Ian_S said:
To be honest I don't see any point asking your dealer about this, it's neither their fault, or within their power to answer it.
We will never get JLR to admit in writing something that will legally put them in an awkward position. We know most of it.
The only thing in my mind that doesn't stack up is how JLR engineering could come up with a solution that got as far as making production that didn't work. I'm sure they are not that bad.
The more likely reason it doesn't work is because thanks to VW/Bosch, the system they had designed and tested could not be used in its intended form, and suddenly they had to use the ECU operating without any cheats going on. This is kind of verified by the DS actually coming out as meeting emission targets in independent testing.
The real blame here lies with VW/Bosch. Personally I think JLR should sue them to recover the costs and if they wanted to make us happy, also the cost of properly fixing it. But that's unlikely to happen.
There's still time for JLR to drop service schedules to something more reasonable, and also publish testing results to back that up, in terms of oil dilution % vs. engine wear, which would be the open and honest thing to do. They could also be honest, and if legally can get away with it make it clear where the blame lies, and encourage people to consider that when making their next purchase. I don't see why they should play nice here, VW haven't. Might even boost their sales in the UK and non-German countries.
But while there's no evidence that JLR have done any actual testing - and every likelihood that they haven't, based on the way they have behaved in relation to other espects of this saga - I would be horrified, given what it says in JLRP00100 at the prospect of having my car exposed to the possibility of severe damage caused by undetected high oil dilution. This risk only arising because they had tinkered with a vital warning system that according to JLRP00100 was put there in the first place precisely for this reason. My contract was with the dealer, not JLR. If I still had one of these I would want them to tell me in writing what was going on. If that letter didn't produce a credible and acceptable explanation then I would at least know what I had to do when something went wrong.
I think that you could be right about the decision to disable any "cheat software" being the cause of the original dilution problem. That became very likely once it was established that an EU6 -compliant XE/XF style DPF either wouldn't fit in or, more likely, just about fitted in but was so close to the bulkhead that it created an enormous fire risk (remembering that it has to be heated to 600 deg C). But blaming VW for something that JLR decided to do? That is ridiculous. It's like Ronnie Biggs suing Bruce Reynolds for making him take part in the Great Train Robbery. "Sir, sir! The big boy made me do it...". You were, of course, joking?
JLR is in an awkward position with this and the organisation as a whole looks ridiculous. But it doesn't
know that because plc's aren't conscious and therefore can't be reflective or feel embarrasment or remorse. All that exists are the people in different departments with their different functions. I think the reason that we have been told about 10% diesel dilution is the same reason that JLRP00100 was written and immediately leaked and the same reason why we learned about there being no passive regeneration, the same reason we found out in the first place about SCRF (not DPF), the same reason that we found out about heat, etc, etc.
The record shows that in each case the information originated with engineers. I think this is no mere coincidence. I believe that they wanted their customers to know the truth about what was really going on and that they used whatever channel was available, passing the information out via their own people, usually without the mule being aware.
If you look at this from each department's standpoint in turn: Sales, Marketing, PR, Engineering, Customer Service, etc, then the picture that emerges is that each department has done its job professionally and to the best of its ability in extremely difficult circumstances. But this set of circumstances didn't just get dropped on the company, they were deliberately and knowingly created by the executive management's initial decision to sell the car knowing that it didn't do what it said on the tin. Same with CO2 emissions, this would have been another conscious decision signed off at the highest level.
Research has shown that the executives who create the "personality" of any large cororation often exhibit personality disorders that present with the symptoms of psychopathy. And frequently, organisations that experience "a flash in the pan" before floundering financially do so because the board of directors has failed to keep such mania in check.
We could bear this in mind as the next few months unfold.