[floydarogers]

So you all know I've never advocated for removing emissions gear - quite the opposite. Many people (including Pierre) have advocated for more "realistic" limits and many pooh-poohing (how the heck do you spell that?) the idea that removing the gear from THEIR car has no effect. I saw this article in this morning's Seattle Times. There are several points coming out of this that, to some degree at least, says that you're living in a dreamland and that any level of air pollution (including pm 2.5, and NOx) is bad.

http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-...ms-your-heart/

Here are a couple of select quotes.
"Through what authors of an accompanying Lancet editorial called “meticulous measurements,” Kaufman’s analysis looked at the exposure of participants to the fine particulate matter present in pollution, tiny bits less than 2.5 microns in diameter, too small to be seen with the naked eye. Those fine particles are referred to as PM 2.5.

The study, which tracked air quality in participants’ communities and near their homes, also measured exposure to nitrogen oxide and nitrogen dioxide and black carbon or soot, pollutants typically associated with traffic. Participants also visited study clinics multiple times to collect health measurements.

In a complicated conclusion, the researchers found that for every 5 micrograms per cubic meter higher concentration of PM 2.5, or for every 35 parts per billion higher concentration of oxides of nitrogen, participants saw an increase of 4 units per year of a marker for coronary-artery calcium, called the Agatston score.

In plain language, that means the higher the concentrations of pollutants, the faster participants developed atherosclerosis, a condition commonly known as hardening of the arteries."

and

"During the study period, from 2002 to 2012, air-pollution levels actually improved in the U.S., in large part because of reductions in allowed ambient particulate levels. The U.S. now permits an annual average of 12 micrograms per cubic meter of PM 2.5, about half the European standard of 25 micrograms per cubic meter.

“This is a public-health success story,” Kaufman said.

But the new evidence also shows that there’s no safe level of pollution, no exposure that doesn’t increase heart disease risk, he added." Emphasis mine.

Obviously, the complete jury isn't in, but you guys doing ABC deletes are not doing something harmless.

One final comment on something else: one of the best REALISTIC assessments of weather versus climate change effects that I know of is a blog by UW Prof of Atmospheric Sciences Cliff Mass; you should read his posts (not all are relevant to non-NW residents.)
http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/

[Dazza335iC]

Personally I'm not a fan of removing emissions controls either. Can you make more power without them? Sure you can. But at what cost? Every industrialized nation in the world regulates exhaust emissions, and for a very good reason: emissions are harmful to our health. In my personal opinion, increasing the (already very high) power that my D produces by gutting the emissions system simply isn't worth the tradeoff. I don't want to be living in the US equivalent of Beijing or Delhi.

[Yozh]

Interestingly, no mention of CO gas...

[Persian Whisperjet]

Floyd you need to get out more. It's not just Beijing and Delhi -- go to Prague or Madrid much less Cairo or Ankara.

Yet the air in American cities is absurdly clean by comparison. Even Los Angeles is a changed place compared to 20 years ago.

You can say the sky is falling all you want but most American cities are not remotely in danger of having unhealthy levels of pollution.

[335duff]

Yozh-

What is your point with regard to CO gas? Do emissions deleted cars produce less of it? If so, why?

Persian Whisperjet-

I agree about USA air generally being of high quality. Isn't that nice? Don't you want that? If everybody had cars with no emissions controls, we would not have that. Just because other people have worse air, does not mean we should accept a lower standard.

floydarogers -

Thanks for your post.

It makes me happy I'm not the only one with qualms about deleting the emissions equipment.
I do not believe for one second that those modifications are not bad for the environment.

I see diesel trucks with emissions deletes all the time, you can see, hear, and smell them from a mile away.
That shit is gross and I am very glad it is illegal, and I will vote for politicians to make it more illegal.

I have yet to see ONE peer-reviewed scientific study that advocates for the removal of any emissions control devices on any kind of motor vehicle.

All that said I really like the 335d and I think that for normal commuting its the best thing on the road.

It will certainly be the last car I ever buy with a combustion engine of any kind.

[Persian Whisperjet]

Originally Posted by 335duff

I agree about USA air generally being of high quality. Isn't that nice? Don't you want that? If everybody had cars with no emissions controls, we would not have that.

Nice straw man, but nobody is proposing ending emissions controls. What some people are doing is mitigating the impact of a ticking time bomb that is strapped to every single 335d sold in the United States.

Did I say a ticking time bomb? I should have said, multiple ticking time bombs.

Time bomb roll call: DPF, SCR, urea tank, EGR.

BTW a 335d with no DPF is vastly cleaner than a last-generation Mercedes 300D with all the fixins intact.

[335duff]

If you can't afford those emissions controls you can't afford the d. Why should those rules apply to everyone else but not to you? This is a lesson that was taught in first grade at my school. Every other car on the road has emissions equipment that breaks and needs to be replaced.

It says bmw on the front. Nobody should take that to mean that it will be reliable or cheap.
My car has already had 2 scr failures.

BTW a 335d with emissions controls intact is vastly cleaner than that! I tried to adress this in my first reply, but why should we settle for lower standards when there are worse alternatives? I realize that this quickly becomes an issue of where do you draw the line, and i think it is very to easy to let the EPA do the line drawing.

With regard to your claims on the emissions of a deleted 335d, how do you know? How did you test?

[335dlci]

I also am for cleaner air but its kinda hard to follow regulations when the govt. does not follow the same rules they make for the people.

[Whitbread]

Originally Posted by 335dlci

I also am for cleaner air but its kinda hard to follow regulations when the govt. does not follow the same rules they make for the people.

Bingo. Even if the entire fleet of 335ds sold in the USA were all deleted and joined in one giant line to do a smokey burnout, the environmental impact wouldnt be a drop in the proverbial bucket compared to the oil spill in the Gulf right now, the spill that happened a few years back, the river in Colorado the epa turned orange, or the fact that all military vehicles are exempt from emissions controls.

Google up the environmental impact of hybrid car batteries being made if you really want to get angry about something.

[335dsleeper]

You want cleaner air? Stop flying.

[335dlci]

Originally Posted by 335dsleeper

You want cleaner air? Stop flying.

and don't buy a hybrid. especially a Tahoe/escalade hybrid

[floydarogers]

Originally Posted by Persian Whisperjet

Floyd you need to get out more. It's not just Beijing and Delhi -- go to Prague or Madrid much less Cairo or Ankara.

I was in Madrid last October. I was in China - Beijing and others - the year before. Prague in 2007 IIRC. What's your point? The article is talking about effects in the USA, not other places in the world, where the concentration of air pollution is almost always higher than in the USA. Yeah, they're bad, but don't you care for places closer to home? And remember, CO, NOx and PM 2.5 are caused by LOCAL things, and don't really make it across the Pacific because the are converted or fall out before they get here.

[335duff]

335dlci, Whitbread, 335dsleeper -

I don't want clearER air, I want cleanEST air.

The military kills innocent people all the time, do you do that too?

I don't give a shit about hybrids everyone knows theyre dumb.

Whitbread I have adressed your post twice before and i will not do it again in this thread. I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. But generally: how do you know? How did you test? What if everybody with any car deleted their emissions equipment?

[Whitbread]

Originally Posted by 335duff

335dlci, Whitbread, 335dsleeper -

I don't want clearER air, I want cleanEST air.

The military kills innocent people all the time, do you do that too?

I don't give a shit about hybrids everyone knows theyre dumb.

Whitbread I have adressed your post twice before and i will not do it again in this thread. I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. But generally: how do you know? How did you test? What if everybody with any car deleted their emissions equipment?

So BP, the military, and the epa's own crimes against the environment aren't pertinent to this conversation? Like it or not, the "evil" military and its many men and women serving are what is letting you sit at home and type up a response in a safe setting for you and your family.

We all know hybrids are dumb, the problem is the media forces it down consumers throats they are "the bestest". Google up the battery plant in Canada that has a few mile dead zone around it. Are you going to send them some hate mail?

I have a mechanical engineering degree and separate associate degrees in automotive high performance technology, diesel technology, and alternative fuel vehicle technology. I worked at GM in their electronics test labs and was involved with many projects in my time there. So I have quite a bit of hands on knowledge on both sides of the fence. If you think vw was the only one that "cheated" emissions, think again. 99% of direct injection gas engine made today will instantly fail a WOT emission test. Because just like vw, all other automakers follows the "pass this exact test" parameters. Once operated outside those test parameters, the vehicle will not meet emissions. Watch a stock Ford ecoboost merge on the freeway when they mat it, they release a brown stinky haze in factory settings. Are you going to go on ecoboost forums and tell them their cars are evil and to never step on the gas?

[kydiesel35]

I like my hybrids...

[TDIwyse]

We are all poisoning and killing each other. There's no way around this fact. Just the act of living, eating and breathing produces toxic waste.

Some interesting analysis of non-typical sources of toxic emissions some people may not be familiar with...

All vehicles, even "zero emission" electric ones, will produce huge amounts of harmful and toxic emissions (not even considering the production of the batteries and means of producing the electricity):

http://www.unece.org/fileadmin/DAM/t...RPE-65-20e.pdf

After thorough research of the air at highway with moderate traffic, the researchers found between 3,800 and 6,900 tyre particles per cubic meter of air while more the 58% of them are under 10 microns in size and therefore are able to penetrate into human lungs causing bronchial asthma, allergic reactions, as a result of skin and mucosa contact –rhinitis, conjunctivitis and urticaria.

...

According to the research carried out in Moscow [2] the core pollutant of the city air (up to 60% of hazardous matter) is the rubber of
automobile tyre used up in a small dust.
...
As shown in the above analysis, tyre dust emissions due to tyre protector
wear(in g/km) significantly (by 6-7 times) exceeds emissions of particulate matters with exhaust gases of passenger car engines.


Even cooking produces large amounts of harmful particulate emissions: http://nepis.epa.gov/Exe/ZyNET.exe/P...kPage=x&ZyPURL


And NOx emissions come from many places, and at much higher magnitudes, than cars.

Soil:
http://link.springer.com/article/10....A1009738715891

The best current estimate of the global soil source of NO is 21 Tg N yr-1. Adsorption of NOx onto plant canopy surfaces may reduce emissions to the atmosphere to as low as 13 Tg N yr-1, although the absorption effect is probably smaller than this.

lightning:
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news...007/27apr_nox/

As such, the global production rate of lightning NOx is still uncertain, and ranges anywhere from 2 to 20 teragrams per year

There's also volcanic activity, naturally occurring forest fires, livestock, cooking, fireplaces/wood stoves, campfires ...

Now, with all that said, if I lived in a heavily populated metropolitan area, I wouldn't have removed some of my emission components on my vehicles.

[Mrdeezy]

Originally Posted by kydiesel35

I like my hybrids...

Jajajaja !

[Yozh]

I think I'm going to have a word with those potheads on the beach under my window. They are producing way more daily NOx than my deleted diesel...

[WreckerX5d]

Originally Posted by 335duff

The military kills innocent people all the time, do you do that too?

Go visit Sangin Valley, Buji Pass or any other hot spot in Helmand Providence, Afghanistan and let me know how many 'innocent' lives we have killed. I'm sure you'll find a substantially higher turn out from ChIraq (Chicago) and all the gang shootings.

We will get charged for murder if an innocent life was taken intentionally or found negligence on our part. I can't say this never happens (it's impossible), but rules are in place to mitigate as much as humanly possible.


Military vehicles aren't emission compliant, nor should they be.

Turbo-Fan (the ones used in jetliners like a Boeing 747, ect) engined airplanes aren't either, nor can they be. I will add that they do strive for the highest efficiency possible merely for the goal of saving money.

[kydiesel35]

Originally Posted by Yozh

I think I'm going to have a word with those potheads on the beach under my window. They are producing way more daily NOx than my deleted diesel...

Pothead? What word do you wanna have with me?The only NOx I see on this thread are the fumes arising... We all know what these consequences entail, who are you to say I emit more smoke than you?

[Thecastle]

Sigh, another relational study.

A correlation relationship does not establish a causal effect. in other words two variables, heart disease and air pollution show a correlation, but that doesn't prove one causes the other. I.e people who have lots of heart disease have been exposed to lots of,air pollution. Wouldn't explain all the people who have heart disease who,live in a nearly pollution free environment. Or the other flip, people with lots of heart disease cause lots of air pollution.

The Seattle times promotes other junk theories like induced demand. Haha, if induced demand was actually right we should reduce the number of tsa agents at air ports to reduce wait times in lines. Or if we tear down hospitals there will be less sick people.

With that said, clearly pollution has a health impact on some folks, but the real question is what is the optimal pollution level. Also what other cost effective means could be employed to mitigate heart disease, loosing wepeight? Better diet? Probably cheaper than adding lots of expensive pollution controls and monitoring.

[335dsleeper]

Originally Posted by 335duff

The military kills innocent people all the time, do you do that too?

Lol