cheat or a scandle. They certainly would have had to make the system be less aggressive in scaling back emission control systems, but it would likely still prove an effective way to squeeze more power out of a smaller engine. The biggest problem seemed to be how aggressive the system was engaging. It was disengaging many of the emission control functions in nearly every turn and quite a few other driving behaviors.

The perfect example of a bad CEO nearly ruining a company. You know there had to be clear thinking voices saying, "Don't do this! It will end badly!" They probably got fired!

As scooby doo enemies always say, "And I would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for you meddling kids!"

Awsome Doco, Well presented, Well done :)

This is a great video. I never realized the scope of this thing.

Except it WASN'T a secret... I had a Volkswagon salesman in Huntsville, AL explain the software to defeat the test as a feature and a reason to buy the car years before the whole "scandal" broke. I called him crazy and told him if what he was telling me were true it would be illegal. So, imagine my shock when his sales pitch turned out to be true.

Thanks for always creating some of the best automotive videos out there!! I love how much information is packed into these videos!!!!!!

I live near on of the giant fields of recalled VW’s. They have been sitting there in the field and nothing has been done with them for years. There is one person that sits in a booth at the only entrance to the field of cars and if you drive up and talk to them kindly asking what’s inside they say “I’m not allowed to talk about it and you have to leave or we have to call the police”. I’ve stopped by 3 times over the years and got basically the same quote all 3 times. You look it up on maps and the cars just sit there wasting away. They don’t even crush them or recycle them. They just sit.

It should be noted that the problem was not in the harmfulness of the new engines, because they were not worse than the older versions, which have worse emissions and can be operated without problems (which is quite funny). But in that they did not meet the new standards for new cars. From the point of view of producers, the new restrictions often seem unnecessarily strict and often practically unattainable....

My biggest question is HOW does the car know the difference between being on a dyno and being on the road? I can understand the computer "flipping" between tunes when the computer is plugged in, but is that how it was doing it or was there something else? IE: front wheels turning, rear wheels not? And where did all these cars go once they were taken off the road?

Thumbnail gives me the sense he *_played college ball ya know_*

Great job on this video. You made it very entertaining which caught my attention to watch till the end.

To be honest - I had a 2012 Passat TDI and loved it! I loved it so much I kept it until VW would give me a 2015 TDI. Which I still have! I love the mileage and the range. No electric pos can beat it!!

Stumbled across your channel and I gotta say, I love the content. I learned things I wasn’t even aware! Especially about this since I own a VW.

You guys should do some Porsche based content, and how they became how they are today. Love the videos

Awesome informative video, never knew and very well researched ;)

I love this channel, I've learned more about cars/car culture here than anywhere else. Keep if up Guf!

the tdi is still highly wanted in the Vw community. The mileage is insanely good and very tuneable. EPA is just Butthurt

You should definitely make a video about Ford's Powershift automatic transmissions. A friend of mine had one of those Fiestas. Was tough to get rid of it.

Great video. Additional fact about diesels that viewers might not know. They're used underground in coal mining operations and their exhaust is made perfectly clean by certain technology.

Since I have worked in many industries in my engineering career spanning three decades, I can absolutely verify that the car industry is the branch that lies and cheat the most! And if you are trying to hold them sustanable, you get fired, thats why I always keep backup of all my proffesional work, I only thrust myself, easy as that!

Albon awesome video representing exactly what happened in this fiasco. I have never truly heard it all put together so coherently, and was always puzzled as to exactly what happened step by step and how they got away with it for so long! Keep them coming, because no one covers the topics you present to RU-vid’s audience!😊

Funny enough the shop I used to go to found the differing conditions when they tried tuning some diesels, as they couldn't get dyno tuning to work, since the car behaved entirely differently. After a bunch of frustration, they ended up just street tuning them.

I'm old enough to remember when car makers could make cars that consumers wanted. That's all VW did here.

Will you do a follow-up story on the other German diesel manufactures that were caught in the same scam?

My dad really loves VWs. He still does. It's a shame that its modern legacy is being tarnished 😿

I think volkswagen unfairly took all the spotlight for this. Bmw and MB did the same thing. I also think the emission standards for those kinds of cars is unfair, You can have a giant diesel truck to daily drive to your job at burger king polluting a ton more than those other diesel cars. Nox emissions aside they cause a lot less atmosphere pollution.

Very interesting --- Thanks to the students !!

Third edit: love the videos as a new car guy I love the educational aspect of your videos while still being entertaining and fun to watch. Keep up the good work!

I knew it had something to do with the ECU tuning like 7 minutes in. This is the first time I’ve heard the whole story

Hey albon! Love your content! Keep up the good work!🎉

No mention of the amount of pollution pumped out by the American manufacturers. They were all underreporting their levels as well. The prosecution was an action taken at the orders of the big American manufacturers, who were worried at the inroads Volkswagen were making into the market in the USAsylum. The action was taken, not to stop pollution, but to interfere with sales.

Great content, thank you. It’s sad that VW can get away with acts like this here in my home country South Africa. We have a massive VW on the east coast of our country, but I’m not aware of one TDi being recalled in South Africa. Please can you confirm this?

It's insane that they thought they could get away with this. So short sighted

So fascinating! So informative! 🍻

In 1981, my diesel Rabbit was getting over 40mpg on the highway while my Chevy was lucky to get 20mpg. I'd say burning half as much fuel per trip kind of makes up for the emissions difference.

Other companies have done the same. I was once told "You did not see that" when a manager ripped up a printout showing a failed test result. He then typed something into the test terminal and the unit under test passed. The Bottom line should not always be the driving force.

Who would have thought a car company that started off so ethical and well (wink, wink) would have turned out to be the baddies, Hans!

I have a 2014 TDI Beetle Bug convertible 2.0....well I kept the car in 2020 agreed ...VW gave me $8000.00 and Bosch gave me another $880.00 + I received a 100,000 mile warranty on the Motor.....1st car I ever got paid to drive....75,000 still driving

When I was in my teens in the '60s here in the Philippines, most of the private cars were US V8 gas guzzlers. It was the age of Thunderbirds, Mustangs, Rivieras, Cadillacs and Imperials etc. But high octane gasoline only cost 28 Philippine cents per liter (about US 9 cents per liter). Only heavy trucks, buses, bulldozers and yachts used diesel powered engines. But diesel was about half the cost of gasoline. Why is it that today, the price of one liter of diesel is almost the same as gasoline? It costs much less to refine diesel, so the big refineries are making a huge killing.

I’m honestly surprised that VW had done this. All they had to do was just to pay Mercedes for their filter and yet they didn’t.

That's nuts! The greed and almighty dollar over human life is just sickening. Another very informative watch, well done!

well done on that segway to the sponsor. Linus Tech Tip level.

Great Documentary !

I believe that vw got what they deserve but i can bet that if this was an American based car company that got caught doing this it wouldn't have come nearly this far.

I worked for a dealer in early 80's and got the honor of driving a trade-in Chevette diesel over a mountain. I found it a character building exercise to remind me I was going nowhere fast. Soon after I was given a Chevy luv diesel to deliver parts in. I loved that little truck. That Isuzu engine and 5-speed was decent in town because there was always another gear up or down. The car made it over the mountain in 2nd on the shoulder.

Great clip, very informative

I like the way you just have to keep the tune up maintenance schedule.

Very good story telling as usual. I'm curious why you didn't touch on how this resulted in the discovery of other manufacturers doing the same thing?

Great video as always, keep up the great work

I had a 99 Diesel Bug I bought used in the early 2000s. The previous owner had not maintained it well (... and honestly I didn't know how to either) and I inherited a number of problems including a tendency for the battery to die if it wasn't started at least once a week (I went on a trip without my car and came back to a dead battery). Eventually the cooling system failed and the engine ceased up. All this happened well before the emissions scandal hit.

Very good job of storytelling! I have no idea if the facts put forth are true, but your persuasiveness and style were the "A" game.

I remember buying into all the positive claims and thinking my next car would be a Volkswagen diesel when I found out they were lying to us. So scandalous and sad.

Growing up in 1995, my best friends, mom had a diesel Passat with a manual transmission. It changed everything I thought about diesels, it revved higher than I thought, and had lots of power seemed very reliable, and the smell… Something about the smell of that German leather interior mixed with diesel fumes was intoxicating in a good way. I thought this was the antithesis of what it meant to be European, which was of course, much better as the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, we hills European standards on a pedestal

I own one of those rangers at 1:15. Never thought I'd see it on RU-vid 😂

a follow up on the cars VW had to buy back. They were allowed to sell them back to the public around 2018-2020 after a software update. I got a 2013 Beetle TDI and I am holding to it like its gold LOL

if only someone invited all three of these college kids to those really rocking parties, this would have never happened... 😂