MotorsportsGordon said:Well non dot legal race tires state clearly for off road use only aswell. If someone buys slicks etc and ignores that and uses them on the road is the tire manufacturer now liable because someone ignored it and broke the law.
The shop that installed them on an obvious street car might be.
Keith Tanner said:MotorsportsGordon said:Well non dot legal race tires state clearly for off road use only aswell. If someone buys slicks etc and ignores that and uses them on the road is the tire manufacturer now liable because someone ignored it and broke the law.
The shop that installed them on an obvious street car might be.
Hell, a shop might be liable if they install only two new tires on a car that badly needs four. There was a case where this happened, fatalities were involved, and the waiver the customer had to sign was used as evidence that the shop knew what they were doing was wrong.
Not sure how you can force someone to buy tires they can't afford, and it's also illegal to refuse to release a car.
Keith Tanner said:MotorsportsGordon said:Well non dot legal race tires state clearly for off road use only aswell. If someone buys slicks etc and ignores that and uses them on the road is the tire manufacturer now liable because someone ignored it and broke the law.
The shop that installed them on an obvious street car might be.
That could be a very slippery slope what if it's an autocross car. Lots of very much street cars have auto crossed on race tires.
MotorsportsGordon said:Keith Tanner said:MotorsportsGordon said:Well non dot legal race tires state clearly for off road use only aswell. If someone buys slicks etc and ignores that and uses them on the road is the tire manufacturer now liable because someone ignored it and broke the law.
The shop that installed them on an obvious street car might be.
That could be a very slippery slope what if it's an autocross car. Lots of very much street cars have auto crossed on race tires.
If they are street cars, then the tires are likley DOT approved race tires. Not many Prepared or Modified cars make it to the street.
I've driven race tires on the street, but even Hoosier R tires are DOT approved.
alfadriver (Forum Supporter) said:MotorsportsGordon said:Keith Tanner said:MotorsportsGordon said:Well non dot legal race tires state clearly for off road use only aswell. If someone buys slicks etc and ignores that and uses them on the road is the tire manufacturer now liable because someone ignored it and broke the law.
The shop that installed them on an obvious street car might be.
That could be a very slippery slope what if it's an autocross car. Lots of very much street cars have auto crossed on race tires.
If they are street cars, then the tires are likley DOT approved race tires. Not many Prepared or Modified cars make it to the street.
I've driven race tires on the street, but even Hoosier R tires are DOT approved.
Certainly there used to be more my dads 69 corvette is a full street car it has a much more powerful engine then stock but it ran on used Goodyear can am tires from 1981.
alfadriver (Forum Supporter) said:there are car enthusiasts that work for the EPA, and have been for probably the entire time they have existed.
And *probably* what happened was that too many people complained of being coal rolled- again, that forces them by law to react. Since anti-tampering has been illegal for many years, they just told the industry that it will start to be more enforced.
Yes and yes. Correct and yes. Also correct and basically yes.
I commented on this before, but basically that's it. The VW issue got everyone to take notice and once their blood was in the water, bro-dozers were the next logical step. They have specifically been mentioned as an area of concern in recent meetings. Even before VW, Non Road emissions have long known to be a large contributor to mobile emissions and are generally hard to accurately monitor or model.
My perspective has always been "well, what did you think would happen?" Manufacturers enable idiots to very obviously pollute in a blatant way that is apparent to everyone. The idiot shouts "Hey, everyone! Look at me! Look at my truck!" Well, you got the attention you wanted. This is what it looks like. The one-size-fits-all enforcement that follows will affect all aftermarket parts manufacturers: The intentional offenders, those that are willfully ignorant (or claim to be), and those legitimate racecar part manufacturers.
If you're going to tinker on your stuff, everyone knows you keep it quiet. That's how you run a '58 MGA with disc brakes and a 1950cc MGB engine in H-Stock.
MotorsportsGordon said:Keith Tanner said:MotorsportsGordon said:Well non dot legal race tires state clearly for off road use only aswell. If someone buys slicks etc and ignores that and uses them on the road is the tire manufacturer now liable because someone ignored it and broke the law.
The shop that installed them on an obvious street car might be.
That could be a very slippery slope what if it's an autocross car. Lots of very much street cars have auto crossed on race tires.
I don't see how it's slippery. If you have a non-DOT tire on the car, your car is not road legal by anyone's definition. If there is an accident, your insurance company will almost definitely deny a claim and may go after anyone who enabled you to run those tires on the street if there is a question of a lawsuit. Will the tire manufacturer get hit? Maybe. And maybe they will change the way they sell their tires in response. This is not governmental.
The good news is that there is no shortage of DOT legal race tires today. I don't know about "can am" tires from the 70s.
In reply to Keith Tanner :
Goodyear Blue Streaks (Can Am tires) at least have some tread on them.
Keith Tanner said:Olemiss540 said:Keith Tanner said:FMB42 said:""Make the seller prove to you that he/she/they/it/whatever is building a competition car that the product will fit, and only sell to people who have undergone this vetting process."
Do you have any idea what such 'vetting' would cost? And how about the required time to do so?
I think I do. Do you know what I do for a living?
I have the ability to put such a system in place in pretty short order should that be required.
I dont understand. In a few of your posts you are saying that the EPA has full control over regulating off-road vehicle customization (that effects emissions) while in other posts saying they would force you to "vet" that the products are being used off road.
So which one is it in your opinion? Are off-road non-certified parts illegal (and have been this entire time thus meaning all aftermarket companies have been continuously breaking federal laws)? Or are off-road parts legal as long as they are used strictly off-road?
Not trying to be blunt but you obviously have a better handle on this than most everyone else considering your background.
There has never really been a category for "off-road non-certified parts". And yes, many aftermarket companies have been breaking federal laws for years. Note that I am not a lawyer, the memos are not legislation but are guidance or something like that.
The EPA has control over emissions production, basically. Certified vehicles can't have their emissions controls removed post-sale regardless of intended usage in their view. Now, it's that "off-road competition" definition that PRI and SEMA want to create, a legitimate and legal categorization for certain vehicles that are low-usage by their nature.
IF it is decided that modified race cars are special and can have emissions controls removed, the only way that will be allowed will be if the vendors ensure that these parts are not sold for street car use. Right now, the EPA is focusing on people who are pretending to sell race parts but are selling to the general public. If you sell a diesel tuner that advertises improved fuel economy or better towing capability and you sell tens of thousands per year, this is not likely to be a "race use only" part no matter how many disclaimers you put on the website. If you want to sell race-only parts, it's up to you to make sure they only go on race cars.
Right now, the EPA doesn't seem to be going after legitimate race shops and this sort of gatekeeping is being treated as sufficient but that could change. PRI/SEMA want to make sure things are clear before they do. But one thing that is repeated over and over by all parties is that "for race use only" disclaimers are not worth the pixels used to render them.
I spend a lot of time in seminars and meetings with the EPA and ARB and the like. Two in the past few weeks and my visits to the SEMA show have me sitting in conference rooms. It's actually pretty interesting stuff.
yep, and I'd bet the number of brodozer "race cars" "only used offroad and never on the road" is a miniscule number compared to, say, the number of Miatas in motorsports.
Maybe a handful of hardcore offroad rigs, but that's about it. Not like there's a bunch of diesel pickups kicking it at Road America...
In reply to MotorsportsGordon :
Not sure what your point is about a 1981 example- I've only been autocrossing since 1987, and seriously from 1993. And for Stock and Street Prepared classes (there were fewer classes back then) a DOT approved tire was required. Prepared and Modified allowed non DOT tires, but those cars are street cars when I've ever seen one. And since I started, the classes that have been added were all more DOT only tires- more street tire than race tire for those 200 wear tires.
Keith Tanner said:MotorsportsGordon said:Keith Tanner said:MotorsportsGordon said:Well non dot legal race tires state clearly for off road use only aswell. If someone buys slicks etc and ignores that and uses them on the road is the tire manufacturer now liable because someone ignored it and broke the law.
The shop that installed them on an obvious street car might be.
That could be a very slippery slope what if it's an autocross car. Lots of very much street cars have auto crossed on race tires.
I don't see how it's slippery. If you have a non-DOT tire on the car, your car is not road legal by anyone's definition. If there is an accident, your insurance company will almost definitely deny a claim and may go after anyone who enabled you to run those tires on the street if there is a question of a lawsuit. Will the tire manufacturer get hit? Maybe. And maybe they will change the way they sell their tires in response. This is not governmental.
The good news is that there is no shortage of DOT legal race tires today. I don't know about "can am" tires from the 70s.
Ironically, stage rally cars are required to be street legal by DOT standards (by rally rules), since they have to transit between stages on public roads. But 99% of stage cars are doing it on competition gravel tires, almost none of which are DOT legal (though many are street legal in Europe).
In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :
The thing about brodozers- it's really obvious that they are polluting. For most Spec MIata, it's not quite as obvious. Worse is where the brodozers brag about what they are doing by coal rolling people. I'm not aware of any Spec Miata drivers who troll people like that.
alfadriver (Forum Supporter) said:In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :
The thing about brodozers- it's really obvious that they are polluting. For most Spec MIata, it's not quite as obvious. Worse is where the brodozers brag about what they are doing by coal rolling people. I'm not aware of any Spec Miata drivers who troll people like that.
Totally agree. I was pointing out that the bullE36 M3 "offroad use only" thing for brodozer parts is the primary reason for this, not something Flyin Miata would sell...
It is reasonable to think someone buying Miata parts may very well be using it "only off road." It is totally ridiculous to pretend people buying tunes for an F350 Dually will only be using it offroad.
In either case, I'll be happy to give up aftermarket emissions bypasses for any and all of my cars to get rid of the brodozers.
Apis Mellifera said:alfadriver (Forum Supporter) said:there are car enthusiasts that work for the EPA, and have been for probably the entire time they have existed.
And *probably* what happened was that too many people complained of being coal rolled- again, that forces them by law to react. Since anti-tampering has been illegal for many years, they just told the industry that it will start to be more enforced.
Yes and yes. Correct and yes. Also correct and basically yes.
I commented on this before, but basically that's it. The VW issue got everyone to take notice and once their blood was in the water, bro-dozers were the next logical step. They have specifically been mentioned as an area of concern in recent meetings. Even before VW, Non Road emissions have long known to be a large contributor to mobile emissions and are generally hard to accurately monitor or model.
My perspective has always been "well, what did you think would happen?" Manufacturers enable idiots to very obviously pollute in a blatant way that is apparent to everyone. The idiot shouts "Hey, everyone! Look at me! Look at my truck!" Well, you got the attention you wanted. This is what it looks like. The one-size-fits-all enforcement that follows will affect all aftermarket parts manufacturers: The intentional offenders, those that are willfully ignorant (or claim to be), and those legitimate racecar part manufacturers.
If you're going to tinker on your stuff, everyone knows you keep it quiet. That's how you run a '58 MGA with disc brakes and a 1950cc MGB engine in H-Stock.
The EPA have known the whole time that many "off road applications only" were on real street cars. Actual EPA engineers have cars that clearly violate that rule. I'm not sure that the VW debacle would have changed that enforcement- since that was more directed to OEM's doing it correctly. And even for that- it was not the first time an OEM lied to their face, and blatantly cheated. This was the first time that an OEM got in really big trouble with the EU, though.
I would put far more into the brodozer lap than VW for this specific issue.
It's not just that coal rollers are more obviously breaking the law than Miatas, it's that a cheating diesel emits a lot more bad stuff than a cheating Miata. A modern diesel that's had its emissions hardware deleted pollutes more than a 20 year old diesel that never had emissions hardware. And that's before they go tuning them to make more power, smoke, etc. I'd bet an average deleted 3/4 ton diesel truck emits the same amount of pollutants per mile as a dozen or more cheating Miatas. I'm not trying to defend the cheating Miatas either, but its always the most flagrant abusers that cause regulatory crackdowns. Give them an inch and they take a mile.
Ah, here it is. I made reference to the EPA's enforcement emphasis, here's the source.
Basically, mobile sources - specifically emissions defeat devices - are a National Compliance Initiative for FY 2020-23. Of course, that's shining a spotlight on more than just emissions defeats, it's making everyone aware of the whole range of potential areas of enforcement.
And yes, it was totally the coal rollers. When the EPA is giving presentations, they're always talking about modified pickup trucks.
In reply to alfadriver (Forum Supporter) :
Oh I'm not saying VW was the start of it and I agree with everything you said. It's been kind of a perfect storm. The technology to have defeat devices, the availability of off-road parts and the ease at which they can be found now, and the ability to collect and process data on a national level - all that together didn't exist in previous decades. When you also consider that On Road has been regulated to the point that Nonroad is now the low hanging fruit, that is when the focus will shift. I don't recall brodozers spewing soot in the early 2000s or even early 2010s. I'm too lazy to look up a diesel tuner manufacturer to see when they started business. The enforcement would have come regardless of VW, you're right. That's how it works: reduce the largest and/or easiest to regulate sectors first. Then move down the line. My point was that defeat devices became a greater topic of discussion at EPA or at least discussed more frequently after VW. And then states started looking into it; particularly those with NAAQS problems. And if you can flip the "clean" switch back on or prevent people from switching it off, seems like an easy solution if you're a regulator. Then you mozzle look at off road parts too.
Keith Tanner said:Ah, here it is. I made reference to the EPA's enforcement emphasis, here's the source.
Basically, mobile sources - specifically emissions defeat devices - are a National Compliance Initiative for FY 2020-23. Of course, that's shining a spotlight on more than just emissions defeats, it's making everyone aware of the whole range of potential areas of enforcement.
And yes, it was totally the coal rollers. When the EPA is giving presentations, they're always talking about modified pickup trucks.
I (and a lot of us) remember when truck culture and car culture were basically one and the same. Now they're not.
Apis Mellifera said:In reply to alfadriver (Forum Supporter) :
I don't recall brodozers spewing soot in the early 2000s or even early 2010s.
According to the EPA filing, Bully Dog sold at least 86,000 tuners and 18,500 EGR delete kits from 2010-2013 and were charged with over 114,000 violations. They were fined a cool million bucks in 2015.
There was definitely brodozer action in the 2000s.
irish44j (Forum Supporter) said:alfadriver (Forum Supporter) said:In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :
The thing about brodozers- it's really obvious that they are polluting. For most Spec MIata, it's not quite as obvious. Worse is where the brodozers brag about what they are doing by coal rolling people. I'm not aware of any Spec Miata drivers who troll people like that.
Totally agree. I was pointing out that the bullE36 M3 "offroad use only" thing for brodozer parts is the primary reason for this, not something Flyin Miata would sell...
It is reasonable to think someone buying Miata parts may very well be using it "only off road." It is totally ridiculous to pretend people buying tunes for an F350 Dually will only be using it offroad.
In either case, I'll be happy to give up aftermarket emissions bypasses for any and all of my cars to get rid of the brodozers.
I've been seriously contemplating building a Constructors class rallycross car, in large part because the black RX-7 would be on the EPA's 10 Most Wanted list were it not for brodozers.
The bad part is I'd need to trailer it, obviously, and I refuse to own a truck and I have no room for a trailer. I have an idea for registering the whole buggy thing as a "trailer" (has plates, cannot be driven) with a removable fixed tongue, and a way to just jack up the back and stick a trailer axle under the middle, so the chassis of the buggy becomes the trailer frame itself.
This would be really expensive to register, but still cheaper than buying a truck or a trailer. I'd feel like an Elmer Fudd towing to events instead of driving. When I was younger, me and my friends used to mock people who drove to the trails instead of riding their bikes there (we called it "California Style mountain biking"), and between that and an article Peter Egan wrote a ways back, I grew a strong distaste for trailering.
Keith Tanner said:Apis Mellifera said:In reply to alfadriver (Forum Supporter) :
I don't recall brodozers spewing soot in the early 2000s or even early 2010s.
According to the EPA filing, Bully Dog sold at least 86,000 tuners and 18,500 EGR delete kits from 2010-2013 and were charged with over 114,000 violations. They were fined a cool million bucks in 2015.
There was definitely brodozer action in the 2000s.
Under ten dollars per unit?
"Hey guys! Prices of tunes went up from $500 to $510!"
I would like to note that tractor pulling at a grassroots level is an actual thing, and people build dedicated pulling trucks that get towed to events.
In reply to Keith Tanner :
I figured there were defeats etc. back then, but was the coal rolling fad a thing then?
Pete. (l33t FS) said:Keith Tanner said:Apis Mellifera said:In reply to alfadriver (Forum Supporter) :
I don't recall brodozers spewing soot in the early 2000s or even early 2010s.
According to the EPA filing, Bully Dog sold at least 86,000 tuners and 18,500 EGR delete kits from 2010-2013 and were charged with over 114,000 violations. They were fined a cool million bucks in 2015.
There was definitely brodozer action in the 2000s.
Under ten dollars per unit?
"Hey guys! Prices of tunes went up from $500 to $510!"
I would like to note that tractor pulling at a grassroots level is an actual thing, and people build dedicated pulling trucks that get towed to events.
The initial fine was cut down due to demonstrated inability to pay. Most of the ones I've seen have been scaled to really hurt a business but not sink it. Here's the ruling if you're interested: https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2016-01/documents/hscafo.pdf
I've seen coal rolling for a long time.
In reply to Apis Mellifera :
Yes. A friend of a friend (a tractor puller as a hobby) told stories, and this was in the 00s.
I guess there was actually a guy who went to prison for a long time for manslaughter after he deliberately blew a ton of soot in a mountain tunnel. People died from traffic accidents due to poor visibility.
It would be nice if there were a little more clarity in what's "ok" and what's not. Take my Jeep as an example. I've tuned it myself, it has non-EO heads, cam, intake manifold, throttle body. But the headers are EO-ed. And it has a cat, which is closer to the engine than the original and judging by smell, warms up faster than the original configuration. All of the other emissions stuff is intact and working, ECU still checks all of the OBDII monitors, etc. so it's at least trying to maintain decent emissions.
But if I'm interpreting some of the new guidance correctly, it's not ok, as it's got non-approved parts on it, the tune isn't approved, etc.
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