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Diesel cars fail the emissions test more and more frequently because the monitoring system fails in up to 20 percent of cars.
Diesel vehicles and their exhaust gases: Once again they cause problems. The Swiss Automobile Trade Association (AGVS) estimates that almost every fifth vehicle is currently failing when it is presented to the road traffic office.
Legend:
Cars in Zurich evening traffic.
KEYSTONE/Gaetan Bally
The reason is a new emission control that has been in force in Switzerland since the beginning of the year. Many diesel particle filters are broken and the defect is not indicated by any light in the car.
limit exceeded in some cases
Monica Bauer has been working as a car mechanic for years: so far she has brought practically all vehicles through the motor vehicle inspection without any problems. Now there are suddenly problems: “Many customers bring their vehicle to us to have it repaired and demonstrated. But later they don’t get through the check because the emissions from the diesel vehicle are too high.”
Since the new year, the exhaust gases have to be measured for every diesel vehicle that is presented. This is urgently needed, says Patrick Schnelli, Head of Tests at the St. Gallen Canton’s Road Traffic Office: “Normally, if something is wrong with the exhaust system, a warning lamp would light up on the vehicle’s display. In certain cases it doesn’t do that.” For this reason, exhaust gas measurement is required.
We sometimes measure vehicles with several million particles. However, the limit is 250,000.
Many of the diesel particle filters are broken; small cracks in the filter are not detected by the car monitoring system. According to Schnelli, this has fatal consequences: “We sometimes measure vehicles with several million particles. But the limit is 250,000.”
problem is “immense”
Diesel vehicles with broken particle filters are not uncommon: the road traffic authorities assume up to ten percent of the tested cars. Markus Peter from the Swiss Automobile Trade Association even considers this estimate to be too low. He regularly meets with car dealers throughout Switzerland, the problem is immense. He says: “We expect twenty percent, which means that every fifth vehicle could be affected.”
New particle filters cost up to 4,000 francs. The costs are one thing, the other are the delivery times. That is a challenge. Even the best mechanics cannot repair a vehicle if the spare parts are missing.