Speaking of the EPA.

I took my truck across the street to my neighbor who is a
mechanic and has a lift in his garage to fix my exhaust. Any
way he happens to tell me how his friend works at a Chevy
dealer, and the newer cars and trucks are using these direct
injection engines like a diesel, well since it bypasses the intake
valves, there seeing alot of problems with carbon build up in the intake, and
engine problems., as my friend said its hard to explain to a
customer they need to come in and have the engine cleaned,
not just something you can pour in the tank, and as he said,
using these chemicals and blowing them out the exhaust is
just as harmful or more so . He was also saying something
about these new timing chain engines that are variable
position or something, they rely on oil pressure to change, but
as he said if you go past the oil change time is causes
problems too, as the oil viscosity breaks down. Seems like the
EPA is just chasing its tail, like the cfl lights, now they find out
the gas inside them is bad. It goes on and on! Lol

Federales will be federales.

Dean

My newest vehicle is a "92 Suburban. I"m so thankful that the old 350 doesn"t have all of the high tech gadgets and sensors and direct this and variable that require a rocket scientist to figure out. I feel that the EPA has done a lot of good in the USA because I can remember how nasty dirty this country was getting before the EPA. But what they"ve done to the auto industry is awful. All this high tech stuff just to squeeze out a tiny bit more fuel mileage.

One can only imagine the mileage that automobiles could achieve with today's technology were it not for the federales.

Dean

My brother had a 1981 Ford Escort that he got around 40-45mpg with. The last Escorts I saw, new ones, were getting around 35-38mpg....and they brag now days about getting 30-35mpg. Technology is nice but it is going to do some things in yet....as is the EPA.

Think of what the fuel mileage and engine longevity could be if it weren't for the technology the EPA mandates for "cleaning up" the exhaust.

Face it the smarter people think they are getting the dumber the things they do. I have a 1992 Toyota Corolla that get 40 Plus MPG but if they keep it up you will not be able to drive it because it is a clunker that they want to buy from you and blow it up since it works to well

He was probably talking about variable timing.I don't know what its all about but has someting to do with the valves.I have a Chevy Impala LT with a 3.9 V6 and it has variable timing. It performs just about as good as a V8 and is great on gas (31 mpg on open highway).

I heard Europe gets like 50 miles to the gallon cause they don't have all these standards.

Europe gets 50 miles to the gallon for TWO reasons:

1) Price of gas is aroung $10 per gallon last I heard. Not sure of how high it really is, but it costs a LOT more in Europe than in the USA.

2) Because of the high price of gas, most drive smaller cars with 2 and 3 cylinder engines. Also, larger engines are heavily taxed in Europe.

Now, if you want to drive a golf cart with a Kohler Command V-twin powering it, with few if any comfort items, you also can get 50 miles to the gallon.
BUT...forget about the power equipment like power steering, power brakes, power mirrors, power door locks, power sliding doors, etc. And while you are at it, forget the air conditioner as well.

I think the EU has as strict pollution standard as US, maybe more so. They do use smaller vehicles with smaller engines, mostly diesel, and manual transmissions. Everyplace I was in EU the air seemed cleaner than the comparable US cities.

OK, to start with Lee Iacocca was ask after the big jump in economy in the 80's why the car industry couldn't do that again. Lee told them that the average car on the road at that time was 700 to 1500 pounds lighter and fuel injection. He said the only way at the time to increase that is to get rid of more weight. Now in steps the National Highway Safety Council mandating crash beams in doors and air bags adding weight back onto cars. Add in the fact that American drivers wanted a little more HP under the hood. Now you know why we don't have 50 MPG cars.

Today cars and trucks with Automatics have lock up torque converters. That's where the slippage is in a auto. So once up to speed the auto will turn the same RPM's as a gear tranny and get the same mileage. That slippage in the torque converter was also the cause of most of the heat that killed the tranny back in the good old days at about 120,000 miles. Because of better tranny coolers and the lock up plus better fluid it's common for an auto tranny to get around 200K miles or more if properly maintained and not abused.


Dave in VA, yea I remember how it was and it wasn't good.

T in NE: The good old carb engines with leaded gas generally got about 120K miles before it needed at least a set of rings. Todays engines from most manufactures are going out to the 200K mark in a large part because to meet EPA standards fuel injection became a must and when they went away from leaded gas engines got hardened seats for the valves.

When I left Germany for the last time in 93 gas was about 5 bucks a gallon at the current prices and the standard currency exchange, but gas in the US was about 1.20 a gallon. And yes Germany was taxing cars based on engine size plus value. That's why a lot of European cars had engine sizes that seamed goofy. Like 1986 CC instead of 2 liter. 2000 CC was in a higher tax bracket and the smaller size would allow one rebuild before hitting the next tax level. And yes German machine shops had to report any work done to an engine so the government could keep track.

Rick

Much of Europe is also much more urban than the USA. They have extensive public transportation that isn't available many places in the USA except in inner cities and the costs are fairly low. Why spend a lot on a car if you don't need one?

(quoted from post at 21:55:31 02/26/14) Much of Europe is also much more urban than the USA. They have extensive public transportation that isn't available many places in the USA except in inner cities and the costs are fairly low. Why spend a lot on a car if you don't need one?

Click to expand...

True, you can travel most places in Europe via mass transit. But a lot of people own cars and use them instead. Mass transit like that would be very hard to make work in the US just because of the size of our country. Heck Amtrak can't even break even and they don't stop in every town like the European systems do.

Rick

It is still nasty and dirty, you should have seen the thick layer of brown smog looking south towards Denver just before dark tonight. They haven't cleaned anything up yet.

The problem with fuel economy and low emmissions is you can't have your cake and eat it too. Fuel economy requires a very hot burn and an efficient chamber to extract every ounce of power. Lower emmissions requires cooling the burn in the chamber, lowering economy. Direct injection has helped reverse that, but as stated has its draw backs, biggest being the intake valves are no longer washed by incoming fuel.

The biggest problem with technology is the cost to repair. People just flat can't afford to fix them. I spent 11 years at GM dealers, but had to leave and open my own shop. GM and the dealers wanted us to work for free. I refused to get paid less today for the same job I did yesterday. When people could not afford the repair, they would cut a deal out of my paycheck so they could keep their profit the same.

(quoted from post at 23:41:48 02/26/14) It is still nasty and dirty, you should have seen the thick layer of brown smog looking south towards Denver just before dark tonight. They haven't cleaned anything up yet.

Click to expand...

Actually what they are not tell you is factories are the big problem today, not vehicles. And the federal and state governments are not going to force them to clean up because many small places can't afford it. So it's let em pollute or maybe loose millions of jobs. There is group out there that claims that about 80% of air pollution in CA is caused by industry.

Rick

hard to buy a car today without alot of goodies too. like auto (yeah their more effient but are heavier), AC, power locks and windows, ect ect. al of the electronic stuff takes power too. it all ads up and reduces fuel econ.
-as others mentioned, crash test ratings have added weight too.
-we had an 85 escort. 2 door 4spd manual, no air, no power steering, no power brakes, no windows/locks. nothing. and got 40 mph on the freeway. of course at 86000 miles the head gaskets went and that was it.

Yep. Americans think 100 years is a long time. Europeans think 100 miles is a long distance.

It's 700 miles across Montana if you stay on the interstates from Idaho to North Dakota. Genoa, Italy, to Amsterdam, Netherlands, is 755. Mobile Alabama to Detroit (shortest from the Gulf of Mexico to Canada) is 981.

Amsterdam to the point of the bootheel of Italy is 1,360 miles. Seattle to Valley City, ND is 1365. Then you've got another 2857 to get to New York City.