In reply to DaewooOfDeath :
A chunk of why I like European cars in general and Volvos in particular is that their calibrations are not engineered for the CAFE test. The transmissions shift when makes sense for the engine and driver, the throttle response has no weird dips or hangs, etc.
Interestingly, I can regularly get 28-30mpg with a Volvo highway rated for 22 or 24 or something. Similarly I could get much better fuel economy than the EPA rating with my previous one.
mfennell said:I think you're viewing old car fuel economy through rose colored glasses. Sure, a 5.0 Fox w/2.73s driving a steady 65 might touch 30mpg but the EPA rating for an '88 5.0 mustang is 14/23 and the self-reported average on fuelly.com is 17.3.
My wife's MINI Cooper weighs about the same as a Fox, only makes slightly less HP (195, I think), and gets a hard-to-believe 29mpg with never-ending short trips around town. It's just crazy. A 5.0 would be lucky to see 15 under similar usage (like my 5.0 FFR w/4.11s does).
Interesting. I picked example cars primarily from stuff I've owned or lived with for my "real world" numbers. I've actually never owned a Fox, but I have lived with a 1997 Mercury Mountaineer. 302 and an auto. That got consistent low 20s and so I assumed a Fox would be around that or better. My current Genesis Coupe gets high teens/low twenties. I never lived with a turbo/supercharged Mini, but I have lived with a 1.6 NA Mini and that thing was mid 30s.
This could obviously be sampling bias on my part.
In reply to DaewooOfDeath :
It sounds like you're only looking at highway mpg. In a lot of cars, the city mpg gains have been (percentage wise) bigger than the highway gains from what I've seen.
DaewooOfDeath said:alfadriver (Forum Supporter) said:In reply to DaewooOfDeath :
Yes, that's unfair. There is a reason the newer cars go so rich (which may end up being too rich, but whatever) where the older ones don't. And, ironically, it is because of emissions. When you look at how often real people drive in the conditions that require that kind of enrichment, well- it doesn't happen that much.
Especially when you compare the TP emissions from each- from the Mustang to the Hyundai, the reduction is pretty massive- in all aspects of the vehicle. Even the '96 Vette to any 2020 model is a huge drop off. Heck, even at WOT, not considering the particulates, it's pretty likely that the 2020 models are cleaner- it's amazing how good the catalysts are even at non stoich conditions.
We've also been doing a lot of real world work- which is how the whole VW debacle was found. The testing I've done real world shows some pretty robust results thanks to the spread of required tests. Not quite the real world testing that the EU does now, but the correlation is quite strong. The biggest difference is still in the first 20 seconds.
So two questions then:
1. Are particulates less of a big deal than I think?
2. I didn't just mention emissions, I also mentioned fuel mileage. EVs are an exception, but in many cases fuel economy is getting worse real world. The stuff about holding "utility" vehicles to low standards and thus pushing manufacturers to replace our sedans and station wagons with Escalades and X3s is certainly part of this.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/cafe-loophole-could-lead-to-bigger-cars/2011/12/14/gIQA3bGLuO_blog.html
I didn't harp on it because I was trying to isolate engine design, but if we look at stuff with similar markets and designs:
1. EG Civic with a D15 will out economy almost any commuter car available today, including the expensive hybrid stuff.
2. A 3.8 Buick from 1998 will out economy practically any 200 hp family car available today.
3. Even my mom's ratty 92 F150 out economies my dad's ecoboost F150.
Btw, I'm not trying to indict you or manufacturers. If the EPA really has figured out effective techniques to reduce Goodhart behavior I am very intetested for selfish reasons. Philosophy and Education is my PhD project and I'd like to get into policy. Education, particularly evaluation stuff, is absolutely plagued with Goodhart effects and I am not above stealing from the EPA.
DMV road test to get a license. Thoughts? I have mine, but I teach DE.
Pete. (l33t FS) said:In reply to DaewooOfDeath :
A chunk of why I like European cars in general and Volvos in particular is that their calibrations are not engineered for the CAFE test. The transmissions shift when makes sense for the engine and driver, the throttle response has no weird dips or hangs, etc.
Interestingly, I can regularly get 28-30mpg with a Volvo highway rated for 22 or 24 or something. Similarly I could get much better fuel economy than the EPA rating with my previous one.
Funny you should bring this up. Part of the reason I posted this thread is I'm finding a lot of stuff in my current Genesis Coupe, and even more so my previous Forte, that I'd consider Goodhart Effects. They both rev hang like crazy for emissions compliance (I assume) and get way worse real world fuel economy than EPA economy. The weird throttle behavior at light throttle is also evident and, I assume, an attempt to game the emissions/FE results. Before I owned these two, I'd always beaten EPA estimates for cars. (Lucky for me both the rev hang and the stupidly rich cold and low rpm mixtures are tune-out-able.)
vwcorvette (Forum Supporter) said:DMV road test to get a license. Thoughts? I have mine, but I teach DE.
Maybe these have changed, but as I remember, it would be pretty simple to memorize a road test route and cram the evaluation points without having any particular spatial awareness, car control skills or understanding of when your vehicle is becoming dangerous to operate. (These are pretty much the same problems we run into designing the SAT, btw.)
Paul_VR6 (Forum Supporter) said: Though the VW dieselgate example of being able to pass the test EXACTLY and doing nothing more.
you did not get more "points" by doing better than the test required , and doing better probably cost more money !
DaewooOfDeath said:Funny you should bring this up. Part of the reason I posted this thread is I'm finding a lot of stuff in my current Genesis Coupe, and even more so my previous Forte, that I'd consider Goodhart Effects. They both rev hang like crazy for emissions compliance (I assume) and get way worse real world fuel economy than EPA economy. The weird throttle behavior at light throttle is also evident and, I assume, an attempt to game the emissions/FE results. Before I owned these two, I'd always beaten EPA estimates for cars. (Lucky for me both the rev hang and the stupidly rich cold and low rpm mixtures are tune-out-able.)
That's being lazy or just not capable. Slow shifts are terrible for fuel economy, The pause does not need to be there.
And once the car gets past 100seconds, there are hardly any more emissions that come out. If there is, and "games" have to be done, they are doing something wrong.
So, for the most part, what you perceive as gaming is just making things worse.
In reply to alfadriver (Forum Supporter) :
The worst example I've experienced, sadly enough, was a Focus with the 2.0/Powershift combo. It would flat out refuse to downshift until you were crushing the carpet. There is a hill on my drive to work, and I would approach WOT and the car would be slowing down because the engine is only turning 1500rpm or so because the trans would NOT kick down.
Then it finally would kick down ALL the gears, and then you lift because the car has gone from WOT at 1500, to WOT at 6000, and then the trans upshifts too far again...
In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :
That example just makes me more look forward to next May. Ugh..
I just saw the passenger side impact thing with the Escape. That's reprehensible. It's done little to improve my view of Ford, which isn't all that great to begin with due to the water pump failure mode in the FWD 3.7.
In reply to alfadriver (Forum Supporter) :
It hurts because the HARDWARE was there for it to be amazing, but something happened during the calibration phase. Maybe needed to eke out an extra hundredth so they could sell more GT500s. Who knows.
I figure the Euro companies don't give a crap about if their fleet doesn't meet CAFE, so they calibrate for the driving experience.
Pete. (l33t FS) said:In reply to alfadriver (Forum Supporter) :
It hurts because the HARDWARE was there for it to be amazing, but something happened during the calibration phase. Maybe needed to eke out an extra hundredth so they could sell more GT500s. Who knows.
I figure the Euro companies don't give a crap about if their fleet doesn't meet CAFE, so they calibrate for the driving experience.
They used to calibrate to the old EU test. And given Kyoto, they cared more about fuel than we do. Just that the measurement was, well, really bad. One of the things they "discovered" post VW.
In reply to alfadriver (Forum Supporter) :
https://www.carthrottle.com/post/rev-hang-explained-and-why-petrolheads-hate-it/
Is this wrong?
Also, I know this is anecdotal so feel free to tell me I'm being biased but:
1. Turbo German stuff especially and Hyundai Kia stuff also - I can actually smell the gasoline coming out of the tailpipes when they cold start sometimes. That's something I previously associated with badly tuned carbs. The BMWs in particular, as I mentioned before, smoke under full throttle. This is why I was harping on the "running rich" thing.
2. The recent Hyundai/Kia stuff - all from personal experience - seems to idle incredibly inefficiently. I've experimented with turning off the engine at traffic lights with a ton of cars - 80s Volvo, 70s IH Truck, 92 F 150, 2013 Mini, 88 Honda EG, 90 Eagle Talon TSI, 89 Supra Turbo, 98 Daewoo, 2002 Elantra, 2002 Tiburon, 2002 Escort - and the mpg savings were minimal in all of them. The modern Korean stuff with e-throttles - 2014 Kia Morning, 2010 Kia Forte, 2009 Genesis Coupe 2.0T - it makes a huge difference. Like up to 7 or 8%. I know people who own Genesis G80s that, if they let those things idle in city traffic, can get down to 12-ish mpg.
This all seems intentional, expensive to make, bad for the customer and bad for consumption. Hence me thinking there's a "gaming the test" angle to it.
In reply to alfadriver (Forum Supporter) :
Interesting!
But what I was getting at was, when their main product in the mid 00s was cars in the $30-60k range, and their sales volume is relatively small. They don't care if they have to pay a gas guzzler tax, that is chickenfeed. And their clientele largely would not care.
In reply to DaewooOfDeath :
It may be accurate, but I would honestly call it lazy. It's not an impossible task to let the engine slow down without problems, especially for a fully warmed up system.
For modern cars, if you can detect HC, they are likely not passing the requirements. So how they get away with that, I don't know. I know BMW does use some really nice hardware that allows for their catalysts to warm up really quickly. Maybe they had to spend that money for a reason. The rich running is seriously going away, very soon, the EU is going to ban enrichment for any reason in a few years. And the US requirements are getting tight enough to really make it tough to run rich on the US06- I've been spending a lot of time on that issue for the last few years. Still, I would not bank too much on the entire fleet from BMW- they do good things and they do not so good things.
In terms of the idle- stop-start is coming on line to pretty much every car.
For non US cars, I can see the cheater stuff- the EU drive cycle was pretty much designed to be cheated on. It's why some technologies pretended to be effective on the cycle, but ended up to make things worse.
Are there companies and cars out there that have to specifically do things to pass the cycle and get good FE? Sure. Is it the whole fleet? No. Some of us are specifically told to avoid that, and to turn in anyone who demands that we do cycle specific things like that. (which is one more reason that the whole VW thing was so mystifying to me)
And I can very much see that one can come to the conclusion that it's all about gaming the system. But it's not everyone, and there is real data to show that fleet fuel economy is getting better. Of course, that is offset by increased fleet miles driven.....
I'll defintely agree that I've seen newer turbo BMWs smoke visibly under heavy throttle. But in general, newer cars stop smelling much faster after startup. Even my 01 BMW has the cats warm enough to stop smelling in well under a minute and new cars are as good or better. In some cases, BMW has gone as far as having catalyst heaters to warm them up faster.
Fun fact no one has mentioned: emissions are not tested at WOT.
Our 06 Ody stinks waaay worse at cold start in the garage than our 15 Jetta.. for those taking random anecdotal evidence into record vs the actual certified emissions data 
AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter) said:Fun fact no one has mentioned: emissions are not tested at WOT.
That's not completely accurate. While there's no specific requirement to go WOT as part of emissions certification I've had a couple of low powered city truck things on the dyno that required WOT to run the FTP-75 trace.
Related to the OP there is some truth to the original premise. Even when a manufacturer puts in the time and money to provide a good calibration that works across the entire operating range they are, out of necessity going to run the final calibration through the certification process and if there are issues they'll have to tweak it. To counter that, if the company has the interest and the resources there's no technical reason why compliance has to compromise any other part of the calibration. If resources are tight or no one cares then yes, you'll get compliance and a crappy calibration. I contend that in those cases without the certification process you'd just get a crappy calibration and poor emissions and fuel consumption.
AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter) said:Fun fact no one has mentioned: emissions are not tested at WOT.
Depends on the car- for most, the US06 does test WOT. For the high power/weight cars, it does not- then again, most high power-weight cars don't hit WOT very much, since there's hardly any public road where WOT can be sustained for more than 10 seconds.
Even the SC03 (higher ambient, AC) has some very high load accelerations.
In reply to alfadriver (Forum Supporter) :
Generally, how long has this tight control been in effect?
I ask because I had an 08 Mazda turbo that supposedly ran pig rich at WOT but I always wondering if that was actually true. It had a factory wideband and DI, seems odd. Just wondering what's myth vs reality.
Side note: the amount of real industry knowledge on this forum is incredible and a privilege to be a part of.
In reply to spandak :
From before 2000. Thing is, your Mazdaspeed 6, or MS3, is a high power-weight car. They were some of the few that really didn't hit WOT on the US06 (or even come close).
And that was a reasonably early DI powertrain- when PM requirements were reasonably lax, especially for Federal requirements (not Green state). Way back in '07, we had an '06 MS6 that we took on a test trip- it was pretty astonishing how bad that was for PM. But that was a very cold weather trip- where we were experimenting with -20F starts.
Other factors that led to that rich- exhaust hardware- manifold and turbo materials not happy above 900C; catalysts up as tight as possible because early DI were terrible emissions producers; too high of CR for the ability. All of that will pretty much force an OEM to quickly go to the rich limit to keep the engine alive.
In reply to DaewooOfDeath :
I find this interesting.... Every one of our Korean cars destroy the EPA ratings. The First gen Forte was a consistent 34mpg highway cruiser at 75mph. 36 at 70. The 00 Accent 5-spd averaged 39mpg over the 150k miles we had it. The 08 Rio auto would "only get 35 in comparison. The 2014 Koup 2.0 was a consistent 36mpg highway. The current Rio is the black sheep at only 35 highway for the wife. I get 38 when driving it so I think its an issue with her and not the car.
Pete. (l33t FS) said:In reply to DaewooOfDeath :
A chunk of why I like European cars in general and Volvos in particular is that their calibrations are not engineered for the CAFE test. The transmissions shift when makes sense for the engine and driver, the throttle response has no weird dips or hangs, etc.
Interestingly, I can regularly get 28-30mpg with a Volvo highway rated for 22 or 24 or something. Similarly I could get much better fuel economy than the EPA rating with my previous one.
My wife's Honda HR-V. Ugh. In ECON mode seems to just hang out revving when I'm telling "SHIFT BEEEYOTCHHHHH" I finally started using the flappy paddles to shift it earlier. It's not a F1 car, it's okay that it doesn't see 3000-4500 rpm.
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