If you listen to the EPA nothing past 2007.5 where the OEM equipment is altered in anyway. If you ask your state authorities who conducts the state inspection for your vehicle, it is different in each state!
California tries to regulate the rest of the country with their CARB regulations but only a few states recognize those standards. Agriculture used to be big business in CA, well since the state is almost bankrupt not many businesses are staying in that state. Why? Because of the harsh regulations and taxes, most manufacturing have moved to tax friendly states with fewer regulations on production.
The recent effort by the EPA to strangle the diesel performance business comes from many sources including some in our own industry. The EPA is like any government agency, they justify their existence by finding problems to fix, when there are not any they pass new regulations to make sure there are problems.
Everyone knows the issue with the new diesel trucks with their DPFs. Creative American ingenuity stepped in to fix what they messed up, now those trucks get twice the MPG. Those improvements led to performance which is America's love of power and their vehicle.
Performance parts for your vehicle goes back before our time and yes they were all developed by outside businesses and individuals, not by OEM manufacturers. The gas market is flooded with performance parts that are not EPA approved for the street, walk through SEMA or upcoming PRI show. The aisles are full of them, all correctly marked and sold for the racing industry only!
Do a lot of them end up on street licensed vehicles? You better believe it, that is what they make their living on just like the diesel performance parts. Why do they not get noticed? Because you can't tell the difference in the operation of the vehicle as it goes down the street. Diesels with more power smoke and our enthusiasts went the extra mile by making them smoke more!
If the diesel trucks performed normally with out smoke it would be real hard to notice the changes under the hood. Most states do not even have emission checks during inspection and some do not even have inspection on vehicles newer than 3-5 years old.
So why the big attack on our rights to add performance parts to our personal vehicles?
$$$$$Money, it always comes back to that answer. Big three automakers do not want you to change their vehicles, they want the maintenance to come to them not local businesses. The government does not want you to change their emission designed vehicle (job existence) plus they get more tax revenue with more fillups from the pumps.
The years of individuals altering their vehicles so they run faster, outperform and make noise goes way beyond our crowd of enthusiasts. The gasser crowd has been doing it for many years. Most dealers I talk to admit that once they sell their vehicle the individual customer can do what they want with their purchase since they own it.
Is it legal? Most likely not, but when has that stopped our automotive enthusiasts? We diesel enthusiasts just needed to be smarter about it, we got sloppy! I can't tell you how many times I advised a company to name their performance kit something else besides DPF delete kit and mark it for racing only. Very few listened and made it apparent as to what they were doing. We need to learn from the gasser performance manufacturers, they know how to sell legally their performance parts.
What's legal? Depends on which party you talk to because there are a lot of grey areas . . . and remember, it doesn't have to make sense it's just the law.
California tries to regulate the rest of the country with their CARB regulations but only a few states recognize those standards. Agriculture used to be big business in CA, well since the state is almost bankrupt not many businesses are staying in that state. Why? Because of the harsh regulations and taxes, most manufacturing have moved to tax friendly states with fewer regulations on production.
The recent effort by the EPA to strangle the diesel performance business comes from many sources including some in our own industry. The EPA is like any government agency, they justify their existence by finding problems to fix, when there are not any they pass new regulations to make sure there are problems.
Everyone knows the issue with the new diesel trucks with their DPFs. Creative American ingenuity stepped in to fix what they messed up, now those trucks get twice the MPG. Those improvements led to performance which is America's love of power and their vehicle.
Performance parts for your vehicle goes back before our time and yes they were all developed by outside businesses and individuals, not by OEM manufacturers. The gas market is flooded with performance parts that are not EPA approved for the street, walk through SEMA or upcoming PRI show. The aisles are full of them, all correctly marked and sold for the racing industry only!
Do a lot of them end up on street licensed vehicles? You better believe it, that is what they make their living on just like the diesel performance parts. Why do they not get noticed? Because you can't tell the difference in the operation of the vehicle as it goes down the street. Diesels with more power smoke and our enthusiasts went the extra mile by making them smoke more!
If the diesel trucks performed normally with out smoke it would be real hard to notice the changes under the hood. Most states do not even have emission checks during inspection and some do not even have inspection on vehicles newer than 3-5 years old.
So why the big attack on our rights to add performance parts to our personal vehicles?
$$$$$Money, it always comes back to that answer. Big three automakers do not want you to change their vehicles, they want the maintenance to come to them not local businesses. The government does not want you to change their emission designed vehicle (job existence) plus they get more tax revenue with more fillups from the pumps.
The years of individuals altering their vehicles so they run faster, outperform and make noise goes way beyond our crowd of enthusiasts. The gasser crowd has been doing it for many years. Most dealers I talk to admit that once they sell their vehicle the individual customer can do what they want with their purchase since they own it.
Is it legal? Most likely not, but when has that stopped our automotive enthusiasts? We diesel enthusiasts just needed to be smarter about it, we got sloppy! I can't tell you how many times I advised a company to name their performance kit something else besides DPF delete kit and mark it for racing only. Very few listened and made it apparent as to what they were doing. We need to learn from the gasser performance manufacturers, they know how to sell legally their performance parts.
What's legal? Depends on which party you talk to because there are a lot of grey areas . . . and remember, it doesn't have to make sense it's just the law.
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