Yesterday’s diesels had trouble starting in the cold. But Volkswagen TDI Clean Diesels are different. With advanced direct-injection technology, they’re designed to start reliably when the thermometer drops. To prove it, we’re putting a 2010 Golf TDI into a giant freezer to simulate the temperatures you’d find in the world’s coldest city, Yakutsk, Siberia.
SPOILER ALERT.
36 Comments
1. Tuomo Saarinen | May 11, 2009 at 2:10 am
Why does your breathing is not foggy?!
Fake
My 2.0TDI 4motion Golf was 20 hour at (minus) -28 celcius degrees – and it started well
2. Michael Ugarte | May 12, 2009 at 4:47 pm
Great job VW! VW/Audi for life
3. Mike Meacham | May 12, 2009 at 5:50 pm
diesel gels, regardless of the car design.
4. Robert Haag | May 12, 2009 at 6:36 pm
While seeing the video was entertaining, it is really nothing new. My wifes dirty TDI in the New Beetle did not have any problem starting in the very cold Ohio winter where some nights it was 30 below.
5. Facebook User | May 12, 2009 at 8:33 pm
Awesome job VW. Gotta love that wonderful german engineer!!!
6. Thomas Tracey | May 12, 2009 at 11:12 pm
Pretty Lame test. My fiances 10 year old Subaru outback started after a solid week of minus 40 degrees Celcius. You want me to notice an hour in minus 25 degrees Celcius. Lame
7. Facebook User | May 12, 2009 at 11:32 pm
Good enough for me… Since it rarely gets below 20F where I live, cold starts seems like a non-issue. I’ll take two!
8. Antonio Delgado | May 13, 2009 at 9:26 am
We have a Passat TDI 05 we used to live in chicago and never even in the worse part of our winters, this fellow never hesitated to start, I am true believer in this technology. TDI lover
9. Thomas Zook | May 13, 2009 at 2:01 pm
Wouldn’t it have been horrible if it DIDN’T start!?
>>Tracey, I think the point of the stunt is to show people like me, who live in California where temps never go -20, let alone +20, and TDIs are very rare. Until last year all the TDIs in CA were shipped in from other states after they put some miles on.
10. John E. Weglian | May 13, 2009 at 7:32 pm
My `05 Passat TDI wouldn’t start in 17 below weather last winter. The test would have been better if it were kept at the temperature long enough for the diesel fuel to get to 25 below.
11. Tilden Siegel | May 14, 2009 at 1:30 am
I do agree this is a very poor test, that engine probably never got down to -20C. But as a VW tech I can say I have started an 09 TDI Jetta in -30C, -22F. That was after the car sat in the compound for a week.
12. Michael Christeson | May 15, 2009 at 5:39 pm
Sure, new engine that was in air brought down to -25. How about after the engine has 90,000 miles on it and was sitting outside for 2 days of 40 mph winds and that temp? My ‘02 failed that test last year and this year after a new battery. Maybe they figured out how to get fire without having to run glow plugs for a minute, I noticed that specs for the ‘09 has 3/4 the battery of my ‘02.
Not that I don’t believe it, I’m just skeptical. I’ll let you know how a co-workers ‘09 makes it through this next winter.
13. Paul J Santos | May 16, 2009 at 9:10 am
Why can we not see their breath?
14. Brett Dalman | May 21, 2009 at 3:38 pm
This test is a load of crap, diesel gels @ about -10 F because of the paraffin wax crystals even in “winter blends”. Was the engine warm, was it plugged in to keep the tank/diesel warm the entire test? You can stick a popsicle in liquid nitrogen and put it in 100 degree F weather and it will take 20 minutes for it to start thawing. This is bad marketing for idiots that don’t know anything about diesel or have even heard of glow plugs before.
15. Facebook User | May 23, 2009 at 11:07 pm
i have a 98 tdi and it started after being outside for a week in -49 Celsius (no wind) as average during the week and it was -55 (no wind) Celsius when i decided to start the car all i had to do is wait for the glow plug light turned off started right up (didint plug it or anything!!)
16. Mike Brawn | May 24, 2009 at 1:19 pm
I had a 2002 Jetta TDI. It had a glowpulg, which this Golf probably has, so it always started, even in the dead of the Maine winters. However, the diesel would gel soon after leaving home and the car would stop running on the side of the highway (happened a few times). Hope they solved that little problem with this car.
17. Gina Gregory | May 27, 2009 at 11:31 am
I can see their breath at times, at least the dude outside the car. I wanna TDI just cos fo the milage and cos it’s Diesel…I hate CA’s attitude towards diesel. They want CNG everywhere, it’s not the way to go. Cleaner diesel is.
18. Dave Semple | June 1, 2009 at 12:41 pm
lame lame lame. It’s exactly what the dude in the car said, “it’s like and icy carwash”. Mine has started in temps that low but it bucks and rocks and smoke for a bit. Like others said diesel fuel, no matter how much it’s treated for for cold temps will gel at some point. Just b/c it’s an 09′ doesn’t mean that my 01′ can’t and doesn’t start in temp colder than -25…..And overnight in my driveway is no comparison to “an hour” in this poor booth demonstration.
booooooooo
19. Brad Hazelton | June 12, 2009 at 10:31 pm
Lame, my 1999.5 Jetta TDI will start at 25 below also. As long as the fuel is above 0 Degrees. Meaning that if you just subject it to the cold it will start but if you let it sit all night in 20 below zero temp. it will start but only run until the fuel gels in the fuel filter. This commercial is for TDI virgins.
20. Facebook User | June 21, 2009 at 7:46 pm
clean diesels for fags if your not blowing smoke and making noise its not worth driving it ! just get a gas
21. David Janci | June 23, 2009 at 2:39 am
My 06 Jetta TDI died last winter due to fuel gelling. (-12) I needed a a tow, I was stranded, VW towing sevice took like 15 mins to just get thru to someone, Towed to VW, a new fuel filter, some VW service worker BS, hundredsomething repair bill later I went back to normal. Test = BS. Insulate the fuel lines and tank then it will work in real world situations.
22. Facebook User | June 24, 2009 at 5:57 pm
Y’all are funny with your this is fake stuff. How do you think that ice got on the car? And unless I’m mistaken it’s -25 F in the room not Celsius, so pretty cold.
Diesel does gel at subzero temps but new TDI’s have a new design with better placement of the glow plugs so it warms (and ungels) the fuel.
You could probably leave a new TDI outside at -40 or -50 F for a week and start it right up. This is a big improvement over old diesels, so what are y’all complaining about? People just like to complain and say everything sucks.
Oh and you can see their breath if you look close. They’re in a white room with steam coming off the water. What do you expect. Fake fake fake blah blah blah.
And yes I’m a mechanic and no I don’t work for VW.
23. Facebook User | June 24, 2009 at 5:59 pm
Hey Janci (no. 21) your TDI is old. Get a new one and you won’t have that problem. The new TDI’s are different than yours. Kind of the point of the video I think…
24. Dave Semple | June 27, 2009 at 5:12 am
Better placement of the GP’s ?? So the fuel only gels in the head? Try taking a peek at the lift pump for gelling, or maybe the filter or pump or the 15 feet of fuel line that runs from the tank to the engine bay.
an hour at -30c (-25f)does not compare to 24 hour penetration at half that temp.
25. Brad Horn | June 30, 2009 at 11:57 am
My ‘09 TDI was a month old when it got to spend the New Years night out in -40 (-46 with the wind chill) weather. That’s the same in F and C (fahrenheit and celsius) when it’s that cold. It was unhappy, but it started. The glowplugs on the new engine are great.
I regularly had the car sitting in -25C conditions with no issues. My car has an oil pan heater (as opposed to a block heater) but it has not been used -I looked for it in the dark one night, I thought about plugging it in but I got to cold to keep looking for the cord-luckily I never had to worry.
Unless you live in Alaska or the Yukon (or NWT) you won’t get worse winters than Northern Alberta, and so far my TDI rocks. We’ll see about the mileage-I seem to be getting 36+ MPG (6.5L/100k)so far, but is supposed to increase since I did the first oil change.
26. Joe Santore | July 2, 2009 at 10:27 am
I’ve never read so much pontificating from so many experts. Bottom line: NEW Blue Tech TDIs start after sitting out all week at -20F. Mine ran great so I’m not interested in the rest of the malarky.
27. Joe Santore | July 2, 2009 at 10:30 am
And I lived in Moscow for 11+ years and drove several VW diesels..the last one was the new Blue Tech and it sat out all the time…and got me to the airport daily.
28. Facebook User | July 7, 2009 at 12:23 am
wow
29. Artur Mazurek | July 9, 2009 at 8:46 am
I live in Calgary and last winter IT got to -45 with the wind chill !! I’m looking to get a GTi SO I DARE YOU test the TDI at – 45
30. Artur Mazurek | July 9, 2009 at 8:47 am
GTI TDI !
31. Matthew Westmoreland | July 24, 2009 at 11:03 pm
Working in a business that flash freezes product, I know how these freezers work. For this commercial, VW put the vehicle into an industrial blast freezer designed to flash freeze thousands of pounds of product in a very short time. The ambient temperature may only read -25F (they tend to run at around -45F) but this does not take into consideration the extreme wind chill factor from the fans that cool these spaces off. More importantly, I have been in the EXACT blast freezer in which this commercial was shot while meeting with the manager of the facility, and have done work in many other freezers. Needless to say, I know how cold these things are, how they are designed specifically to freeze things, and quickly, and I have a good estimation as to the effect this would have on a car and the diesel fuel therein. Bravo VW, I am convinced! Not that I would need that particualr feature in Southern California, but kudos nonetheless!
32. Facebook User | July 26, 2009 at 10:05 pm
Love the TDI…
Just a FYI wind chill is only a human/live animal feel scale, wind chill has no effect on the freezing of a non living object. example the ambient temperature is 35F with a wind speed of 10mph(27F wind chill factor) water will NOT freeze (water freezes at 32F or 0c)
33. Dalton Van Buren | August 25, 2009 at 3:09 pm
1996 Passat Tdi
Number of miles driven: 190,000 (then sold for $6600 in 2005)
Number of Minnesota winters: 9 (it’s cold here in the winter)
Number of non starts: 1 (7 year old battery gave out)
Point of post: These things start in < -20 deg.f. temps without issue.
34. Christophe Stanic | October 31, 2009 at 9:38 am
Seriously I don’t know why America has a bad opinion about diesel. We have some in Europe and we simply love diesel.
In the US diesel gels, is dirty, that was 20 years ago.
35. Prashanth Budihal | November 3, 2009 at 8:40 am
Hell! i dont understand why americans see diesel as dirty. They call it ‘new technology’. We Indians use diesel regularly and now are finding petrol cars to be second class. All diesel vehicles including Indian make start in subzero temperatures and a luxurious feel. Americans are still with old tech, pity them!
36. Michael Woodson | November 5, 2009 at 3:43 am
actually, if ya wanted to and know where to get it… ethanol or “corn whiskey”, can and does act just like an anti freezing agent. same principle as engine coolent. the more coolent:water ratio, the better it withstands low temperatures
Log in to post a comment