Mechanic put in prison for selling 14000 truck emission bypass devices
marketwatch.com
marketwatch.com
Hitting one of the sources of this technology is great. I just wish law enforcement would also go after the offenders buying them and using them on public roads as well. The unfortunate truth is I suspect the venn diagram of people who would buy this for the lolz and cops who have the same mentality has significant overlap.
However I tuned my diesel pickup to increase efficiency and torque which included what is known as an “EGR Defeat” and a “Texas Cat”. It’s registered outside of an enforcement area, however just for grins I ran it through an emissions check and dyno and it passed with flying colors without tweaking it for emissions. That’s because between the “tune”, the turbo, and now-mandatory everywhere low-sulfur diesel the emissions are way reduced. Mine is a pre-DEF model. I imagine it will produce substantial NOx if I gun it on a hot day with a heavy load, but that also results in 3MPG performance so I just don’t do that except when absolutely necessary.
Not everyone is trying to choke people with black smoke, some of us “ranchers" just want to stop strangling on pointless micro-regulation that doesn’t fit the situation.
At my age the time wasted by not having the right tool at hand stings bitterly. Especially when the job is absolutely necessary.
Mostly use the truck for getting around to rural property off the paved roads where 4x4 and high clearance are necessary, or when hauling stuff is necessary (and diesel torque is often a virtue then). Another use is for trips when a lot of items (maybe additionally dogs and/or horses) have to come along. I often bring a bicycle to facilitate mobility and save on fuel economy (short trips are wasteful). I do a small amount of local driving, but it’s not unusual to only use the truck every other day or two. I might get an EV for short trips if the cost/utility model is favorable.
I picked a model that was fairly common, durable, produced in large quantity, known for easy serviceability, and various other qualities I deemed relevant to me personally.
Soot and NOx are toxic. NOx are greenhouse gases and contribute to pollution and climate change.
You may not be trying to choke people, but you're doing it anyway by defeating emissions controls. You can justify it all you want, just make sure you understand the consequences. Those "micro-regulations" as you call them exist for a reason.
But that’s my point. I had my vehicle tested using the applicable defined protocols and it’s not violating the standard. I don’t think the regs are an adequate standard on NOx for urban areas, but it still passed when tested under simulated driving conditions. I didn’t defeat the sensor output (OBD-II interface) to pass testing, I just tuned it to report all the deleted gear was still in place (this turns out to be a feature in the vehicle config, so I didn’t have to hack anything). Otherwise it wouldn’t have progressed through the test. I wasn’t doing all that to get an emissions cert because I don’t need one, I just wanted to verify I wasn’t creating a monster...
Connect a modified diesel to a Texas emissions testing system and it'll likely pass while it's spewing soot and other garbage.
And there are so many videos of truck drivers assaulting people like this quite obviously intentionally.
I am not a fan of people rollin' coal. It is quite dangerous if someone does this in front of another person as it can block their view of the road. That said, I was at the end of my driveway talking to neighbors. His wife drove by and rolled coal. He was upset but I get it.
Rolling coal isn't a harmless smoke screen. This can literally harm some people. Sure, losing visibility can result in a crash. Asthma also exists. Some people have ended up with permanent lung damage and reduced lung capacity from covid-19. And before reaching for the cabin air filter preventing problems, motorcyclists exist, and some people like rolling their windows down on nice days or don't have a functioning a/c. To some, this isn't just an annoying problem, but can actually cause real harm.
I won't argue whether there's benefits to be had making these modifications. It's absolutely true. However, at what point do these benefits outweigh dumping substantially more toxins into the environment?
You know, what auto manufacturers spend a lot of time and money doing.
I do not believe I would trust anything coming from manufacturers. They have a serious vested interest in people using more fuel, adding corrosive materials to their oil, burning up engines and buying new vehicles. The oil industry would also love to see people using 30%+ more fuel and having to change their engine oil on a very regular basis to compensate for the damaging highly abrasive exhaust being blown back into the crank case.
I think it might be a challenge to get some empirical data for the other numbers on diesel engines as the locations that have smog checks and bi-annual testing will not have many people deleting their emissions systems. Conversely locations that do not test such as my state will not have the necessary smog testing equipment to get accurate numbers. I think the best we can get is the limited smog data from the ECU unless someone wants to take their offroad racing truck to a smog center but I suspect those numbers will be off due to racing specific tuning.
As for dumping more toxins in the environment I don't think it's super simple to break this down. The smog systems on diesels are just breaking up the particles to make them smaller but at the same time dramatically increasing fuel consumption. I don't like the particles being made smaller. Sure, less irritation to the throat but now those particles can get past the defenses in my lungs and get directly into the blood. This was noticeable when people were testing benzine excretion before and after using isothiocyanates. Anyway using more fuel can only create more particulates even if they are smaller. The particles emitted by a diesel without emissions controls are basically soot which is heavy and falls to the ground. The treated emissions are lighter than air and tend to float in the sky. This is noticeable in places like San Jose from the observatory. If one drives up to the top of the mountain they can not see the city any more from the smog. People are breathing those toxins and to my knowledge there is no debate that smog affects peoples long term mortality and health span. Soot on the other hand would just end up on the ground and on the walls of underpasses with some of it potentially being kicked back up from traffic but would be filtered by the vehicle cab filter assuming one has the windows up. I would be curious how much more dangerous that soot really is than say brake dust.
Anyway, all interesting points and maybe some day we can get some empirical data on this provided that manufacturers do not tamper with testing and are not in any way involved. In the mean time I will just do whatever prolongs the life of the engine, gives me back fuel economy and keeps the vehicle reliable.
While "rolling coal" is definitely emission bypass, not all emission bypass is as obvious as "rolling coal"
Virtually all the trucks on the way to the local construction sites here each morning very obviously are using some kind of defeat either improve mpg or just be "tough guy" with a louder exhaust - they aren't billowing smoke, but definitely smell/sound way worse than a stock truck
Imagine if there are a million trucks on the road right now with those bypass and they put out twenty times the pollution of a stock truck. Destruction spread out so it's not obvious but adds up fast.
Urban apartment dwellers LARPing as ranchers and cattlemen are one of the most asinine and embarrassing aspects of 21st century America.
We used to have a term for individuals like this: all hat, no cattle …
… imagine being so childish and shameless as to ignore that moniker.
The phrase I've heard in cattle country is "dimestore cowboy" or "drugstore cowboy"
Childish is the key word here because that is exactly what these people are: man children. How else do you explain the decals/stickers of guns, skulls, political drivel, or American flags (in case you're stupid enough to forget what country you live in) plastered all over them? Its like a little kid saying they want the biggest bike and decorate it with stickers, streamers and a playing card in the spokes. But lord help you if you tell them this fact of life as they'll have a temper tantrum in public.
Most of these trucks are used for commuting and have picked up in popularity. Commuting to work I see so many on the road these past few years. I always check for legit truck use by looking at the beds and hitch receivers/hitches and they're usually pristine.
(This comment is satire but it should hit annoyingly close to home for a subset of readers.)
They buy old or new big trucks, lift them, hard-wire the brights permanently engaged.
Most have never been in mud, much less used for work. People in big work trucks (oilfield workers and actual rancherd/farmers etc) never act like these LARPers do.
They also drive like assholes, riding ass and being aggressive. I love aiming their brights back at them with my side mirrors. Legit had one guy scream at me for it in a drive-thru. Apparently blinding me is fine, but how dare I blind him so bad he had to turn off his lights...in a well-lit parking lot. I get out my car in a Jack In The Box drive-thru and who is behind me? Some old guy (60+) in a brand new truck with not a scratch on it. Lifted with pretty powder coated lift kit. LED lights on the outside and wheelwells. My mind was blown I'd expected it to be some douche kid.
Also he had some stickers that read 'Yeet truck'. An old man. I don't know if they have a Facebook truck or what, but these guys take pride in being assholes.
At least in Texas you will get a ticket for brights. Here in California they just run rampant.
I haven't been back to Texas in about two years now, but when did this go from something to be laughed at to something people aspire to?
Asshole-as-a-culture?
edit to add- people are now using aftermarket headlights, which is fine, but they throw away the instructions that show how to properly set them so they aren't pointing straight ahead. Damn near as bad a brights. Also never ticketed here so it runs rampant. I told the last officer to pull me over for my tint being too dark that it's the only way to not be blinded at night. I'd rather pay the ticket. Let me off with a warning, which was nice.
Can you imagine if google, who to date must have done say $2tr in sales (guesstimate), got a $400bn slap-on-the-wrist?
However, the $10m is revenue, not profit, so between the $2m plus the $6m he likely won't come out ahead.
That's ... still a pretty big impediment, and countermeasures don't have to be perfect.
Taking someone’s toy away hurts way more than a fine or suspension that can be ignored.
Edit: Also, if you just take the truck and issue a fine, it saves another person from needlessly being turned into a criminal.
We do this for repeat DUI offenders, but you need a car to get around most of America-- so even when suspended or unlicensed, people drive anyway.
At that that point they are both (a) uninsurable and (b) illegally operating, and now have more reasons to flee the scene of an accident than they do to remain. If it's some rich kid perpetrator, there won't even be a manslaughter charge if the victim dies.
All arbitrary license revocation does is make the roads twice as dangerous for everyone else.
Remember, drivers licenses were originally born out of law enforcement complaints that the automobile made their lives so much harder.
As a cyclist, rolling coal is a real and present danger.
Spraying a thick cloud of exhaust on people next to a road might fit the legal definition of "assault", "reckless driving", "wanton endangerment".
This is not some innocent prank.
So many trucks in my town obviously going around with highly bypassed exhaust now and there's no enforcement so they get away with making life toxic for everyone else. Many states don't even have inspection anymore and even if they did they just switch it off.
Why is that?
However, when you run your fueling extremely rich like someone that is rolling coal, NOx is going to be higher than in any reasonable tradeoff, because if the irreversible damage to the catalytic converter. It will be far worse than any conceivable lean air mixture.
Under lean conditions, the Rh2O3 layer in the cat reacts with the Al2O3 to create an inactive oxide. This degrades the ability for NOx reduction.
It's possible to tune a diesel without making smoke - normally this is done by leaving the wastegate closed for longer to make more boost and then adding more fuel.
Any smoke is too much extra fuel.
Here is more explanation: with the diesel emission devices, you are trying to control soot and NOx gasses. For example the EGR (exhaust gas recirculation) system reintroduces a bit of exhaust gas back to intake to reduce combustion temperature to reduce NOx gasses. However, this means that you are introducing sooty gas back to the intake, where it messes with other stuff like swirl flaps.
Swirl flaps are there to create a small tornado inside the cylinder for more efficient mixing and burning. But these are mechanical flaps and, in the best case, they stop working when they soot up. In the worst case, however, they go inside the cylinder and cause catastropic damage, requiring an engine rebuild/replacement.
Then another emission device for diesels is the particle filter. This is a very fine filter to catch soot exiting the exhaust. The engine puts a bit more fuel every now and then to burn them off properly. But the engine needs to run under a certain load and operating temperature for this operation to succeed, and if not, it gets permanently blocked and you need to visit a garage to force it or to have it cleaned/replaced. This happens if you only drive short distances and never let the engine to warm up, or if you idle for too long, or if you always drive in stop and go traffic. And sometimes, the filter collects ash instead of soot and that can't be burned off. This happens when you use incorrect sort of oil in a modern diesel car or if the fuel is bad. The only cure is cleaning or replacement of the filter.
Then you have another emission device: the ammonia. Newer cars spray a bit of ammonia (AdBlue) every now and then on the exhaust gasses to reduce NOx emmisions. This adds one more thing to refill every now and then and the car reduces power if you don't comply.
Now compare this to the gasoline car emission device: the catalyst. This one fails if you overheat it, or if it goes too old by age. The overheating happens if the combustion is too rich (too much fuel for the amount of air) for a long time but the engine controller prevents it anyway. Catalyst is there to burn any unburnt fuel and turn carbon monoxide into carbon dioxide.
Some newer cars also have EGR in them like a diesel car AFAIK, but I am not aware of the relevant failures of that bit.
Don't confuse the above with zero gain from custom tuning a gas engine, just that the gains are not nearly as great as you can get with a diesel. If you are running a gas car on a track you can get measurable results from custom tuning - but it isn't nearly as noticeable in day to day driving.
In USA are humungous engines (5.0l +) without a turbo In EU are mini engines (1.0l ~ 3.0l) and almost always with turbo. Is it better fuel economy?
Even when talking about gas engines, if you are towing (this is about diesel where towing is more likely than normal) your turbo is running all the time anyway and there is no savings over a bigger turboless engine, and the bigger engine will last longer. The bigger engine can also run at lower rpms which brings up power. In the end for a lightly loaded gas engine a small turbo is more efficient.
One part of this issue is that regulations to require expensive emission control systems work for OEMs, but they are much harder to apply to an individual with a truck at >200,000 miles. The regulations are designed for new vehicles, and the components in those new vehicles are designed to last for 10 years or 100,000 miles. It's one thing to roll the costs of installation and purchasing these particulate filters and catalytic converters onto the OEM (who gets to install them on new, clean steel with working fasteners) and another thing entirely to ask it to be done two or three times on the same vehicle.
An advantage of a diesel truck is that the engine may last for 300,000 miles, but if you're looking at a bill of $5,000 on a truck that's only worth $5,000, and you already have a welder...that particulate filter, EGR cooler, catalytic converter, etc. are awfully hard to justify compared to a big steel pipe.
I just helped my brother install a 'bypass kit' for offroad use on his 2009 Toyota Sequoia (which has a 5.7L gas engine). The 'smog pump' valves are known to be failure points - Toyota got sued over the 2005-2007 engines and recategorized the system into the powertrain to extend the warranty. The system costs almost $3,000 to repair, because you need to remove the entire intake to get at the valves. This system only exists to pass OEM emissions tests - specifically, while the engine is completely cold, the first 60 seconds of exhaust contains methane slightly in excess of the legal limit. The programming only cycles the valves once, for only 60 seconds, only when it's been more than 7 hours since the last start-up, only when the engine is cold, only when the ambient temperature is under 5 degrees C. The bypass kit removes this problem, it just lies to the engine and tells it that the temperature is above the threshold.
It's June; none of these things applied when he, his wife, and his 4 kids under 4 were stuck in the humidity and sun with the truck in limp-home mode trying to pull their camper home because the 12-year old system with 180,000 miles on it freaked out while leaving the gas station.
I wish that we could have repaired the system to work properly. I don't want to emit excess methane, neither does he! But there's no calculus in which spending either $3,000 on that vehicle or spending $600 on parts and taking 3 days off work to replace them ourselves makes sense for those 60 seconds of recirculation on cold winter mornings. What do you want him to do, buy a new $60,000 truck off the dealership and send the old one to the junkyard? I'm pretty confident that would be a lot worse for the environment than keeping the old one going another 6 years.
The problem is that Toyota has no incentive to care that these limited-lifetime components are inaccessible because they're off the hook after the truck is out of warranty.
Just look at air injection pumps on older engines from the 80's/90's. The emissions laws were met by simply diluting the exhaust stream with air pumped into the exhaust manifold. The EPA knew this but as long as the check box was checked the bureaucracy was appeased.
EPA Diesel emissions are also handled in an equally idiotic way: When a new EPA diesel mandate went into effect, it is a strict cut off for sales of ALL non compliant engines lest manufactures pay fines (ask CAT). When EPA 2006 was going into effect mandating the particulate filter, 2007 truck sales took a hard dive. No one wanted to buy new and therefor "untested" engine technology to power their business. Europe on the other hand was smart: when a new emission tier goes into effect, the previous tier is still available, but at a higher cost! This allows companies to continue to buy trusted technology at the cost of paying a higher yearly registration fee which is a sort of pollution penalty. The new tier engines have standard registration cost so it provides a monetary incentive to encourage adoption. Compare this to the "hold a gun to everyone head" policy of the stupid EPA.
yeah, what percent of the guy’s business went to people who wanted to roll coal anyway? Here folks just assume it was for the worst case, but they seem ignorant of the concerns you pose. I modified my diesel pickup because restoring the OEM emissions package was about $12k, more than 50% of the resale value. The truck still had 6000 hours of engine life left. My fix was about $800 and it not only passed emissions, it passed the dyno check too. It would have been cheaper if I welded the parts in myself, but I stuck with doing fuel map optimization.
The value you can produce from these vehicles in a rural setting is fantastic and the designed-in longevity means environmental impact from manufacturing is amortized over very long time, unlike commuter cars which nowadays seem purposely designed to last only as long as the loan.
We buy diesel trucks because it's an inherently efficient engine and fuel that is rugged and should last "forever". However, the current state of the art emissions controls are a mess. Diesel-exhaust-fluid (DEF) injection, particulate filters (DPF), and exhaust-gas re-circulation (EGR) systems barely work. The manufacturers aren't truly incentivized to engineer them to function properly. Even worse, the EPA rules require even more complex and error prone fault checking - most of the time these things fail it's the built-in-test BIT checks and trip-wires. Sort of a DRM for hardware - and that what fails.
Now EPA has a mandatory 5 year emissions warranty. Which sounds great until you're on the side of the road and the dealer says it'll be 5 weeks for parts (because all they can do is swap parts).
You want to see a lot less people removing this half-assed claptrap? Make the warranty force manufacturers buy back any trucks that are in the shop for more than a week. Make the warranty cover a loaner vehicle of equal value and specs for vehicles throwing emissions codes. Cover RV towing or travel compensation.
If we are only "renting" our trucks and have no control over them, then big-brother and big-auto need be held responsible for them. Of course this will never fly - the manufacturers know that these technologies are too unreliable to make that kind of bet on.
OK, then have real right-to-repair and not just allow, not just encourage, but mandate, 3rd party parts sources - including software. This would also work.
But what we have now is commercial trucks and personal vehicles that are significant investments being crippled. So what would you do? If the white-market and grey-market can't help, you go to the black market and not only fix your truck but get 150 extra horsepower and screw the planet.
If you want to save the environment, stop insisting that "nobody needs diesel trucks" and stop keeping the people that do between a rock and a hard place.
People mostly follow the path of least resistance. So on gas cars, things like catalytic converters are no longer so faulty that's is worth bypassing for joe-consumer. You want compliance, make it the best, easiest, option. For 99% of the truck owners, being broke on the side of the road, being out of service for weeks, or having a 4-5 figure repair bill is the issue. If you had security that as long as you didn't tamper with the system, you'd be actually be safe from these things, NOBODY would risk it.
But, yes.
Or, rather, I think it's a pretty slippery slope. I can imagine wanting to buy an aftermarket controller for a tesla and I can see Elon Musk being upset enough about it to push the EPA to fine the company under the same set of laws, but I don't think it would be good for consumers if it happened that way.
Should Linus be fined for creating an operating system that gives me the ability to turn off energy-saving configurations on my laptop?
why wouldn't the EPA fine the company behind this mining rig? https://www.amazon.com/SOONTECH-Complete-Motherboard-Includi...