EPA caught VW cheating - how does the car know it's being tested?

[.]

I must have missed that line. Where and when was that again?

Just because your car is registered as a 1927

No kidding.

You don't say.

[.]

As is and would continue to be done innumerable times everyday by mechanics despite any lack of vehicle safety testing as has historically been required by the states. Personally, I cut back turning wrenches considerably in '76 and by '80 had discontinued the practice entirely (I still tinker) having landed an engineering position with a distributor of major heavy equipment and industrial engines.

Fuel additives and larger injectors can defeat the effectiveness of emission controls, not that they'll necessarily increase power.

Pull off any number (EGR, PCV, Sensor ...) of wires, hoses, or lines; one could also easily have multiple devices either fail or disabled (that don't prevent the engines from running) and significantly decrease the efficiency, and increase the pollution output, of the engine.

I'm only surprised at the length of your run-on sentence.

I worked tune-up and electrical in '74-'76 at a Mopar dealer. Remember the red, sometimes off white, idle mixture limiting, plastic stops that covered the screw heads on Carter's (which also had an issue with warping, requiring a retro-fit brace)? Periodic rough idle complaints on new cars were sometimes addressed by first subjecting such engines to a full Sun Scope (on a rail) diagnostic. Were no issues found, I would remove them, as emissions testing was neither available nor required. Never once had a comeback or complaint.

No they were not. "Cleaner air" evolved from unleaded fuel, catalytic converters, fuel injection, and overall drive train computer management of hundreds of millions, not the hobbyists' thousands, of vehicles on US roads.

[.]

Wow, you are remarkably uninformed, if not downright stupid.

Educate yourself, if possible, by reading about Clair Patterson, a scientist who was attempting to establish the true age of the Earth and serendipitously, by the failure of his early attempts to create a clean room, discovered the grave neurotoxin danger poisoning us all.

[Tekkie®]

Ed Pawlowski posted for all of us...

True, but then again we had a reputable shop.

[trader_4]

And if there is any truth to it, it's a total waste of taxpayer money. The number of cars involved is insignificant in the total universe of cars.

Sounds incredibly dumb, even for what govt has become. Sending inspectors out to see what engine is really in your model T?

[clare]

The improvement in emissions was at least an order of magnitude more than the "dilution" would have produced. This was in the days before "storage" catalysts that can store oxygen (part of the reason mixtures MUST oscillate around stoich - go rich, then lean, then rich) Air needed to be added in order for the oxidizing catalist to function effectively.

[clare]

VW has NEVER been owned by Chrysler, nor has Chrysler been owned by VW

[clare]

Bigger injectors will just be dialed back by the computer as the O2 sensors report a richer than optimum mixture. Too big and the engine will go into "limp mode" because the engine remains too rich even with the calibration at lean limit. Power will suffer.

Yes, but it will turn on the CEL and in many cases prevent the engine from starting, even if it will run after starting. ANd it will run like crap when it runs. NO incentive to do it.

Used to remove the limit caps, adjust to spec (or modified spec) and then replace the caps, as required by law. We did the adjustment using the exhaust gas analyzer that was part of the Sun, Allen, Marquette, or Rotunda diagnostic scope I was using at the time. Quite a few were off spec from the factory. AMC,Chrysler, Mazda and Toyota dealershipsduring that time period, as well as independent repair shops

It wasn't hobbyists - it was "hack mechanics" who didn't know anything about emmission controls and defeated them in an attempt to "solve" problems. - some real and some immagined.

[Scott Dorsey]

There are few things more terrifying than slow lead poisoning. The improvement in the amount of lead in people's bodies has been amazing since lead was taken out of gas.

That's not to say MBTE isn't pretty bad... it is. But lead is about the scariest thing you can imagine.

When I was fresh out of college with an EE degree, I interviewed at a battery plant in Alabama.... and as soon as you walked into the town you could see the people in town being stupid. Everybody, everybody in town had clear signs of lead exposure. I got out of there as quickly as I could and I did not look back.

You can say some bad things about the EPA and some of them are true, but the reduction in lead exposure has been one of the biggest benefits to health in this country. It probably hasn't resulted in the air smelling or looking any better (and feedback control of fuel mixture has) but it's been a big deal.

Depends on the state. LA is an interesting example... LA sort of has its own weather system in the basin and smog in the basin doesn't blow away, it just sits there and people stew in it. New York isn't like that... smog in New York turns into smog in New Jersey.

--scott

[clare]

And smog in the Ohio Valley slides up and sits on top of Central Ontario - - - -

[.]

You questioned how one could simply defeat emission controls. You were provided with effective examples.

Again, you questioned how one could simply defeat emission controls. You were provided with effective examples.

"Periodic rough idle complaints on new cars ..." I knew I heard that somewhere. After verifying everything else was within spec, and given that emission testing was not mandatory, the scope, a vacuum gauge, and a tach was all that was really necessary for an experienced mechanic to adjust the idle mixture.

AMC,Chrysler, Mazda and Toyota

Laughable ignorance. No, what led to cleaner air was unleaded fuel, catalytic converters, multiport fuel injection and overall drive train computer management (MAF, MAP, IAT ... sensors, among others) of HUNDREDS of millions of cars replacing the archaic Kettering ignition, centrifugal spark advance, coil choke-manifold vacuum-non linear venturi based carbureted engines. Sad that you don't seem to know and understand something that fundamental.

[Ashton Crusher]

I'm pretty sure VW will be required to put some kind of "code" in their "fixed" system's computer. If you don't get it fixed they will know at the inspection station that it's not fixed and will fail you.

[Ashton Crusher]

Safety checks on light cars and trucks are nothing but revenue generators for the state and repair shops. The number of accidents prevented by them is essentially zero. Emissions testing of relatively new cars is also almost pointless but as cars age there are undoubtedly many people who would just let the CEL blink and the car pollute forever as long as it kept running. AZ has allowed cars to skip the test for the first 5 or so years and then tests every other year. Seems like a reasonable approach. Thank god we don't have those stupid safety inspections so beloved of the anal retentive nanny states back east.

[clare]

Exactly what are you trying to say??? My reply was to say there were many instances of people - hobbyists and mechanics alike, screwing with emmission controls in an attempt to defeat them and get better mileage and power, and getting (usually) neither.

Nowhere did I even suggest any of that had any positive effect on emmission reductions. What "laighable ignorance" are you talking about??? Of course it was " unleaded fuel, catalytic converters, multiport fuel injection and overall drive train computer management (MAF, MAP, IAT ... sensors, among others) of HUNDREDS of millions of cars replacing the archaic Kettering ignition, centrifugal spark advance, coil choke-manifold vacuum-non linear venturi based carbureted engines" that made the difference. Where did I ever suggest otherwize??

Or are you saying the emission control inspections were not instrumental in reducing emmissions? They WERE for a short period of time, partly by catching the vehicles that were "screwed with" by hobbyists and "hack mechanics" - but they have become virtually redundant today because the sophisticated engine management systems can pretty well tell you if the vehicle is running within design specs with a cheap OBD2 code reader - or even your cell phone with the proper software and OBD2 code reader adapter.

No idea who or what you are since you hide your identity. I was a carreer proffessional mechanic for years, as well as an automotive technology instructor at both secondary and post-secondary (trade) level.

[clare]

Look up Kabwe Zambia and the Broken Hill Mining Company. I almost ended up posted there in the early seventies - lead and zinc mining has decimated the population.

[.]

And as I've stated multiple times now, they comprised an insignificant component of the problem.

Any claim that hobbyists, racers, lack of or incompetent maintenance or what have you, constituted a noticeable effect on air quality in general suggests a misreading of the problem.

Evolved and more effective emission controls resulting in lower emissions? Yes. Less emissions due to inspections? Of course not in any significant measure.

They WERE for a short period of

Sad.

[Steve W.]

That's hit/miss here in NY. The software looks but depending on the ECM it may not work. Then you grab the scan gun and see if the old inspection tag has the correct VIN in the matrix.

[Steve W.]

I still fail cars for being rolling junk.

Power tuners and pass through devices that alter the signals from sensors. See them all the time, and frequently fail the vehicle they are on.

Yep, Still happens today. EGR bypass kits, tuner bricks, fake O2 sensor signal generators, and more.

It is in NY as well.

[Ewald B?hm]

I just had mine tested, in California, and they used a dyno. No OBD hookup whatsoever.

[Ewald B?hm]

I know this intimately not to be true, in the truest sense of what you say.

While many stations will certainly do a courtesy OBD scan, since you can't pass CA emissions with a given number of pending or set codes or unset monitors (the numbers of each are depending on the year of the vehicle), it is absolutely NOT a requirement to run the OBD scan.

Look it up. I did.