My first emissions test

[yakkosmurf]

Had a little story I thought some of you might find interesting. I took my 86 MR2 with almost 250k miles on it for its first emissions test this afternoon. The guy was having trouble with keeping the rev range correct at the different speeds, so I got to sit there and run the engine myself.

The damn thing passed. I couldn't believe it. I've never replaced anything emissions related on the car. It's still running the original O2 sensor and CAT. In fact, I even have the PCV hose disconnected to keep it from gumming up my intake manifold.

I've decided the requirements aren't strict enough if my car passed. People were complaining in the shop about how bad the exhaust smelled while the test was being run. Go figure.

[Fiero]

Doesn't surprise me. My Fiero passed once with no CAT/EGR on it. Somehow it passed visual inspection.

Auto pollution is actually usually trivial compared to the pollutents put out by power plants, factories, etc etc. In Florida, cars that didn't pass emissions back when they had them put out something to the range of 700 tons of pollutents a year state wide. Since then, in Hillsburough county alone, they have reduced pollution by 33,000 tons of a year working with only the power company (TECO).

There are some areas where smog from cars is bad, but in 90% of the country, its a nonissue and the real pollutent sources are elsewhere.

[Bobbeh]

The most dangerous chemicals are the ones you cant smell/taste ;)

[yakkosmurf]

I agree that auto pollution is just a small drop in the bucket. I was just wondering what cars are actually failing. So many people seemed so worried there cars aren't going to pass because of an intake or exhaust they added. I don't think 90% of the mods out there would do anything to keep you from passing (except gutting your CAT).

[J5ISALIVE]

ya alo of people don't realize cars are just a pin drop of what is destroying our o-zone...what i ahve heard is that the largest destroyer of it is in fact nature its self, volcanoes are destroying it...
i forget where i heard that....maybe its BS but thats what i heard.

[Fiero]

Truth be told, the greenhouse gas that causes the most heat to get trapped is Vaper H20, and not Carbon Monoxide.

Interestingly, most research that the dangerous CFCs that we took out of industry and our nice old fashioned ACs did not actually reach the Ozone layer.

Humanity IS affecting the enviornment in negative ways. Don't get me wrong. Whenever possible I try to make my impact on the planet as minimal as possible. However, knee jerk reaction to percieved and often untested ideas of were pollution comes from have caused tremendous harm both monitarily to the consumer and to the enviornment itself. What we need to do is find a balance and actually put solid research into issues before trying to "fix" them. Less we end up with another McDonalds Styrofoam disaster.