The Staggering Cost of Emission Controls

You're surprised that an OEM converter is 6 times more expensive than a functional aftermarket converter? I'm not.

I know of a guy with a new BMW and when his cat was stolen, a new one cost him over a $1,000.00.

I did what you did, and put a cheapy on one of my old cars. It passed emmissions just fine after that.

Actually, I didn't even check on the real OEM converter. The $300 was after market, but designed like the original, which has an odd mounting system.

I avoid getting Daihatsu parts like the plague. They are astronomical (largely because the dealer network in the US is long gone, and they are more or less custom-ordered and shipped from Japan. I would not have been surprised at $1000 from the Daihatsu parts rep.

I was being facetious re the staggering cost of emission controls. $45 is such a deal, platinum not being cheap stuff.

When I started reading this I was expecting to hear that the Cat had been dispensed with, and the emissions were still within the limits, but fuel efficiency had improved. I had a pre-cat version of a car, when a friend had the later version. He got 10% less distance on a tankful than I did. (And at >100k, the emissions were still within manufacturer's specs for the new model)

I too was expecting to hear the same thing. Where I live emissions checks are never done and I have been disabling every component I can on every vehicle I have ever owned (Gut the cats and bypass the EGR to draw fresh air for starters) and I have seen a pretty consistent 10 or better percent fuel economy increase as well.

I would still like to get my hand on an actual testing unit and do some before and after testing to see what exactly all that crap is supposed to be taking out that so bad. If everyone is so worried about CO2 how do they come to the conclusion that making our vehicles burn more fuel to go less distance helps anything?

The thing I have always seen is that they quote the emissions levels of NOx and what not from some odd ball antiquated engines that haven't been used in vehicles for decades Vs a pick of the litter modern engine. How about a fair comparison to the same dam engine on a with and without emissions systems comparison?

You know like a comparison of a new stock emissions compliant 350 Chevy Vs a performance built all aftermarket one or a new Ford 5.8l in the same two setups instead of a 1941 Fairbanks Morse industrial Vs a new Prius engine or stacked deck crap like that.

That is exactly my complaint about emissions controls. Ethanol in gas as well. They both hurt fuel economy. Its funny, all of the technology in vehicles now and many of them don't get much better fuel economy than the old ones. Before someone gets their panties in a wad and mentions the new 40-50mpg little cars of today, the cars of that size got those kinds of mileage back in the day as well, they were just not as popular or as common here in the states at the time but, they were out there. So, everyone seems to get the mistaken impression that all vehicles were gas guzzlers back then.

Lets pick another example. I have owned many full size trucks, both 2wd and 4wd, of many different ages over the years. In all of this time, I really haven't noticed the fuel economy getting much better. You'd think with all of the improvements in tech, that we would have something to show for it. Its funny, one of my old carbureted Dodge half tons ('85) had all of the smog crap removed and the carburetor tuned leaner. I got about 1-2mpg better gas mileage than my 97 half ton ram with the same 318 but multi-port fuel injection and an overdrive transmission. What gives?

I had similar experience as well. My last pick up was a 1985 Ford F150 extended cab 4wd that came with the emissions compliant 5.8l. That POS engine got 7 - 8 MPG on average and didn't have enough power to gt away from its own dust.

Grandpa blew up the engine in my dads pickup that was identical to mine, except for the extended cab, so I sold him my 5.8l along with the transplant and refitted a heavy towing/performance built Ford 460 That I built myself into my 85 F150 along with a over built E4OD transmission with a PCS independent controller. The pickup went from a pathetic 200 HP to around 400+ and doubled its average fuel economy (12 - 15 was typical) as well despite the fact I drove it like a nut!

Unfortunately about two years after that a little old lady took the front end off my 85 pickup and totaled it. My plans now are to refit the 460 and E4OD transmission into a 1999 Ford F250 Super duty 4 door 4WD I just picked up a few months ago that has a bad V10 engine.

The thing is the new pickup is literally identical except for the paint and about 30,000 miles on the odometer, to my present 1999 F250 super duty that has the V10 engine so I will be able to do an honest 1:1 comparison of what a stock Ford V10 with most of its emmisions systems bypassed and removed does against what was origionaly a 1977 Mercury Grand Marquis 4 door land yacht engine that has been rebuilt for mechanical efficency and heavy towing service!

I will be shocked if the 460 doesn't walk all over the V10 in mileage numbers even while pushing some 125+ HP more at the same time given the fact that to be honest the old 85 could pull my 20 foot flatbed trailer with as much weight on it as my 99 weighs and still get about the same average fuel mileage numbers as the 99 gets all by itself without the trailer.

When I started reading this I was expecting to hear that the Cat had been dispensed with, and the emissions were still within the limits, but fuel efficiency had improved.

There were only a couple years immediately after the introduction of catalytic converters when comparable models went down in fuel efficiency, year over year. (Many cars immediately improved with the implementation of three-way catalysts.) (There were all sorts of issues prior to catalytic converters, and all sorts of Mickey Mouse "solutions" like air pumps, etc.) By the time of my 1990 Daihastu, closed-loop fuel injection with three-way catalyst was the norm, and fuel efficiency was far better than it was for a pre-emission-controls vehicle of comparable weight*. For example, the pre-emissions controls VW beetle got 25 mpg, (and was advertised as such my VW.) The Daihatsu got 42 mpg (which is now shown as 38 mpg by EPA, due to new testing that includes more time with the AC on). The 1000cc Daihatsu (1750 lbs, 53 hp) is a little heavier than the 1200cc 1962 VW (1570 lb, 40hp), mainly because it was designed for crash survival whereas the VW was not. The Daihatsu engine has nothing in the way of variable valve timing etc, and mechanically is similar to the VW engine. But largely because of better combustion control (which came out of emission controls) it gets far better mileage. In the mid 60's, when I was working as a VW mechanic, no one would have dreamed that a car twice the weight of a VW and with all sorts of luxury features lacking on the VW, would get twice the mileage.

The only car available in the US that is thoroughly and specifically designed for high fuel efficiency is the Prius. (In the US it is rated mid size where the "also ran" cars -- the limited production fuel-economy-special Focus, etc -- are small cars, and still don't do better than 40 mpg) It is more than twice the weight of the old VW and almost exactly twice the weight of the Daihatsu. But it gets far better fuel efficiency than the Daihatsu. It also emits less that 1/4 the NOx, HC, and CO of the Daihatsu. In urban driving, the Prius gets 50 mpg versus 32 for the Daihatsu, so the Daihatsu, (at half the weight) emits 1.56 times as much CO2.

There are people who can get 100 mpg (US) driving their original Honda Insights. That is a measure of the person, not the car. The EPA tests are (in the US) the only valid consistenty-applied scientific method of measuring fuel efficiency, (and when the sample size is large, consumers get similar real-world figures.) They are done by highly-skilled dyno operators using highly-accurate dynos, and manufactures cry foul when the numbers are not reasonable.

Road tests conducted by magazines (such as Car and Driver, Motor Trend, etc.) confirm that cars are far more efficient per pound than they were pre regulation. Engine output per liter for ordinary sedans is now over 60 bhp per liter, a figure that very few pre-regulation cars could achieve. An ordinary Toyota Camry puts out more hp per cubic inch than a pre-regulation Ferrari.

On my Daihatsu, the additional cat makes no measurable difference in back pressure, because it replaces a resonator that used to be there (and works as well in deadening sound). It weights no more than the resonator. And it costs no more (the factory resonator is far more expensive, actually -- but that's because of the weird US status of Daihatsu, and because OEM's love to screw customers on parts). Without the cat, I could eek out an additional one mpg if I leaned the mixture (reducing power in the process, and degrading drivability) but the NOx (without cat) is already is 10 times higher than current standards, and would go much higher. I'd also have to retard timing a little with the leaner mixture to reduce pinging. All around, the converter provides a far better overall driving experience while sacrificing one mpg, and provides emission numbers that would be otherwise be impossible to achieve. Still, in Altlanta, there are many days when you are advised not to go outside if you have asthma.
The $45 spent on a cat reduced CO by 75%, NOx by 60% and HC by 60%. That's a great deal in my view. Take the cat off and put on a carburetor, and I'd expect emissions at least two to four times as high as the pre-cat-replacement numbers -- but only at sea level on a standard day. Any where else, it would be even worse.


* the only additional weight for the Daihatsu of "emission controls" (beyond the fuel injection system that is necessary for decent performance, drivability, and economy) is the cat (5 lb) and the EGR system (3 lb.)

Help me out here.... it sounds like you are saying either:

-emissions regulations have caused an increase in efficiency/performance,

or

-emissions equipment improves efficiency/performance.

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Is that close?

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I guess when the supporting argument is a comparison of a Daihatsu that got 42 mpg to a vw bug that got 25 mpg, I shouldn't expect the conclusion to be tightly reined.

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Emissions regulations did not end with the introduction of the catalytic converter and EGR valve. So there is no need to span years and manufacturers for a comparison. You can see the emissions regulations hurt efficiency as the years pass for the very same model...

.. conveniently even.

Is that close?

No, not precisely. But I may have been rambling. The points of the thread are three: 1. That catalytic converters can be incredibly cheap. 2. That, like most emission-related equipment, their function/malfunction state can be easily determined, even in pre-OBD2 cars. 3. That an old car can be kept on the road and made emissions legal for little money, if you avoid places like Midas.

Nothing all that newsworthy there. But many members (such as the Cavalier owners) seem completely clueless re even simple car repairs and diagnosis -- so maybe even this basic stuff is useful.

But in the particular post to which you responded, I am saying something different, and something quite close to your original summary: "emissions regulations have caused an increase in efficiency/performance" Yes, that is essentially true. It is not unlike the effect of the Kennedy era space missions on virtually every aspect of modern life.

Modern US market automotive engines are substantially more efficient (in BSFC) substantially lighter per HP, and dramatically more powerful in HP per liter than pre-emission-controlled engines. All this is not in dispute. That a typical vanilla sedan (such as a V6 Camry) of today can out accelerate many of the fastest exotics of 1988 is not in question -- Motor Trend has done the tests.

Aircraft and lawnmower engines are very nearly unregulated and both operate about at 25% peak efficiency -- just as they did 50 years ago. Gasoline automotive engines peak at 37% efficient, an improvement of about 50% from 50 years ago. In car engines, emissions have been reduced by about 98% during those 50 years.
So the question is: is the stunningly better performance of today's engines a result of emission regulations. The answer is yes, with qualifications.

Electronic ignition, double overhead cams (applied to ordinary sedans), multi-port fuel injection, variable valve timing, knock sensing (and adaptive timing), the higher compression permitted by knock sensing, closed-loop mixture control are all things that improve performance, fuel efficiency, and drivability. The legal requirement to provide extended warranties for all emission control equipment has increased the quality of the related pieces: the idea of spark plug replacement at 100,000 mile intervals was almost unimaginable when I began working as a Porsche and VW mechanic in 1964. We did minor tuneups (points and plugs and air filter) at 5000 mile intervals and major tuneups at 10,000 intervals (the above plus valve clearance adjustment.)

Would all this stuff have been implemented for performance reasons alone? No, probably not, and certainly not on the same timetable. Imagine the income lost by dealers when they stopped doing tuneups. The American manufactures drag their feet as long as possible, turning out interim cars with dismal performance and drivability, while the Japanese took over the market.

Customers did not drive the adoption of fuel injection, (which was, until the advent of tighter controls, found -- in mechanical form -- only on expensive cars such as Alfa Romeos, the six cylinder Porsches, several Mercedes models, and in crude form, on a few Corvettes.) Mom and Pop were not going into dealers and saying "I'd really like this Bonneville better if it had fuel injection." Although the European manufacturers introduced some safety features and performance features voluntarily, Lee Iacocca became famous for ranting "Safety Does Not Sell." Likewise, low emissions and high efficiency did not sell, and had to be shoved down the throats of the Detroit companies, via regulation. So without the regulations, we would very likely still be pedaling carburetors and low performance engines (just as we do in the unregulated lawnmower and general aviation markets).

Because my three-wheeler is a motorcycle, the emission requirements are not as stringent as those for a four wheeler. But in modifying the engine from its humble beginnings as a generator engine, I am using fuel injection and several other technologies developed for emissions purposes to improve its BSFC. (Even EGR can improve BSFC, an obviously so does a modified Atkinson cycle -- and both also lower NOx emissions.) The single piece of equipment that I may decided to add, that serves to reduce emissions alone without improving performance (fuel efficiency, in my case) is a catalyst. But I need a muffler anyway, and the catalyst helps with that function. The catalyst may reduce efficiency by 1%. A tiny price for a huge reduction in emissions.

But the idea of completely unregulated engines is ludicrous to anyone other than a sociopath -- even with emissions down to a tiny fraction of what they were 40 years ago, American cities still become choked with smog. With fifty times the emissions, our cities would look like those pictures you see of Indian cities. We have no choice to go back to completely unregulated engines, pumping 50 time the emissions into the air.
Sociopaths can believe that anyone should be allowed to pour gallons of raw gas on the road, without regard to the effect on people and animals. But for emission levels acceptable to ordinary people, you need, with today's technology, a catalyst. All the rest of the stuff, you'd do for performance and efficiency reasons. Without widespread adoption for all cars, the cost of high performance equipment (such as fuel injection, knock sensing, high compression, DOHC.) would be far higher -- pushing us back four decades, when all the good stuff (that resulted in high HP per liter) was found in Europe. American cars would still have the technical equivalent of tractor engines.
Are emission controls a boon to the auto industry? Of course. Does the EPA drive job creation, of course. But does a complicated heavy feature laden luxurious car of today cost more than the simple crude cars of yesterday? No. Cars are (in inflation adjusted dollars) a bargain.

Where would cell phones, personal computers, etc be without the benefits of Kennedy's Huge Liberal Government space program that Mitt Romney praised in his acceptance speech?

Compare, by the way, the fuel efficiency of the 2002 Prius with that of the far cleaner, heavier and larger 2012, using the site you recommended. You will see that no, in the real world, model-for-model cleaner does not mean lower efficiency.

Thanks for the reply. You make some great points and with the clarifications and qualifications, I agree with most of what you saying.

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I do think you are stretching a bit with the claim that emissions standards are the cause of efficiency increases. Correlation does not prove causality. There is no question that it is one of many factors that has an effect over time on efficiency. Putting a 10$ per gallon tax on gas starting in the 80's without emissions standards might have resulted in current efficiency and emissions being markedly better. I'm not saying that is necessarily what should have been done, just something to consider.

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Please realize that just because someone does not agree with your theory about emissions regulations giving us better performance and reduced emissions, does not mean that they want to dump gas in the ground, or even that they want to end all emissions regulations. Emissions regulations should be judged on the effectiveness of reducing harmful emissions, not on their status as a panacea.

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Just one more note... Comparing a 2002 Prius to a 2012 Prius is not comparing the same car. 2002 is a first generation. 2012 is a third generation. Moreover even if it were a valid comparison, finding one example for which efficiency did not decrease does not prove that increasingly stringent emissions requirement do not lower fuel efficiency. The Prius is an exception even when comparing the same generation year over year. Toyota should be proud of building a car so clean that no changes were needed within each generation to meet regulations. That being said, It isn't hard to examples where that is not the case.

Growing up, 4 cars stand out.

'57 Adventurer 1 Hp/CI 348CI 2 4BBL 18 Hiway, problem was 40 ft turning radius Hi Test

63 Grand Prix 389 17 Hiway Hi Test

65 Electra Convertible 17 Hiway Hi Test

62 Corvair Auto 21 Hiway Regular

In the 70's,80's and most of the 90's I had company cars. And didn't bother to look at the numbers.

96 Sebring Convertible 6 Cyl something 20 Hiway Regular

95 Wrangler 4 Ltr 20 Hiway

99 Cherokee 4 Ltr 18 Hiway

No improvement I can see. The '60's cars weighed over 4000 lbs had V8's and would blow the doors off any of my later vehicles. They looked better. I must say the life expectancy is longer, '60s cars were gone in 100 K, now that's the break in time.