Did you see that all the manufacturers are facing lawsuits now? Basically the same thing VW did. If you own one, you stand to make good money, but I have a feeling that feature diesels will be less desirable (poorer performance).
Yeah, but unlike the lawsuit and allegations against VW, nothing of substance has been turned up against the other manufacturers (at least the US ones). And all of them are denying any wrongdoing, which would be a stupid move if, in fact, they were cheating as it would be only a matter of time before they get caught.
The jury is still out, but some of these lawsuits have been active for well over a year now, and there hasn't been any real development to them.
if everyone cheated, then one must ask the question... what good are the regulations? they are literally killing the diesel market... And certainly have made them more complex, less reliable and a helluva lot less efficient (so they burn more diesel)... just seems maybe someone jumped the shark a bit
The regulations have been unnecessarily strict IMHO. I think it would have been smarter and more economical to have imposed the emissions reg's in a much more gradual manner. Back in 2007, the major companies had to jump through a lot of hoops in a short amount of time to meet emissions compliance. That said, even with all the mistakes and troubles encountered by the early emissions systems,
most of the companies have made tremendous progress in developing and refining those systems.
The newer diesels are less reliable? Relative to the older mechanical clunkers, yes perhaps. But then again, those engines were dirty, smelly, not all that refined and delivered so-so performance compared to the newer versions. I also think reliability has improved on the newer diesels and will continue to do so.
More complex? Yep. And so are all the modern direct-injection, cylinder de-activation, gasoline engines. Everything is more complex nowadays.
Hybrid gassers or diesels would be awesome in a 4x4 too....but with that fuel efficiency advantage you're bringing along a whole lot more complexity. Every technological development has that tradeoff.