Seldom see "smoke belchers" anymore * Why not?

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?

 

Super heated catalyst converter burns up everything until it get clogged.

Coasty

 

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 Mitsushitty
engine) belching blue smoke.

nate

 

The catalytic converter helps burn the excess oil also. The other
reason is that many states now have emissions inspections that take
these smokers off the road.


Matt

 

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)

I figure that by God I pay the money to make sure my vehicles are clean,
everyone else on the road can do the same.

Ted

 

Smoke Nazi!! 8^)

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

 

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.

 

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.

Matt

 

Don't take up for them! They could buy a brand new car if they didn't blow
all their money on cigarettes and lottery tickets.

 

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.

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.

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.

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.

Ted

 

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.

 

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)

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.


If you email me, please let me know whether
or not you are posting the same letter.
If necessary, change domain to erols.com.

Directions are given as if you know nothing.
There's a big range here but I don't know who knows what.

 

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

 

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!

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?

You have no sympathy and you have no clue.

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.

 

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

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.


If you email me, please let me know whether
or not you are posting the same letter.
If necessary, change domain to erols.com.

Directions are given as if you know nothing.
There's a big range here but I don't know who knows what.

 

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

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.

 

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 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.

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