docwyte said:
In reply to roninsoldier83 :
I'm sure you know this, but for everyone else reading... Brand new to 7 years old, no emissions testing. 7-12 years old, OBD2 scan only. 12+ years old, run it on the dyno rollers.
Colorado is pretty lax IMO, most of my cars have been modified to some degree and I've never had an issue passing emissions here. They've never given me a hard time with whatever exhaust, intake, turbo's, tune, etc, etc I've had on my cars. All my cars have had cats and have passed with no issues.
I just don't see the problem here, if you want to take the cat, or other emissions equipment off your street car, then you're breaking the law and also not really getting much performance benefit. And even if you do make another 7-10hp, does that really matter? Are you going to get to the store any faster? For a track car, it doesn't matter, so you're free to do whatever you want.
If you're a company, you can't sell emissions deleting equipment and it's been that way for decades upon decades. Is it really a surprise that they're finally getting shut down?
Cobb was selling a tool that allowed you to delete emissions equipment, like the rear O2 sensors. That's illegal and nobody should be surprised that they got in trouble. I've used the Cobb on several of my cars, including my current 996, they're able to still make and sell their Accessport, so what's the problem?
Negative, Ghost Rider, gasoline powered cars are now exempt from emissions testing for the first 7 years, but beyond that, tests are now required every 2 years for most vehicles:
https://dmv.colorado.gov/gas-emissions-requirements
What you wrote is nothing more than a poorly worded straw-man argument, insinuating that I said something that I never even inferred. At no point did I mention anything about replacing a catalytic converter in order to gain an extra 7-10hp, nor was it remotely implied.
Up until 1/1/2021, I would agree that Colorado was relatively reasonable regarding allowed modifications to cars in the metro area- if it passed the sniffer test, it was allowed on the road. If it failed, no registration for you. Simple. My cars are still running OEM cats and pass emissions with ease. If you're currently running some type of aftermarket cat on your 996, you're now in violation of the law, regardless of if it previously passed emissions, or if the last tech that checked your car didn't care enough to notice it.
My point appeared to go over your head entirely. My complaint was that up until just a few years ago, if something happened to your OEM catalytic converter, an OEM-style aftermarket replacement, that was 49 state legal, was a viable, reasonably priced option, that would allow you to get your car back on the road. Maybe you aren't inundated with crime statistics, but to those of us that are, do you understand what this non-CARB compliant cat ban has done within our state? It's caused catalytic converter theft to skyrocket- with the banning of Federally complaint cats, the price of OEM cats (i.e. that ones that are now frequently stolen) has dramatically increased, creating an entirely new market demand. Do you understand what that's done to people that live in areas where they don't have a garage, that primarily drive older cars that don't have full coverage insurance? They wake up to find their car got exponentially louder and find out that in order to pass emissions, they now have to spend thousands of dollars (vs hundreds with the previously certified 49-state-legal cats- the ones that still passed local emissions testing) that they don't have in order to have a way to get to work. For all of us that can afford full coverage insurance, this new wave of catalytic converter theft has increased our insurance rates.
Why? Because some politician(s) wants to get brownie points with a certain subsection of their constituents with claims of "going greener", knowing full well that those they're appealing to (primarily rich, affluent, white people) won't be the ones that ultimately end up footing the bill when their catalytic converters get stolen (their Porsche's will be parked in a safe garage at night).
I'm not making a case for destroying our air (quite the opposite) by allowing everyone to roll coal and club baby seals along the way, but what this social experiment has done is essentially created a market control that predictably, has ended up becoming a tax on the poor.
My argument has nothing to do with a motorsports hobby and more to do with unintended consequences from those believing they're acting in "our" best interests. Odd that this was never a referendum that was placed on a ballot in order for voters to make an informed decision about.
As far as Cobb goes, yet again, you're missing the point. Cobb is not a fly-by-night operation. They've been making reputable parts and selling them with "off road" disclaimers for decades, without issue. I won't claim to be well versed on the state of Federal environmental legislation- it's not my area of expertise to say the least. I don't know if the EPA's recent crackdown on aftermarket tuning companies is the result of new legislation, an internal change in SOP's or simply new case law after trying older laws in modern court systems. Here's what I do know: for decades, the status quo was relatively unchallenged, allowing all of these tuner companies to provide "off road" products throughout the country (world?) with seemingly no trace of repercussion and yet suddenly, that stopped in recent years.
The point I'm trying to make regarding Cobb: times change. Laws and the status quo for enforcement changes. If we're to believe the PR that Cobb representatives put out (even if it might be hogwash- I couldn't say), they claim they started their green initiative in 2022, prior to EPA intervention. Translation: they saw the writing on the wall and worked internally to comply with new enforcement practices, surely to the tune of heavy R&D costs and lost revenue from no longer selling their old products. If you believe what they say, then they're not trying to evade the EPA's regulations- quite the opposite. It sounds like they're working to bring their products into compliance and were doing so prior to compulsion.
Retroactively choosing to fine a company for actions under a previous status quo when they're already working towards adjusting to new acceptable standards doesn't sound like "justice", it sounds more like political prosecution. One of the best, and worst things about working in an executive branch of government is the ability to use discretion, based on the totality of the circumstances. While I can't cite the details of their case, nor how the settlement was agreed upon, I am skeptical of anything that appears on the outside to potentially encompass some form of political prosecution.
I suppose I should state my own bias plainly: while I can't speak about the case(s), in my professional life, I've personally witnessed political prosecution and I've also declined to be a part of a couple cases that I believed to have similar motivations (likely to my own professional detriment). I've also seen a plethora of knee-jerk legislation bills passed in our state senate, aiming to "fix" a "problem" that didn't exist, but were merely based on perception, or passed just to appease a relatively minor, but vocal subset of the population (something about a squeaky wheel and grease?). Even if these bills do not accomplish the goals they promised their constituents, unfortunately, they are rarely ever repealed and the people that passed them aren't the ones that will pay for them long term. If you're spent as much time as I have around elected officials, you come to realize words like "I/we made a mistake" are rarely uttered... but don't get me started on that rant! I'll stop there before I start getting myself in trouble.
