Engine Driven On Long Past Its Use-by Date

Sydney Morning Herald

Thursday July 19, 2007

Richard Blackburn

FORD'S ageing six-cylinder engine has been living on borrowed time since 2005, when the Federal Government told car makers it was planning to introduce tighter emission laws for all new cars on January 1, 2008.

Faced with a rumoured bill of up to $40 million to upgrade the engine to meet the emission requirements, Ford - and other manufacturers - successfully lobbied the Government to delay the introduction of the laws until July 2008 so that the new Falcon could be launched in March, before the deadline.

That allowed the company to use its six-cylinder for the 2008 Falcon, effectively extending the life of the engine - and the employment of workers at its Geelong engine plant - by two years.

But the Government reprieve also means that Australia has slipped further behind the rest of the developed world in its emission regulations.

In Europe, any new model launched after September 2005 was required to comply with Euro IV emission rules and all cars had to comply by January 1, 2006 - four years before their Australian-made counterparts.

At present, Australian cars are only required to be Euro III compliant, although the majority of imported cars on the roads are Euro IV compliant.

All European cars launched after September 2009 will have to comply with the next standard, Euro V - nine months before Australia adopts the older Euro IV standard.

The regulations refer to tailpipe emissions of various noxious gases, including carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, oxides of nitrogen and particulate matter.

Compared with Euro IV, Euro III regulations allow roughly double the emissions of all four of these noxious gases.

Euro IV also requires cars to remain within the set emission limits for 100,000 kilometres, while Euro III says they have to meet the targets only for the first 80,000 kilometres of the car's life.

Of all the locally manufactured cars, only the four-cylinder Toyota Camry and six-cylinder Toyota Aurion comply with the Euro IV standard.

Holden declined to comment on when it will be compliant, but said it was aware of the new compliance date and was working on an update of its engine.

The chief executive of the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industry, Andrew McKellar, denied Australia's emission regulations were too lax.

"Certainly there's a lag versus the European timing. That's always been the case," he said.

But Mr McKellar said the deadlines had been set for introduction of the new standard and the local industry was working towards compliance.

He admitted that manufacturers had input into the setting of the deadlines.

"No doubt in the process to establish the timing for the introduction of Euro IV there would have been consideration given to the investment position and model cycle of all the relevant brands," Mr McKellar said. "It was discussed with the brands what the timing should be."

© 2007 Sydney Morning Herald

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