Demon diesels

With all the restrictions being placed on older diesels, surely there is somebody out there who can design and produce a universal kit to upgrade older diesels to the latest Euro 6 specifications? It seems such a shame that perfectly good vehicles must be restricted to rural/countryside areas or be scrapped, especially as it is accepted that diesel development has surpassed its petrol equivalent.

Diesel engines are mechanically more efficient and produce more power per litre than their petrol equivalent, but the problem with diesel engines has always been that they were noisy and smelly. Great advances have been made by fine-tuning the injection system to alleviate much of the noise that used to be associated with a diesel engine, and the biggest drawback is that many of the advances made in the diesel engine technology are purely there to try and make them cleaner. If the exhaust from a diesel were not so harmful then the addition of an EGR valve, a DPF or the use of Adblue would not be necessary.

The emissions from a diesel engine contain harmful NOX gases, which are a major factor in ground level ozone, which is particularly harmful to the respiratory system. The problem is accelerated when the nitrogen oxides and hydrocarbon emissions are mixed with sunlight. This level of urban pollution is the reason for the Euro 6 spec being introduced. If it were as simple as putting a filter on the exhaust then there would be many companies out there doing such a modification, but the truth of the matter is that, in an attempt to get the emissions down to a non-polluting level, a whole range of modifications have to be introduced, the latest being the use of Adblue. However, there may be a future for diesel vehicles as Bosch has announced a breakthrough in diesel technology which it says will reduce NOX emissions to 10 times lower than those already set for 2020. This will not help older diesel vehicles and it’s a shame that more thought wasn’t put into this before the major manufacturers produced vehicles that they knew would not be suitable for town use due to DPF restrictions.