Tegger's new cat

I'm looking at 3 printouts, 2002, 2004, and 2006, and they all read
"Estimated" test weight. They also contain GVWR. Did they change the "ETW"
definition after 2006?

Do you know which ones they don't like?

Typical, ran with what Harris rammed in, and then made it worse.

Many car owners have been financially victimized by DriveClean.

Global Television is doing a story about DriveClean on their "News At Six"
news show Mon. Sept. 22/08, according to their promotions. It looks like
it's about "cheaters".

 

i bet manufacturers and dealers haven't!

 

Update: I searched for where to dispose of the old
converter. I learned that scrap yards pay money for them
because the converters contain precious metals. I sold my
old OEM converter today for $25. No idea if this is
reasonable. Also, in my area selling used converters
involves legalities. I had to bring in copies of the receipt
for my new converter; was fingerprinted and photographed at
the scrap yard with the old converter; and they made a
photocopy of my driver's license. Apparently police are
watching for scrap yards buying stolen converters. Googling
suggests there is in fact an epidemic of thefts. Maybe this
is one argument for replacing old OEM converters (when they
fail, and assuming no other causes are found other than age)
with cheap aftermarket ones.

 

(Micheal C. Jordan) wrote in

I'm looking at a number of printouts right now. I didn't look far enough
back when I said the word was "equivalent" and not "estimated".

The switch to "equivalent" from "estimated" appears to have taken place
some time between mid-2002 and mid-2003. All my post-May/03 printouts
say "equivalent".

Older ones. McGuinty want so force old cars off the road. This is why
he's eliminated the 19-year rolling exemption, even though 20+ year-old
cars make up something like 1% of the cars on the road in Ontario, and
typically cover far lower annual mileages than newer cars.

My '91 is required to meet the same HC and CO numbers as a '99 of the
same "equivalent" weight class. My wife's '99 Tercel /was/ in the same
"equivalent" weight class as my Integra up to the last two tests. For
those it was inexplicably dropped a weight class, which entitled it to
higher legal emissions. The effect of such legal weaseling is to force
more older cars into failing while making it harder for newer cars to
fail. This allows the McGuinty government to justify their actions by
pointing to the higher failure rate of older cars.

 

Smog testing in Ontario was sold to repair garages by including the
regulation that repairs had to be made at a DriveClean facility in order to
count towards the "repair cost limit". This assured garages that they'd be
able to use drivers as sugar tits to help them suck back the $80,000 or
whatever it cost them to install the equipment in the first place.

It was later discovered that not enough cars were failing, and garages
weren't making enough money off smog repairs, so the allowable numbers were
successively dropped and the repair cost limit was raised from $400 to
$600.

Some years ago Lee Harvey McGuinty floated a trial balloon to the effect
that he thought smog testing wasn't having the effect it was supposed to,
and that it was terribly expensive for poorer people. Garages and the
environuts screamed blue bloody murder. McGuinty then went in the
completely opposite direction, making the test /more/ expensive and /more/
strict. Then he got re-elected. Ontarians are pretty stupid.

 

Aw, they're no fun. And they're Italian, too.

 

Never, I assure you.

Canadians are too stupid to actually try and do something to change the
system.

 

There is.

I've been told the thieves tend to target SUVs and minivans because they're
higher off the ground (easier access). The crooks use a cordless Sawzall,
and are off and running with the cat in less than a minute.

What baffles me is how all radios are protected by that fancy anti-theft
mechanism that renders them useless without the security code, but cats,
ECMs and airbags (all far more valuable than the radio) are protected by
nothing at all.

 

Speaking from bitter experience, it took years and several radios for
this to happen (multiple radios stolen from my 1982 Rabbit & 1988 Acura
Integra).

 

From a little more research today, two followup comments to
your own above: First, some companies are now selling
anti-cat converter theft devices. E.g.
http://www.catclamp.com/. Second, from chat with my scrap
yard guys (as they completed an FBI level investigation,
complete with mug shot, of me for completing a cat converter
sale), we suspect my city's recycling center folks
discourage chatter about selling catalytic converters to
scrap centers, since it might promote more thievery. I
searched my city's recycling center site (which covers
automotive fluids and household hazardous waste) and, having
turned up nothing, then called the city recycling
department. They said good question but they had not
anything to offer, except call Autozone and the like.

 

Then it's surely only a matter of time before the OEMs start doing
something similar.

 

My 2006 printout says "estimated".

Maybe something to do with the various different DriveClean Zones perhaps?
I'm not in the GTA (first introduction zone). I'm also exempt since 2006.

Perhaps until the "newer cars" get old, and go out of factory warranty?



This allows the McGuinty government to justify their actions by

You make perfect logical sense. Have you notice how the politicians (of
all stripes) in Canada, are trying to spin the definition of cynicism 180
degrees, by calling each other politician a cynic. According to the
definition of cynicism, and its derivatives, in my old thick dictionary,
cynicism is a positive attribute. Citizens need to be cynical, to protect
themselves from the politicians.

 

A lot of the machines are leased... same difference though.

In sticking with your subject line...

McGuinty really does eat kittens! :->

 

(Micheal C. Jordan) wrote in

LOL! I remember that!

 

(Micheal C. Jordan) wrote in

That's possible.

You must have an '87. Lucky.

 

I'm not in the GTA either. I'm in one of the later introduction zones.

Wasn't it interesting that Mike Harris's home town is in a zone that was
exempted from emissions testing? Hmmm...

 

We can always take solace in a phenomenon called "unintended
consequences". Think about all the "smokers" being shipped up to North Bay
Ontario to be sold, because North Bay is exempt. Mike gets to re-live the
aromas of his cough, cough, youth pre 1970's, sitting at a traffic light,
while a "smoker" oils Mike's grill.

A few years ago I bumped into an engineer who was involved in Transport
Canada's emission testing lab. You should have seen his eyes roll into the
back of his head when I brought up the subject of Ontario's DriveClean
program! They don't have "false negatives", when they test cars at
Transport Canada, in their multi(?)-million dollar "lab".

He told me how they test cars for emissions. They literally "bag"
everything that exits the tailpipe. A huge empty bag is connected to the
tailpipe, the car is driven (on dyno/rollers) to a very rigid program set
out by the EPA (USA). They then analyse everything in the bag
(spectroscopy). The analogy is basically... DriveClean is an amateur
photographer, with a cheap disposable camera, taking a snapshot, while
Transport Canada is a professional cinema-photographer, taking a movie
with a Panavision camera.