Seldom see "smoke belchers" anymore * Why not?

"Nomen Nescio" > wrote in message
...
> Used to be oil pumpers could be spotted two blocks away, belching blue
> smoke. These day they are e x t r e m e l y rare indeed. Why?
>
> I know oil compounding has improved and so have oil and air filters. Even
> metallurgy may be better than in the "old days" of the '50s through '70s,
> but can all this account for cleaner exhausts? I almost left out law
> enforcement of pollution regs which may also have helped. Anything else
> or
> have I covered all bases?
>

Come visit Seattle.

I am always amazed that the vehicles we own pass with wide margins on
emissions parameters. Yet everyday, I seem to get behind some oil burning
stinky vehicle (not just diesel). It sort of burns me that I must pay $15
every two years to get emissions tested, yet I end up driving behind so many
'clunkers' that foul the air. Of course there is sort of a game in our area
to own a car and not have that vehicle licensed within the city or county,
in order to avoid taxes, fees, and other vehicle testing mandates.

In rec.autos.makers.chrysler on Sun, 14 Aug 2005 22:10:03 +0200 (CEST)
Nomen Nescio > posted:

>Used to be oil pumpers could be spotted two blocks away, belching blue
>smoke. These day they are e x t r e m e l y rare indeed. Why?
>
>I know oil compounding has improved and so have oil and air filters. Even
>metallurgy may be better than in the "old days" of the '50s through '70s,
>but can all this account for cleaner exhausts? I almost left out law
>enforcement of pollution regs which may also have helped. Anything else or
>have I covered all bases?

Not only does the catalytic converter burn a lot of the oil that would
otherwise pollute, but it means that when one is buying a used car, he
can't rely on the absence of exhaust smoke or oil in the tail pipe to
mean that the car isn't burning oil.


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Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:

> All the buses have bicycle racks, making
> it rediculously easy even for the lazy to ride a bike to the bus stop,
> take that to another stop close to their job, then ride to that job.

Wow, what a great idea. I wonder why they don't do that here.

Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
> "Matt Whiting" > wrote in message
> ...
>
>>Dennis wrote:
>>
>>>Good for you Ted. I wish my state had such a law.
>>>
>>>It's disgusting to see a car belching blue smoke and clogging up the air
>
> for
>
>>>the rest of us. Driving a car, as necessary in today's age as it is, is
>
> a
>
>>>privilege and not a right. If a person wants to operate a car on the
>
> road,
>
>>>he needs to keep it in a safe, clean, workable order; if not for his own
>>>concerns, then for the rest of us. If not, then get the damn junk off
>
> the
>
>>>road.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>Then there are people like me who when we see smoke belchers, we call it
>>>>in
>>>>to the telephone number that our state emissions program has set up for
>>>>this
>>>>purpose. (since in this state it's illegal to have visible smoke)
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>That's right. Get those poor folks off the road that can barely afford
>>a car at all, let alone a new one that burns no oil. Better to have
>>them sitting home on welfare than driving an old smoking car to work.
>>
>
>
> Well, perhaps they shouldn't be spending that welfare money on a
> home that is 10 miles away from their job, don't you think? Maybe if
> they moved within bicycling distance, and rode a bicycle every day,
> not only would it save them a lot of money they don't have, but it
> would give them some needed exercise and that might help them to
> feel better about themselves.

Depends on where you live and what you do for a living. I live in rural
northcentral PA and it simply isn't possible for everyone to live next
door to their job, especially folks who tend to have jobs that come and
go and may work on one town one year and another town the next. I grew
up this way and know whereof I speak. You city boys can say this, but
you haven't a clue what it is like outside the city. And most smoke
belchers I've seen are in rural, not urban, areas. Actually, I think if
you live within 20 miles of a city with a population of 50,000 or more,
it should be illegal to own a car! :-)


> The local government here extracts a noticeable percentage of my
> tax dollars to fund one of the
> largest and most extensive mass transit systems in any major city
> on the West Coast. Our bus and rail lines are as extensive as the
> NYC subway system and surrounding rail lines, factoring in the
> smaller area of course. All the buses have bicycle racks, making
> it rediculously easy even for the lazy to ride a bike to the bus stop,
> take that to another stop close to their job, then ride to that job.
> I could even do that myself, although admittedly I'm not in the
> shape to do it nowadays.


That's real nice. Where I live, the nearest subway system is a 5 hour
drive away. I think the nearest commuter rail is a similar distance.
There is some bus service in the larger towns, but the nearest of those
is 20 miles away. And we have winter here, real winters. We're not
like you folks that can ride a bike year round. Ever try to ride a bike
at -20F with a blowing snow?


> And in any case, it's not like I was born with a silver spoon either.
> I went through that period of time in my 20's that I was making so
> little money that I was lucky to have $20 a month left over after
> paying for rent and food, fortunately at the time I worked in a
> hotel that had an attached restaurant. Yet I managed to tough
> it out on the bus system when I couldn't afford gas, and I also
> learned to fix my own damn car. I have never, in fact, driven
> a vehicle for any period of time that failed emissions, I learned to
> repair them. So no, I really don't have a lot of sympathy for that
> line of argument.

You have no sympathy and you have no clue.


> Frankly, I really don't see that being poor is all that noble. Poor
> people are generally a drain on the economy and someone who is
> poor should have as the entire focus of their life, either learning
> how to live within what small means they have without depending
> on the rest of society paying their way, or they should be focused
> on bettering themselves so they can make more money and not
> being poor any longer. The only exceptions are the sick or the
> disabled, and the handful of people who have truly committed
> themselves to serving the greater good of society, such as the
> people who spend 16 hours a day, every day, volunteering in
> the soup kitchens, the people who go to Africa to help build
> water systems, etc. etc. etc. Motor vehicle ownership really
> does not help most of these exceptions, it is rather more baggage
> holding them down.

I never said it was noble, but for some people it is a reality and one
they can't easily escape. I'm lucky in that I was able to escape, being
the first person in several generations of my family to attend college.
And I paid my way through college myself. I now make a very
comfortable six figure salary and don't worry about money much at all,
however, I still live near where I grew up and I haven't become arrogant
like you and forgotten where I came from. I know people that simply
weren't blessed with a great intellect and simply can't do jobs much
above driving a truck or throwing lumber at a sawmill or throwing bails
on a farm.

Matt

An interesting point. However I don't believe that the catalytic converter
will continue to burn large amounts of excess oil for very long. While oil
will burn off in a catalytic converter, the result is that it burns off
leaving carbon deposits (the remainder of what cannot burn.) Eventually
these deposits will coat the core of the converter and, as the deposits
continue to accumulate, the pores in the catalyst will become restricted and
block exhaust flow through the exhaust system. The resulting increased
backpressure will result is a loss of power and overheated engine
components. Possible causes are "worn piston rings, faulty valve seals or
valve guides, blown head gasket or intake gaskets, or warped engine
components."

I would also imaging that burning oil would effect the secondary O2 sensor
as well either by becoming coated or setting a code because the converter is
no longer able to react with the byproducts and throw off the oxygen levels
through the converter.

> Not only does the catalytic converter burn a lot of the oil that would
> otherwise pollute, but it means that when one is buying a used car, he
> can't rely on the absence of exhaust smoke or oil in the tail pipe to
> mean that the car isn't burning oil.

In rec.autos.makers.chrysler on Tue, 16 Aug 2005 12:21:03 -0400
meirman > posted:

>
>Not only does the catalytic converter burn a lot of the oil that would
>otherwise pollute, but it means that when one is buying a used car, he
>can't rely on the absence of exhaust smoke or oil in the tail pipe to
>mean that the car isn't burning oil.

BTW, I;m just going by what a host on a radio show about cars said.
Not sure who, but it might have been Pat Goss. I'm sure CC's can
become overloaded and performance can drop eventually, depending on
how much oil it has to take care of, but he was saying that when
performance hasn't dropped yet, leaking oil through rings and valve
guides won't be disclosed by looking at the exhaust or the tail pipe.


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On Tue, 16 Aug 2005 23:52:20 GMT, "Dennis" > wrote:

>An interesting point. However I don't believe that the catalytic converter
>will continue to burn large amounts of excess oil for very long. While oil
>will burn off in a catalytic converter, the result is that it burns off
>leaving carbon deposits (the remainder of what cannot burn.) Eventually
>these deposits will coat the core of the converter and, as the deposits
>continue to accumulate, the pores in the catalyst will become restricted and
>block exhaust flow through the exhaust system. The resulting increased
>backpressure will result is a loss of power and overheated engine
>components. Possible causes are "worn piston rings, faulty valve seals or
>valve guides, blown head gasket or intake gaskets, or warped engine
>components."
>

At which time the vehicle ends up in the bone yard - without having
left a noticeable trail of smoke in it's wake.


>I would also imaging that burning oil would effect the secondary O2 sensor
>as well either by becoming coated or setting a code because the converter is
>no longer able to react with the byproducts and throw off the oxygen levels
>through the converter.
>
>> Not only does the catalytic converter burn a lot of the oil that would
>> otherwise pollute, but it means that when one is buying a used car, he
>> can't rely on the absence of exhaust smoke or oil in the tail pipe to
>> mean that the car isn't burning oil.

When buying a used car, either run it through the emissions test
before purchasing or make the deal conditional on it passing. Then you
know if it is an oil burner. Lots of REAL nice looking cars are ending
up in the scrap yards for the simple reason they don't pass the E-Test
and people are unwilling to gamble on what it is going to take to make
them pass.
>

"Matt Whiting" > wrote in message
...
> I never said it was noble, but for some people it is a reality and one
> they can't easily escape.

They can escape it if they want. Hundreds of years ago there were
many mass migrations to the cities to escape this sort of thing, you can
read up about them in your European history. And these were pesants
who still thought that the Earth was the center of the Universe.

> I'm lucky in that I was able to escape, being
> the first person in several generations of my family to attend college.
> And I paid my way through college myself. I now make a very
> comfortable six figure salary and don't worry about money much at all,
> however, I still live near where I grew up and I haven't become arrogant
> like you and forgotten where I came from.

I know a lot more of my own family history that goes back much further
than I think many people do and I know that you have just bought off
on another myth - the myth that poor white trash has always been
poor white trash, or poor black trash has always been poor black
trash, or some such.

You go back far enough in anyone's family history, no matter how
poor they are and your going to find ancestors of theirs who were
considered educated and well off in their day. And you keep going
back further and you will find poor ancestors, then rich, then poor,
then ordinary, you will find geniuses, morons, you name it.

> I know people that simply
> weren't blessed with a great intellect and simply can't do jobs much
> above driving a truck or throwing lumber at a sawmill or throwing bails
> on a farm.

These people are NO DIFFERENT than the VAST MAJORITY of
people in the United States or otherwise on the face of the Earth. Work
in retail in any city where you deal with large numbers of the general
public every day and you will understand this. The MAJORITY of
humans are NOT blessed with a great intellect. Why do you think
that ideas like scientific creationism still exist?

In fact one of the only reasons that the US leads the world in
innovation is that we happen to have a society that -doesen't get
that badly in the way- of the people in it that ARE blessed with a
great intellect. MOST cultures and societies that mankind has
invented have -deliberately- done as much as possible to smash
out any spark of genius or of intellect that any of their members
displayed. From the Jews ostracising members who question the
teaching of the rabbi's to the Chinese shooting students in
Tiannamen square, to modern day Arabs in certain countries
who stone women who ask the basic question of why should I
wear a burka when none of the men do, most societies do as much
as possible to get all of their members to not be able to do jobs
"much above driving a truck or throwing lumber at a sawmill" They
don't want intelligence since it's a political threat. In the US,
the founding fathers wisely setup a government that institutionalizes
idiotic and stupid bureaucrats, so as a result the government
isn't afraid of intelligent people since all the bureaucrats know
that intelligence isn't a requirement to get their job!

The only difference between your poor redneck farm hand who is
as dumb as a post, and the typical city councilmember of any
major city, is that the city councilmember owns a suit. But I would
bet you I could take any of the dumbest farmhands you could
find, stick them in a suit and plunk them down in any governmental
city councilmeeting, and nobody would notice the difference. In
fact, the farm hand might even be better off since he's already an
expert at handling bullcrap!

Ted

I live in Maryland but split my driving time about equally between MD,
VA and DC. I know that at least MD and VA have emissions testing but
it doesn't seem to be working. Yesterday's oil burner was a Toyota,
proving that neglect knows no boundaries

nate

General Schvantzkoph wrote:
> On Sun, 14 Aug 2005 18:20:46 -0400, Nate Nagel wrote:
>
> > Nomen Nescio wrote:
> >> Used to be oil pumpers could be spotted two blocks away, belching blue
> >> smoke. These day they are e x t r e m e l y rare indeed. Why?
> >>
> >> I know oil compounding has improved and so have oil and air filters. Even
> >> metallurgy may be better than in the "old days" of the '50s through '70s,
> >> but can all this account for cleaner exhausts? I almost left out law
> >> enforcement of pollution regs which may also have helped. Anything else or
> >> have I covered all bases?
> >>
> >
> > Surely you're kidding? Not a day goes by that I don't see some old
> > beater, usually a Chrysler product (I'm assuming with Mitsu****ty
> > engine) belching blue smoke.
> >
> > nate
>
> What state do you live in? I can't remember the last time I saw a car
> belching smoke but I live in Massachusetts which has had annual emission
> testing for over 20 years.

Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:

> ...In the US,
> the founding fathers wisely setup a government that institutionalizes
> idiotic and stupid bureaucrats, so as a result the government
> isn't afraid of intelligent people since all the bureaucrats know
> that intelligence isn't a requirement to get their job!

Wha..!? They consciously thought that out? It's so wise, I can't
follow the logic to the end of the sentence.

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with the letter 'x')