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My understanding is that such parts are not by themselves illegal. The crime is actually using them on the road. My understanding was that they were legal for
by sandworm101 3y ago
My understanding is that such parts are not by themselves illegal. The crime is actually using them on the road. My understanding was that they were legal for track purposes.
I would never want to say that people should be able to defeat emissions, but a part of me does not like the idea that every vehicle owner is beholden to the OEM for parts in perpetuity. The "right to repair" people should be all over this fight. Restrict cars to only their original emissions parts and that becomes yet another lever for manufacturers to pull when they want to sell new cars/trucks/tractors. I say let people use the parts they want to use, then properly inspect and test the resulting vehicles once they are on the road.
- throwaway11004 3y ago[flagged]
- LargeWu 3y agoIt's must be some interesting mental gymnastics to equate "protecting consumer rights" to "state control".
- throwaway11004 3y agoWho guarantees protection of consumer rights if not the state? Again, I'm not saying it's a bad thing. People mentioned farmers in your sibling comments, are those consumers? I thought they are not.
- strbean 3y agoWith respect to the farming equipment market, they are the consumers.
- strbean 3y agoI don't know about the political leanings of right to repair supporters on average, but there are prominent supports who I certainly wouldn't characterize as leftist. See Louis Rossman for example.
- throwaway11004 3y ago[flagged]
- strbean 3y agoThat's an atrocious Wikipedia article. They don't even pull a quote, they just reference a 30 minute YouTube video directly? From what I can tell, the only relevant bit in that video is that he concedes he didn't know that tractor racing (tractor pulls) was a thing. And thinking any environmental regulations should exist certainly doesn't place you on the left. Do you think Richard Nixon was a leftist? Rossman spends about the same amount of time railing against regulation as he does supporting right to repair. Right to repair is largely about protecting individual liberties and property rights.
- titaniumtown 3y agoI don't think that confirms any "points" you've made at all.
- ska 3y ago> The right to repair people are leftists I think this is an oversimplification at best. Right-to-repair has huge support amongst e.g. farmers, who are not homogeneously left-leaning by any stretch.
- throwaway11004 3y ago[flagged]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- eli 3y agoWhat a bizarre argument. I don't think "business regulation" is the only or even the primary dimension of the left vs right axis.
- ska 3y agoThat's an idiosyncratic usage of left/right leaning.
- rootusrootus 3y agoThe right is not significantly more opposed to regulation of business than the left, except in some shallow rhetoric. They just want the regulations to align with their own world view.
- sandworm101 3y ago>> more governmental regulation, such as the right to repair itself. Wanting more personal freedoms is generally considered a right-wing view. Creating a right to repair is about placing limits on corporations, not actual people. Try telling people that they can only use "original" parts in their guns and suddenly the entire NRA will be on the streets demanding a constitutional amendment in support of right-to-repair. This isn't a left-right political thing. It is a persons v. corporations issue, with government as the representative of the people.
- throwaway11004 3y ago[flagged]
- petsfed 3y agoI think a lot of folks use "leftist" in modern usage to mean "those who are further left than liberals". And that's where you're getting a lot of pushback. In terms of governmental regulation "you cannot use the judicial system to compel people to use your preferred avenue of repair" is pretty weak. I think there's a path to saying "there's no legal concept of 'felony contempt of business model'" is anti governmental regulation. What I'm saying is that by casting right-to-repair as leftist (or rightist) just muddies the waters of what leftism is without providing any guiding context about why people might be for or against the right to repair. In any case, there's very few parts of the governmental-regulation spectrum that are unambiguously left or right.
- Dracophoenix 3y ago> there's no legal concept of 'felony contempt of business model'. It's a bad legal concept, but it exists: The DMCA
- petsfed 3y agoI mean to say that the statement is anti-governmental-regulation in its expression. Clearly, there is a legal concept of 'felony contempt of business model', as I did not coin that phrase myself.
- Dracophoenix 3y agoContext missed. My apologies.
- willsmith72 3y agoit's pretty classic, people creating new throwaway accounts to spout their garbage because they're too embarrassed to chance it being linked back to them. what does that say about the quality of what you have to say?
- rpmisms 3y agoThat's false. I'm extremely (machine guns are a human right, the government got too big in 1777) libertarian-right, and right-to-repair is a sensible regulation that empowers individual agency and adds massive value to the economy.
- Kerrick 3y agoThe right to repair isn't leftist for those who don't believe intellectual property is property. For those people, the laws prohibiting people from cracking lockouts on hardware they own and modifying the code running on their own equipment are the governmental regulation they're fighting against.
- Kerb_ 3y agoPut this on your main, homie. I dare you.
- valianteffort 3y agoNot everyone lives in California so while OEM's might produce all cars to meet California standards, it is completely legal in states with more relaxed laws to make such modifications. At the least I think the government could argue about selling in jurisdictions where it is illegal.
- dieselgate 3y agoTo tap into this thread - this is quite real. One can just remove a catalytic converter (or have it stolen) and they'd then be "defeating emissions" so this lawsuit seems a bit zealous to me. Recently saw a post on a diesel truck forum about a CA resident who had legal/registration issues because of an engine swap (post emissions engine into a pre-emissions vehicle) [1] Am under the impression this particular vehicle would be fine in WA state by comparison. It's frustrating to see consumer vehicles being so strongly targeted by regulatory shenanigans compared to "private jets" and the like [1] https://www.oilburners.net/threads/california-diesel-conversion-tale-of-woe.92837/ https://www.oilburners.net/threads/california-diesel-convers...
- adgjlsfhk1 3y agofor the non c02 pollutants it makes a ton of sense to go after consumer vehicles more than private jets. noise, N0x, and other pollutants have significant negative effects for anyone nearby. I care a lot more about the vehicles 20 ft from me than the ones 30k feet above me
- imp0cat 3y agoI think the reason is (any diesel mechanics around please correct me if I'm wrong) that modern engines stripped of their emissions equipment will pollute a lot more than old engines.
- dieselgate 3y agoI understand the reasoning and am all for mitigating pollution. It may be frustrating for consumers when these systems have potential to decrease economy, performance, and reliability while increasing cost and maintenance.
- grecy 3y ago> My understanding is that such parts are not by themselves illegal. The crime is actually using them on the road. My understanding was that they were legal for track purposes. That certainly used to be the case, but it changed recently, and the EPA has been aggressively going after anyone who sells them for any purpose. If you're in the US and sell things that can modify emissions stuff, they're coming for you. Period.
- User23 3y agoDoes this include chip tunes?
- LazyMans 3y agoYes, a popular diesel tuner was the target a take down and fined big money for providing tunes that make vehicles non-compliant. https://www.thedrive.com/news/another-diesel-tuner-nailed-with-1m-fine-for-emissions-tampering https://www.thedrive.com/news/another-diesel-tuner-nailed-wi... Omitting wear and reliability concerns, some tunes gain their effect by not controlling for things like NoX and unburned hydrocarbons. The worst offenders? "Coal rolling". It would be one thing to do this to help spool a turbo or for some other performance reason, but it's literally running the motor as rich as possible to dump unburned fuel out the tailpipe to make a visual effect. At the expense of everyone around you.
- omginternets 3y agoThere are few things as obnoxious and antisocial as coal rolling (open headers, maybe) and I really wish the EPA would make an example out of them.
- grecy 3y agoIt does, but it's worth noting that a manufacturer of such devices can make it meet federal emissions regulations (if they want to spend the $$$$ on R&D), and they can sell devices that are 100% legal in all 50 states. Examples are Green Diesel Engineering (Who did a TON of dyno time and used to work for a major OEM on emissions stuff) and Banks (who are virtually an OEM at this point)
- fsckboy 3y ago> My understanding is that such parts are not by themselves illegal. The crime is actually using them on the road. My understanding was that they were legal for track purposes. ok, it's just a single datapoint, but motocross racetracks in New England, already built in the woods away from civilization, started requiring mufflers about 50 years ago, early 1970's
- oceanplexian 3y agoWe’re not taking about mufflers. For example in California “Emissions defeat system” means you simply used an off-brand air filter that wasn’t blessed by the government. The parts may even be more efficient and less polluting, the government bureaucracy everyone here is worshipping doesn’t give a rats behind.
- Rebelgecko 3y agoWhich air filter? The engine air filter? I've never had a smog check that involves looking at that one. And AFAICT there's no RFID or anything in it, so it's not something they can check remotely
- ryandrake 3y agoExactly. Years back, I moved to California with an 80's sports car that was admittedly quite hotrodded, but I made very sure that the hotrodding did not worsen its emissions because 1. I wanted to keep driving the car in CA and 2. I don't want to pollute. First SMOG test in CA, the car blew clean as a whistle. It met emissions standards 40 years harsher than it ever had to meet. Except I had all sorts of aftermarket parts in there from years of repairs, none of them with the all-important California CARB seal of approval on them, so even though it blew clean, it still "failed emissions" and I had to sell it to someone out of state. I'm still bitter about it.
- datavirtue 3y agoIn Ohio in the early 2000s all us kids were removing cats and passing the sniffer test easily. There was a visual test so we would normally just hollow out the existing cats. A lot of times cars with missing cats would pass the visual as well.
- sidewndr46 3y agoThis is incorrect. Federal law prohibits the removal of emissions devices on a vehicle, even if not used on public roads.
- TulliusCicero 3y agoWhich makes sense. It's not like pollution stays confined within the track area.
- oceanplexian 3y ago[flagged]
- pixl97 3y agoEh, you'll look for anything to complain about. If you were one of those rich people you'd be complaining about the certification of airplane parts causing them to be so expensive. And if you're in the US, it's likely you could take dozens of flights per year if you wanted to, if you fit in the techy HN pay grades.
- TulliusCicero 3y agoI think you're probably rather exaggerating the difference here, but nonetheless, sure, let's regulate or the tax the shit out of private jets too, I'm okay with that.
- saltymug76 3y ago[flagged]
- ceejayoz 3y ago> pollute as much as 10,000 modified diesel trucks This is insanely hyperbolic. A Cessna Citation I carries 564 gallons of fuel, with which it can travel ~1,500 miles - 2.7mpg. A Ford F-250 carries 48 gallons of fuel, with which it can travel ~700 miles - 14mpg. It's not even 10x.
- enragedcacti 3y agoMy understanding is that such parts are not by themselves illegal. The relevant text regulating the sale and manufacture merely allows the EPA to exempt products "that you intend to be used solely for competition, where we determine that such engines/equipment are unlikely to be used contrary to your intent." > but a part of me does not like the idea that every vehicle owner is beholden to the OEM for parts in perpetuity. I don't think the regulation requires OEM parts, Dorman and MagnaFlow sell bolt-on Catalytic converters without any trouble from the EPA. I think there is a real problem when it comes to more complex parts like ECUs but right to repair laws can help solve that by requiring documentation and restricting arbitrary locks of electronic components. https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-40/chapter-I/subchapter-U/part-1068/subpart-C/section-1068.235 https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-40/chapter-I/subchapter-U...
- Scoundreller 3y agoI was thinking more about O2 sensors. At least a lot of Toyotas don’t like the aftermarket ones for some reason. No idea if they’re truly out of spec or what. But there’s a risk with living with a check engine light. Some vehicles disable stuff like traction control in that state, and you won’t know when a new unique code has hit that you should deal with for other reasons. (The disabling of traction control is insane to me here: https://mechanics.stackexchange.com/questions/25383/why-does-the-check-engine-code-for-emissions-failure-disable-traction-control-an https://mechanics.stackexchange.com/questions/25383/why-does... ). A catalytic converter problem is zero reason to do this.
- I_Am_Nous 3y agoMy old Suzuki SX4 (RIP) disabled cruise control when it threw a code, but so far as I could tell that was the only thing it did. Traction control still worked, automatic/manual all wheel drive still worked...it was also a secondary catalytic converter alarm, so I just kept a code reader with me and reset it whenever it would come on. It would always come on after I got off the interstate and coasted up the on-ramp, so I am not sure if it came on after getting hot enough on the interstate or if it was just the coasting that caused it.
- hoofhearted 3y agoThe manufacturers got sued by the EPA for not actually enforcing the “for track use” only rule. A lot of the big name exhaust companies have stopped producing catless products; and others require all of your information to be on file if you’re buying a catless race downpipe. A lot of the install shops around here in Maryland that run a legit receipt paper trail of work type of business won’t even touch catless installs anymore.
- PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y agois catless a portmanteau of catalytic converter and less? meaning, the lack of a catalytic converter?
- hallway_monitor 3y agoYes
- hoofhearted 3y agoYes. Remove the cat for either a straight pipe, or resonator. HKS silently discontinued their “catless” downpipes in the U.S. around 2021 for mentioned reasons above.
- jojobas 3y agoIs is still legal to saw off you cat and weld a length of pipe in? I guess it still is if you can drive 60's cars, so what's the point?
- rumblerock 3y agoI for one love that BMW built the catalytic converters into the exhaust manifolds on my car, meaning that the only CARB-viable route outside of gambling on used units is a $10k replacement.
- datavirtue 3y agoI would fully suspect people to be fined for producing enhanced emissions reduction hardware and offering it for sale. The default emissions systems end up reducing the life of the engine, creating another problem for the environment, and there are opportunities for fixing those deficiencies.
- omginternets 3y ago0W20 oil and EGR systems are going to go down in history as environmental disasters.