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US sues eBay for allowing sale of emissions defeat devices

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Re: US sues eBay for allowing sale of emissions defeat devices

#391
post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Grappling hook through the front wheel fixes that right away...

So we should kill people for loud exhausts? What about the innocent bystander the bike turns into jelly when it is catapulted into the air and lands on them? That energy has to go somewhere…

Well, you're the one talking about a friend who takes many lives into his hands by doing this, so it's not about "loud exhausts." It's about someone who thinks so little of his own and others' lives that he'd be doing 200mph on a crowded public highway. Pretty much the definition os "reckless indifference to human life."

>> Story: a buddy of mine had a gsxr 1000 and would purposely screw with cops on the freeway and as soon as they’d light up he’d be gone and doing 200mph within a few seconds, fitting between cars easily. Within 30-60 seconds a bike can be damn near a mile away from a cop car. Radioing ahead won’t help if you don’t know where they went and they were never running a plate to run… most cops know it’s pointless to chase and often immediately call it off.

Re: US sues eBay for allowing sale of emissions defeat devices

#392

My experience is that eBay screws up their filters and wayyy overfilters. The Canadian government has some secret spat with Xiaomi cellphones and got eBay, newegg and Amazon to stop their sale. They weren’t approved for sale in Canada, but I suspect some other reasoning for targeting a Chinese manufacturer in particular and not all the other unapproved products. However, eBay just blocked anything with “xiaomi” in th…

Wasn’t there a huge malware issue with the Mi Box products? Maybe that’s why they got banned?

Re: US sues eBay for allowing sale of emissions defeat devices

#393
post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was also probably due to having a carburetor which won't completely stop putting fuel into the engine on decel like EFI.

I looked it up and the 1987-1991 Ford F series trucks came with some carbureted trucks and some EFI trucks, so it definitely could have been a carb helping too :)

old TBI-based EFI might not have stopped dumping fuel in decel either, haha.

Re: US sues eBay for allowing sale of emissions defeat devices

#394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A Gulfstream G700 carries 22,407kg of fuel (about 6,100 gallons at 800kg/m^3 ) and a max range of 14,353km (8,918.5mi), for 1.45mpg. Closer to 10x, by a bit. Using the 12,316km high-speed cruise range manages to bring it down to 1.24mpg, just under 10x worse.

Said Gulfstream carries 18 people, though. Whether 5x or 10x, it isn’t 10,000x.

Yep! My point was to take one of the biggest private jets, and show it's still vastly less than 1000x. Private jets are bad, but they're not that bad.

Re: US sues eBay for allowing sale of emissions defeat devices

#395
post #319
post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many examples. Many SUV's in the US these days are only able to meet emissions requirements by automatically turning off the engine at stoplights or whenever the car comes to a stop. Many people find it annoying because there's a delay when you press the accelerator to go and then you press harder and the car then jumps. Most cars allow you to disable it, but you have to do it every time after you turn the…

That problem can be solved using a sufficiently large electric motor. More people would demand hybrid SUVs if they understood the benefits.

Unlikely. This isn’t a problem of education. The primary benefit of hybrids is fuel efficiency. People who buy large SUVs have already decided that fuel efficiency is not a high priority.

Re: US sues eBay for allowing sale of emissions defeat devices

#396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mufflers do not impact emissions. In the case of gasoline cars, there are mechanisms for controlling intake air, recirculating exhaust gas, and filtering emissions directly out of the exhaust gases. All of these impact carbon emissions. These defeat devices allow drivers to modify some or all of these attributes in favor of gaining engine performance.

Muffler delete is a known cause of misfires. It manifests as a popping sound surrounded by the other shitty sounds produced by such a modified exhaust. We have all heard it. A misfire is raw fuel being expelled.

That's a backfire. You're right in that a muffler can diminish the volume of a backfire, and that it is caused by combustion in the exhaust.

But the incomplete ignition of fuel can occur in both stock and modified vehicles. My car is completely unmodified, but can very easily have a low quiet popping noise during downshifts. With e removal of my muffler, it would be quite loud.

A modified engine can do this to a much greater extent, depending on the modifications. Some do so intentionally with what is known as a "burble tune", which is quite annoying in my opinion. It is inspired by rally cars that would intentionally inject fuel during the exhaust stroke and fire the spark plugs to keep exhaust driven turbines spinning even when under deceleration.

Re: US sues eBay for allowing sale of emissions defeat devices

#397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I 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 insan…

My 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, s…

> 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.

I suspect you may have had a very regular time/distance in the repetitive sequence of [reset code, drive some amount, code comes back]. For low-priority codes (unlike major engine emergencies) the ECU will use a "fault frequency" counter to suppress nuisance check engine lights that don't actually need fixing (like if a sensor was briefly out of range just once, a fluke rather than indicating a problem). So if it increments the fault frequency counter for that particular problem once every 10 miles of the fault actually happening continuously, and doesn't throw a check engine light until it counts to 6, then the light will come on after 60 miles. Just making up numbers but you get the idea... so if you always reset it that much driving before the same on-ramp, then it will always light up at that point. Also, the fault frequency counter might reset with every drive cycle, rather than just at the point that you cleared the code. Taking a detour during the same drive cycle as the on-ramp (as opposed to relying on variance of how long ago you did a reset) would be a good experiment.

But if you know that the drive cycles weren't so regular, then it could indeed be related to overrun fuel cut (coasting) or whatever.

Re: US sues eBay for allowing sale of emissions defeat devices

#398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My 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, s…

> 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. I suspect you may have had a very regular time/distance in the repetitive sequence of [reset code, drive some amount, code comes back]. For low-priority codes (unlike major engi…

It would basically always happen after about 30 minutes of interstate traffic at 70 MPH (using Cruise Control), but it generally didn't happen if I was only driving at 55/60 on standard highways. Just one of the quirks of the car :)

Re: US sues eBay for allowing sale of emissions defeat devices

#399
post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me translate for you: Management (the courts) do not find it lucrative enough (political capital) to pursue weak cases (lax laws passed by the legislative branch). In order to fix you must bring awareness in your local community to the problem (lax laws) and petition change (raise political capital). The courts and byproxy, enforcement, will follow. The larger the city, the more difficult this becomes.

No, I believe the officer I talked to didn't care and thought I was a pansy.

Ergo he has no incentive to target certain laws. Nothing I said was incorrect

Re: US sues eBay for allowing sale of emissions defeat devices

#400
post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

injector antilag systems were around in the 80s, they are very hard on the turbos and manifolds however.

Yeah, I was thinking that the guys who are adding "anti-lag" to their street cars probably first encountered it watching WRC. Or maybe touring cars. What's crazy to me is I hear it on cars that aren't even turbo - they're just running super rich with no muffler/resonator, so it pops/burbles more than normal. Can't be good for the car (the catalyst in particular, assuming they've bothered to keep it).

yeah the stupid "crackle pop" tunes are just deliberately running rich.

There's also "DSG farts" which actually have a performance benefit, but sound truly awful with aftermarket exhaust systems.

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