I was just stating an opinion, not trying to start an argument. :beye:
Of course modern diesels are a massive improvement in terms of pollution and driveability. I just don't see why those characteristics needed improving, when petrol engines have always done them better, without exception.
Quite so... Add to that the fact there is no credible engineering reason for them to be made with seals which will be destroyed by sustainable vegetable-based fuels, no need for them (nor for than matter petrol engines) to be built so that they're over-stressed and fragile and therefore have a shorter service life; no need still to be using high Sulpher fuels. - Oh! and no need for manufacturers to be claiming ever-longer service intervals that only add the the shortening of the engine's life.
...Then there's the fact that that many modern diesels achieve their supposedly 'cleaner' output through adding very nasty corrosive fluid to the exhaust. As someone who suffers from fairly serious brittle asthma, I could never own a modern diesel car of that type as handling DEF is dangerous to me; I couldn't top the car up! There are even a few cars I daren't go in - the warning sign being they smell of pish - as the fumes from the DEF tank soon start clawing at my chest.
I was at the local (independent) garage a few months ago chatting to the young mechanic who had just done some suspension work on my wife's car. - He was just about to SCRAP his 9-year-old, 80K SAAB because - even as a trained mechanic with a full professional workshop at his disposal - it was beyond economic repair. Even if he'd managed to obtain the (grossly overpriced) parts, he'd have to go to a SAAB dealer who had the software to reset various systems; and he couldn't find a tame one to play nice! - So, what in terms of 'old diesels' would be not-quite middle aged and barely run in was about to contribute to landfill and (indirectly) precipitate the manufacture of a replacement.
That suits the number-crunchers of course. But let's not pretend it's good for the environment...
Similarly on the rainforest' thing; it's nonsense! Actually, a pack of red raw lies promoted by the oil companies (who are behind much greenwashing)! Deforestation of that kind takes place primarily for timber harvesting and cattle ranching. ...However, shifting the balance to a fuel that can be home grown on otherwise unusable land, is virtually ready to use out of the seed, and readily provides feedstocks for fuel-alcohol production would - primarily - have the 'inconvenient' effect of shifting the balance of economic power, creating (real - as opposed to statistical) local employment, reducing fossil fuel reliance and being sustainable.
Bullseye said:
I've been driving deisels for 40 years, 50,000 to 70,000 miles a year for the last 20 years, I obviously know bugger all about them.
Which means that if you work 48 weeks a year, 36 hours a week you're constantly driving at an average of 28 - 40 MPH all day every day. - Lorry, van or taxi?
But, with all due respect, that's certainly no evidence that you
do know anything about them... Merely that you operate them often, and feel the 'in use benefits' of a machine that - whilst it may offer more creature comforts - is far less sustainable than what it replaced; even though it pretends otherwise.
40 years ago the average 'Practical Motorist' would think nothing of swapping out a cylinder head gasket of an evening, and it was fairly common to see taxis on little ramps in their owners driveways of a wet wednesday afternoon as the driver did his monthly oil change... Heck! Even Halfords actually used to sell proper parts and accessories back then!
These days?
...I check the oils in all my vehicles (I have a few) at least once a week. Change them every 3K. Being partially disabled I can't do as much as I used to - but I do as much of the maintenance on my vehicles as I can myself; and am in a place where I can simply tell the local mechanic, who helps me out, what's needed. I'm bored shitless by local 'experts' wandering by telling me how their cars go 12,000 or 16,000 miles without an oil change (which somebody else does) and they never open the bonnet except to fill up the washer fluid and how I'm a mug for giving myself all that work.
...But then I run four cars for less than it costs my next-door-neighbour to lease one! Who's the mug?
I could introduce you to commercial vehicle drivers,
and even fitters who do the basic servicing, who are woefully uneducated and spectacularly ignorant! - Literally, people who could not be trusted to put a nut on the end of a bolt without crossing the thread; and certainly don't understand the issues surrounding them - Of course, I could also introduce you to those who rebuild vintage trucks in their back yards and could fix anything.
Sure, people use cars - but they know far less about them than they ever did. One of my wife's friends done her cylinder head in the other day on a 2-year-old Vauxhall 'blob' thingy she owns. - Hadn't the basic sense to open the bonnet and discover WHY there was a pink alcoholic-smelling puddle under the car, and proceeded to drive it through Edinburgh rush hour traffic like that!
Enviromentalists (sic) care very much about pollution caused by shipping, hence their "ranting" at the time about it (and aviation) being excluded from the Paris climate agreement.
Surely you mean the Paris revenue-raising agreement? - Nothing there do do with the environment really. Only the promotion of tax-raising strategies tied to the quasi-religious 'Big Giant Head' god of 'climate change' ...i.e. that which has been going on for millions of years, is probably responsible for the dinosaurs dying out, the evolution of man and that the only credible response to is adapt!
Incidentally... There is no reason whatsoever why even the most ancient diesel engine cannot run cleaner fuel - it's just that shipping companies have more clout than motorists and are far harder to fleece; they'll buy their fuel cheap and dirty wherever they can.