# Coming in 2018 RE: Emissions



## GlennGlenn (Nov 27, 2015)

GlennGlenn said:


> *EPA Rule To Ban Car Modification* [HR][/HR] BUT wait, there's MORE:
> 
> *Update: EPA says your racecar is probably already illegal* [HR][/HR] Full article at http://www.autoblog.com/2016/02/09/e...date-official/
> 
> ...


----------



## LiveTrash (May 24, 2015)

I'm not sure about anywhere else, but soon in Canada if certain vehicle components don't operate or aren't in the same condition as they were from the factory (for example if the A/C unit doesn't work or there's a bit of rust on the brake lines) it won't pass a safety inspection. Do you know how many vehicles will not be passing future safety inspections? People are going to be *pissed!*


----------



## Jaz (Jan 7, 2016)

I understand that the world is becoming more eco friendly for the future, but this is going too far.
If I get myself a car for track/race purposes, the engine/exhaust cannot be altered in any way, shape or form.
There goes EVERY SINGLE amateur race in the states.
So if I understand this correctly, any cars pre 1983-86 which were excluded to a lot of emission rules can be used in a "classic" type race, or road use.
But anything newer will be virtually banned from all types of performance mods.
Sounds like 1 way to piss of half of the country.
I really don't thing the government will allow it as they will lose way too much in revenue from tax and fining people.
It will also be way too difficult to govern. Most cops don't know what to look for anyway.


----------



## Tomko (Jun 1, 2013)

In a time when you can buy a 500, 600 and yes even 700 horsepower vehicle, that is in 100% compliance, right off the dealer lot, this regulatory change is completely and wholly inconsequential. 

You want to go faster, fast, fastest - just buy it that way from the factory. 

The SEMA lobby is interested in only one thing: making money. In the great Amercian tradition of capitalism they have no interest in you or your desire to go fast. 

Being a hot rodder is much more than altering emissions-related equipment. Brakes, tires, suspension, aerodynamics, lighting, paint and appearance, comfort and convenience: to name just a few.


----------



## Tomko (Jun 1, 2013)

LiveTrash said:


> I'm not sure about anywhere else, but soon in Canada if certain vehicle components don't operate or aren't in the same condition as they were from the factory (for example if the A/C unit doesn't work or there's a bit of rust on the brake lines) it won't pass a safety inspection. Do you know how many vehicles will not be passing future safety inspections? People are going to be *pissed!*


Do you think having safer vehicles on the road is a good thing or bad thing?


----------



## Tomko (Jun 1, 2013)

I just read this:



Motor Trend said:


> SEMA has done us all a serious disservice by crying wolf. SEMA’s kneejerk reaction hurts its credibility and exposes it (again) as the lobbying firm it is as much as it actually informs us all of important regulatory activity. The government is not coming for your race car, and it’s disingenuous and manipulative for SEMA to suggest so. What’s worse, it’s created a false controversy that will cloud the important discussion to be had about the actual regulation.SEMA’s primary concern is its members’ pocketbooks and its own, not you and your race car. There’s nothing wrong with that, but don’t be fooled into thinking SEMA is doing this for you. You, the enthusiast, are being used to browbeat the EPA into altering regulation for the benefit of SEMA’s members primarily, and your own indirectly. Yes, you might benefit if SEMA wins this fight, but SEMA isn’t fighting it for you.




SEMA vs. EPA: What’s Really Going On - Motor Trend


----------



## LiveTrash (May 24, 2015)

Tomko said:


> Do you think having safer vehicles on the road is a good thing or bad thing?


It's good, but some of the things I mentioned aren't factors of a safe vehicle. The A/C doesn't make a vehicle safe considering some new cars come from a factory without A/C. You can't even remove the faulty A/C unit from the car and claim it never had it to pass a safety. And in Canada or anywhere with snow and salt on the roads brake lines are going to get surface rust, nothing can be done about that. It's when they get so corroded they obviously need to be replaced of course, but any sort of rust on them will be a fail on a safety. So much unnecessary money is going to have to be spent on cars that aren't even that old to allow them to pass the tests.


----------



## jsusanka (Jan 31, 2011)

So I am guessing this would make trifecta tune illegal? I don't see how or why because your car is still going to pass the emissions tests and you are making the car drive better. Would it be illegal to buy a k&n filter?


----------



## Snipesy (Dec 7, 2015)

jsusanka said:


> So I am guessing this would make trifecta tune illegal? I don't see how or why because your car is still going to pass the emissions tests and you are making the car drive better. Would it be illegal to buy a k&n filter?


No, it will pass, and no.

This changes nothing in the 'normal' tuning world. People will still do cat deletes and egr deletes left and right because there is just no way to enforce those.

Diesels. Same thing. Changes nothing. The EPA can't enforce this unless its a really big company who is blatantly doing it in the open. Any other enforcement will be done at the state level. Which, as we know, is nonexistent for many. And unless D.C. flexes its muscles (which will be met with a lot of backlash) that fact is not going to change soon.

I won't lie though. It's certainly not going to get better. Especially if the democrats win the office.

and ESPECIALLY if the commies win the office.


----------



## CruzeTech (Mar 23, 2012)

Interestingly enough, when I traded in my 2012 Cruze, there was hoopla about the car being tuned. They knew about it, because I know most of the sales team, and they wanted me to return it to stock, simply because it would was not going to pass the dyno part of the emissions test. Well, the dealership, isn't exactly down the street, so I said it would be the following weekend before I could even make it down there to untune it. 

So, fast forward to the next day, I actually got a call from the service manager, whom I knew personally, anyway, and he tells me to forget about coming down to remove the tune. They ran it through the dyno part of the emissions test, and have never had a car test that high. The tech swore the machine wasn't working properly. So they took it off the dyno and had 2 other rental car auction cars to dyno and both of those cars tested what they would consider normal. My old car back on the dyno. Smoked the other 2 cars as far as the dyno test went. They doubled the speed they test the cars at, and it still wasn't even close. 

So, I understand the reasoning behind some of the stupid things people do. But mine was simply tuned and no other mods were done. No exhaust, no filter. Just bone stock. Passed better than any car they've ever tested.


----------



## Snipesy (Dec 7, 2015)

CruzeTech said:


> Smoked the other 2 cars


I think they did it wrong. :th_SmlyROFL:


----------



## diesel (Jun 8, 2013)

Tomko said:


> I just read this:
> 
> 
> 
> SEMA vs. EPA: What’s Really Going On - Motor Trend[/FONT][/COLOR]


[h=1]Oops! That page can't be found.[/h]


----------



## Tomko (Jun 1, 2013)

diesel said:


> *Oops! That page can't be found.*


Hilarious! SEMA forced motor trend to take the story down. Here's what's left that I could find:

*"The breathless press release arrived in the automotive industry’s collective inbox around 6 p.m. Monday. “EPA Seeks to Prohibit Conversion of Vehicles into Racecars,” it read. Car people freaked. By Tuesday morning, the mantra had been repeated all over the auto enthusiast Internet: The EPA is coming for your race car! The truth is far more complicated, but the messaging reveals as much about SEMA as it does about the proposed rule change. Make no mistake: This issue is complicated. The rule the.."

"SEMA has done us all a serious disservice by crying wolf. SEMA’s kneejerk reaction hurts its credibility and exposes it (again) as the lobbying firm it is as much as it actually informs us all of important regulatory activity. The government is not coming for your race car, and it’s disingenuous and manipulative for SEMA to suggest so. What’s worse, it’s created a false controversy that will cloud the important discussion to be had about the actual regulation.SEMA’s primary concern is its members’ pocketbooks and its own, not you and your race car. There’s nothing wrong with that, but don’t be fooled into thinking SEMA is doing this for you. You, the enthusiast, are being used to browbeat the EPA into altering regulation for the benefit of SEMA’s members primarily, and your own indirectly. Yes, you might benefit if SEMA wins this fight, but SEMA isn’t fighting it for you."*


----------



## Kexlox (Nov 4, 2014)

According to the EPA, this isn't a change in their enforcement, just clarification of the stance they've had for a long time. Laura Allen sent out this clarification:



> People may use EPA-certified motor vehicles for competition, but to protect public health from air pollution, the Clean Air Act has – *since its inception* – specifically prohibited tampering with or defeating the emission control systems on those vehicles.The proposed regulation that SEMA has commented on *does not change this long-standing law*, or approach.
> 
> Instead, the proposed language in the Heavy-Duty Greenhouse Gas rulemaking simply clarifies the distinction between motor vehicles and nonroad vehicles such as dirt bikes and snowmobiles. Unlike motor vehicles – which include cars, light trucks, and highway motorcycles – nonroad vehicles may, under certain circumstances, be modified for use in competitive events in ways that would otherwise be prohibited by the Clean Air Act.
> 
> This clarification does not affect EPA's enforcement authority. It is still illegal to tamper with or defeat the emission control systems of motor vehicles. *In the course of selecting cases for enforcement, the EPA has and will continue to consider whether the tampered vehicle is used exclusively for competition. **The EPA remains primarily concerned with cases where the tampered vehicle is used on public roads*, and more specifically with aftermarket manufacturers who sell devices that defeat emission control systems on vehicles used on public roads.


If a vehicle was sold with an on road certification, it remains illegal to remove or defeat emissions equipment, whether you are VW or Joe Racer. Enforcement will remain non-existent unless you are a manufacturer.


----------



## Tomko (Jun 1, 2013)

I found the motor trend piece here:

SEMA vs. EPA: What’s Really Going On | Car News Magazine


----------



## obermd (Mar 3, 2012)

Interest read and analysis. The reality is that as long as your car passes emissions no one is going to even look. What started this was VW's emissions cheating where VW explicitly bypassed their own emissions controls when driving but not during stationary emissions testing. I suspect the EPA's new ruling is designed to make it very clear that if you're caught doing this you can expect serious penalties. This is opposed to the current method of hiding all this in bureaucratic paperwork.


----------



## magnusson (Jun 15, 2014)

Every Democrat in this Thread needs to pat themselves on the back, strong work. Trust your government like a sheep.


----------



## Snipesy (Dec 7, 2015)

Really though. Its wrong for anyone to just shrug this off because it 'changes nothing'. Any time something is changed 'to be more clear' its usually a sign of even stricter laws being made down the road.

I dont understand how there isn't more commotion. What the EPA is saying is that a vehicle you bought isn't really yours, and that it needs to be certified just to turn over. So basiclly, unless you are GM and can afford all this certification and engineering, there is simply no way a small to even fairly moderate shop can even touch an engine without getting fined to **** and back.


----------



## Tomko (Jun 1, 2013)

The SEMA censorship of Motor Trend is now a story onto itself. 

http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2016/02/motor-trend-hits-sema-hard-changes-mind/


----------



## IndyDiesel (May 24, 2015)

magnusson said:


> Every Democrat in this Thread needs to pat themselves on the back, strong work. Trust your government like a sheep.


I am not a Democrat, but yikes lets not get political on this Thread.


----------



## AWJustus22 (Feb 19, 2015)

Fully support the MotorTrend editorial. SEMA, thru it's lobbying arm, the SEMA Action Network, is cynically attempting to whip enthusiasts into a frenzy for the financial benefit of its member companies. The craziest part is they completely missed the formal public comment period on the regulation. If the SAN had been anything but a bunch of amateurs, they would not have resorted to such fear-mongering and would have discovered this "hidden" provision when it was published in the Federal Register for all to see in July 2015. 

Bonus points to whoever finds the proposed rule first in this copy of the Federal Register:

https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2015-07-13/pdf/2015-15500.pdf


----------



## boneheaddoctor (Dec 10, 2014)

This is why the EPA have been known as EnviroNAZI's for quite a long time.


----------



## boraz (Aug 29, 2013)

magnusson said:


> Every Democrat in this Thread needs to pat themselves on the back, strong work. Trust your government like a sheep.


----------



## PanJet (Jun 18, 2013)

Tomko said:


> In a time when you can buy a 500, 600 and yes even 700 horsepower vehicle, that is in 100% compliance, right off the dealer lot, this regulatory change is completely and wholly inconsequential.
> 
> You want to go faster, fast, fastest - just buy it that way from the factory.
> 
> ...


Hey! I found your copy/paste over on TTAC.


----------



## Tomko (Jun 1, 2013)

PanJet said:


> Hey! I found your copy/paste over on TTAC.


Ah, you found one of my internet identies - but there's still three others that remain to be found.


----------

