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If the vehicle owner disables the emissions controls, the onus is on them - ethically this is no different than removing a catalytic converter or other physical

If the vehicle owner disables the emissions controls, the onus is on them - ethically this is no different than removing a catalytic converter or other physical hardware. Don't use this as an excuse to wage war on general purpose computing.

TheCoelacanth 10y ago
There are also other ways to deal with this. If it's reasonable to require that I get my $10,000 car emissions tested every two years to be able to drive it, it should be reasonable to require that vastly more expensive tractors get emissions tested periodically too.
- frogpelt 10y ago
  Random testing, I guess? Because owners could just re-enable emissions control until after the test.
  - ConceptJunkie 10y ago
    Hey, it worked for Volkswagen...
stevehawk 10y ago
As a pretty bad home mechanic, I want to agree with you. The DEF in my BMW went bad (urea has a short life span) and BMW charged me out the wazoo to reset the computer auto-shutdown feature (you get 200 miles to fix it or it won't start again) and I had no other choice, since I can't do it myself. I can flush the DEF, but I can't reset the computer without their tools. I don't believe even iCarly can un-flag the error. On the other hand, my political beliefs tend to say that government exists to protect you from me and me from you, and the emissions of your vehicles falls into that category. So maybe there's an argument to be made that at least certain parts should be locked down? (for the record, I don't think any of it should be for the sake of competition and home repair, I'm asking for the sake of conversation / devil's advocate)