Government stupidity

[Blue Shift]

Fastback86 - You know, the thought did cross my mind, and I considered limiting my statement to cases, if any, where few American workers benefit. But I think you're right - few "imports" are really imported at all anymore in this day and age. *If* it helps American workers, I'm more for it.

That said, I still can see no reason at all to destroy the engines. What's done is done, thankfully. When a C4C car is removed from the road, that vehicle will never run again under it's own power. If they plasma torched key structural chassis points (hopefully nothing saleable), or yanked out the VIN and blacklisted it, making it impossible to register, then so be it. Why fuck the junkyards and the guys who can't go buy a new car? I heard that the engine can be ~60% of the profit for a JY. Once the chassis/VIN is made impossible to register and return to the road, the total number of that type of car has then been permanently reduced by one.

C4C engines would be in better than typical shape, and their abundance would allow and encourage people to change out a worn, or fatally damaged engine for a fresher one on the cheap. Replacing clapped out engines would reduce pollution by a proportionally large degree. Destroying a supply of good engines is ineffective at pushing extra people into throwing down at the dealer, since it only makes it harder, but not impossible to source a replacement anyway.

And, on a final note, wasn't luring people into loans for new houses and cars they shouldn't have undertaken one of the main causes of the economic crash, anyways?

[Fastback86]

Fastback86 - You know, the thought did cross my mind, and I considered limiting my statement to cases, if any, where few American workers benefit. But I think you're right - few "imports" are really imported at all anymore in this day and age. *If* it helps American workers, I'm more for it.

That said, I still can see no reason at all to destroy the engines. What's done is done, thankfully. When a C4C car is removed from the road, that vehicle will never run again under it's own power. If they plasma torched key structural chassis points (hopefully nothing saleable), or yanked out the VIN and blacklisted it, making it impossible to register, then so be it. Why fuck the junkyards and the guys who can't go buy a new car? I heard that the engine can be ~60% of the profit for a JY. Once the chassis/VIN is made impossible to register and return to the road, the total number of that type of car has then been permanently reduced by one.

C4C engines would be in better than typical shape, and their abundance would allow and encourage people to change out a worn, or fatally damaged engine for a fresher one on the cheap. Replacing clapped out engines would reduce pollution by a proportionally large degree. Destroying a supply of good engines is ineffective at pushing extra people into throwing down at the dealer, since it only makes it harder, but not impossible to source a replacement anyway.

And, on a final note, wasn't luring people into loans for new houses and cars they shouldn't have undertaken one of the main causes of the economic crash, anyways?

Perhaps, but the requirement of C4C was that the vehicle be running. I suppose that's a marginally better engine than one that isn't running at all, but it's no crate motor. My point is, what good is replacing one high-mileage, 15-year-old engine with another one? Will it pollute less? Probably a little, but a brand new engine will pollute WAY less. Even if the replacement engine was running in tip-top shape, it would still be miles behind a brand new engine in efficiency and cleanliness. A Bently engineer went on the record with Motor Trend to say that the 6 3/4-liter V-8 they've been using for the past 50 some-odd years has been so refined that today it could run on the unburnt gas in the exhaust from an original 6 3/4-liter engine.

The point of C4C was to take inefficient, polluting vehicles off the road. So yes, if that old '93 Explorer goes off to the junkyard, it is off the road and will never pollute again. But the vehicle as a whole is not the source of the problem, it's the engine in the vehicle. If somebody pulls that engine out and puts it in another Explorer or something else, that source of pollution is right back on the road again. Now, instead of getting 2 clapped-out beaters off the road, we only get 1 off. Which is the greater net benefit? C4C was not designed to benefit junkyards or shade tree mechanics. That was never in the bill. It was always designed to get as many polluters off the road as possible and stimulate as many NEW vehicle sales as possible. Putting those engines back on the road completely negates 50% of the stated goal of the bill.

I realize people don't like C4C and I'm not even a huge fan of it myself, but I never thought I'd be arguing with someone over whether or not the government should be LESS efficient.

[The Dark Side of Will]

When a C4C car is removed from the road, that vehicle will never run again under it's own power. If they plasma torched key structural chassis points (hopefully nothing saleable), or yanked out the VIN and blacklisted it, making it impossible to register, then so be it.

VA, and I assume other states as well, have a "non-repairable" title that can be issued to a car when it goes to a junkyard. This makes it impossible to legally re-title the vehicle for road use. That would have been more than sufficient.

Now, instead of getting 2 clapped-out beaters off the road, we only get 1 off. Which is the greater net benefit? C4C was not designed to benefit junkyards or shade tree mechanics. That was never in the bill. It was always designed to get as many polluters off the road as possible and stimulate as many NEW vehicle sales as possible. Putting those engines back on the road completely negates 50% of the stated goal of the bill.

Your accounting's off. I'm not sure where you think that second "clapped out beater" is coming from. If you have two cars on the road, and one gets traded in on C4C, the other's still on the road. If the other needs an engine at a later date, C4C had nothing to do with taking that car off the road... that's just simple attrition. Now if the owner of that car can't afford a new car, C4C does him absolutely no good. The owner's going to replace the engine because that's a lot cheaper than a new car. He could do that engine cheap with a C4C take out, or he can do it at a higher price, but his car's staying on the road because he needs it to get to work, buy groceries for his family, etc.

As a pollution control mechanism, C4C was idiotic. The carbon footprint of a new car (manufacturing must be included) is huge compared to the carbon footprint of continued operation of a used car.

Stimulating new vehicle sales is just another bailout for the auto industry. The two goals, while not mutually exclusive, are not parallel.

[CincinnatiFiero]

The irony there is the Dealers Association begged them to stop it in the end.

[Fastback86]

When a C4C car is removed from the road, that vehicle will never run again under it's own power. If they plasma torched key structural chassis points (hopefully nothing saleable), or yanked out the VIN and blacklisted it, making it impossible to register, then so be it.

VA, and I assume other states as well, have a "non-repairable" title that can be issued to a car when it goes to a junkyard. This makes it impossible to legally re-title the vehicle for road use. That would have been more than sufficient.

Now, instead of getting 2 clapped-out beaters off the road, we only get 1 off. Which is the greater net benefit? C4C was not designed to benefit junkyards or shade tree mechanics. That was never in the bill. It was always designed to get as many polluters off the road as possible and stimulate as many NEW vehicle sales as possible. Putting those engines back on the road completely negates 50% of the stated goal of the bill.

Your accounting's off. I'm not sure where you think that second "clapped out beater" is coming from. If you have two cars on the road, and one gets traded in on C4C, the other's still on the road. If the other needs an engine at a later date, C4C had nothing to do with taking that car off the road... that's just simple attrition. Now if the owner of that car can't afford a new car, C4C does him absolutely no good. The owner's going to replace the engine because that's a lot cheaper than a new car. He could do that engine cheap with a C4C take out, or he can do it at a higher price, but his car's staying on the road because he needs it to get to work, buy groceries for his family, etc.

As a pollution control mechanism, C4C was idiotic. The carbon footprint of a new car (manufacturing must be included) is huge compared to the carbon footprint of continued operation of a used car.

Stimulating new vehicle sales is just another bailout for the auto industry. The two goals, while not mutually exclusive, are not parallel.

The assumption was that if the C4C car's engine was not destroyed, it would be reused. In that case, instead of two dead cars (one from C4C and the other from whatever cause you like), there's only one dead car - the C4C car - because the other's been put back on the road. If your goal is to reduce pollution, you have no choice but to destroy the engine. If it goes right back out again in another car, what have you accomplished with that multi-thousand dollar incentive? I don't disagree that C4C was minimally effective as a pollution control measure, but that was how they sold it to the greenies - it was a stated objective and a convenient way to get people on board with what was essentially a second bailout, as you note. All I'm saying is that to get the desired result (public support for the bill), they had to make a compromise, and that was putting the engines out of commission. Why would someone who bought the green angle go for it if the polluting engine they hate so much was going right back into another vehicle?

[The Dark Side of Will]

The assumption was that if the C4C car's engine was not destroyed, it would be reused. In that case, instead of two dead cars (one from C4C and the other from whatever cause you like), there's only one dead car - the C4C car - because the other's been put back on the road.

The faulty assumption is not that the engine would be reused, but that the 2nd dead car would stay off the road because it can't get a C4C engine. That's absurd. There are plenty of engines in junkyards and plenty of people who depend on a single car to get them to work. The C4C engines would just keep prices down and make life easier for those guys who are going to reuse old engines anyway.

Why would someone who bought the green angle go for it if the polluting engine they hate so much was going right back into another vehicle?

Because they didn't stop for ten seconds to think that they're F@#$%ing around in a market they don't understand and that their ideology doesn't work in the real world... but such is the way of zealots.

Another assumption I've been letting you get away with is that an older engine is by definition a worn out polluter that leaves an oil smokescreen behind it. This isn't the case either. For practical purposes, since the introduction of EFI, engines don't wear out. EFI eliminates fuel wash of cylinder bores on cold start. This is the source of most of the wear on old carbeuretted engines and just doesn't happen on EFI engines. Most of the problems that cause cars to not pass emissions tests are related to emissions equipment (EGR valves, catalysts, AIR pumps, etc) that fails. Replace the equipment and de-carbon the engine with a good sea-foaming and it'll burn almost as clean as new... which really isn't much dirtier than modern cars.

The beat-down death trap that leaves a cloud of blue smoke at every stoplight is much more the exception than the rule. You may see one of those every day, but think about all the other cars you saw that did NOT leave trails of oil smoke.

[Fastback86]

The assumption was that if the C4C car's engine was not destroyed, it would be reused. In that case, instead of two dead cars (one from C4C and the other from whatever cause you like), there's only one dead car - the C4C car - because the other's been put back on the road.

The faulty assumption is not that the engine would be reused, but that the 2nd dead car would stay off the road because it can't get a C4C engine. That's absurd. There are plenty of engines in junkyards and plenty of people who depend on a single car to get them to work. The C4C engines would just keep prices down and make life easier for those guys who are going to reuse old engines anyway.

Why would someone who bought the green angle go for it if the polluting engine they hate so much was going right back into another vehicle?

Because they didn't stop for ten seconds to think that they're F@#$%ing around in a market they don't understand and that their ideology doesn't work in the real world... but such is the way of zealots.

Another assumption I've been letting you get away with is that an older engine is by definition a worn out polluter that leaves an oil smokescreen behind it. This isn't the case either. For practical purposes, since the introduction of EFI, engines don't wear out. EFI eliminates fuel wash of cylinder bores on cold start. This is the source of most of the wear on old carbeuretted engines and just doesn't happen on EFI engines. Most of the problems that cause cars to not pass emissions tests are related to emissions equipment (EGR valves, catalysts, AIR pumps, etc) that fails. Replace the equipment and de-carbon the engine with a good sea-foaming and it'll burn almost as clean as new... which really isn't much dirtier than modern cars.

The beat-down death trap that leaves a cloud of blue smoke at every stoplight is much more the exception than the rule. You may see one of those every day, but think about all the other cars you saw that did NOT leave trails of oil smoke.

1) Wasn't that the entire POINT of this thread? I'm pretty sure this whole debate started over people complaining that they couldn't get good junkyard engines anymore because of C4C. If my assumption is faulty and it's based on that original assumption, then the original assumption must be faulty as well.

2) You're misconstruing my characterization of older engines. I never said that and older engine is, by definition, worn-out and unclean. I said that compared to modern engines, one made in the '90s (or 80s, or earlier) is a joke. I know I don't need to explain to you the enormous advancements in engine management and efficiency in the past decade alone. In 1996, the 160-hp 3.4L V-6 in my car was considered average, even reasonable. A 200-hp V-6 for the Firebird was a Motor Trend cover story in 1998. If an automaker built a 3.4L V-6 today that made only 160 hp, they'd be laughed out of business. The new V-6 Camaro makes nearly twice that. Hell, naturally-aspirated four-bangers make more than that today. In terms of power, fuel-efficiency and cleanliness, engines old and inefficient enough to qualify for C4C can't hold a candle to a modern engine. If I'm Joe Greenlover deciding whether or not to support this bill, would I want to see a dirtier, less-efficient, 10- or 20-year-old engine back on the road, or a new one that burns cleaner and uses less fuel? It's an easy call.

[Atilla the Fun]

Fastback86 - You know, the thought did cross my mind, and I considered limiting my statement to cases, if any, where few American workers benefit. But I think you're right - few "imports" are really imported at all anymore in this day and age. *If* it helps American workers, I'm more for it.

That said, I still can see no reason at all to destroy the engines. What's done is done, thankfully. When a C4C car is removed from the road, that vehicle will never run again under it's own power. If they plasma torched key structural chassis points (hopefully nothing saleable), or yanked out the VIN and blacklisted it, making it impossible to register, then so be it. Why fuck the junkyards and the guys who can't go buy a new car? I heard that the engine can be ~60% of the profit for a JY. Once the chassis/VIN is made impossible to register and return to the road, the total number of that type of car has then been permanently reduced by one.

C4C engines would be in better than typical shape, and their abundance would allow and encourage people to change out a worn, or fatally damaged engine for a fresher one on the cheap. Replacing clapped out engines would reduce pollution by a proportionally large degree. Destroying a supply of good engines is ineffective at pushing extra people into throwing down at the dealer, since it only makes it harder, but not impossible to source a replacement anyway.

And, on a final note, wasn't luring people into loans for new houses and cars they shouldn't have undertaken one of the main causes of the economic crash, anyways?

Perhaps, but the requirement of C4C was that the vehicle be running. I suppose that's a marginally better engine than one that isn't running at all, but it's no crate motor. My point is, what good is replacing one high-mileage, 15-year-old engine with another one? Will it pollute less? Probably a little, but a brand new engine will pollute WAY less. Even if the replacement engine was running in tip-top shape, it would still be miles behind a brand new engine in efficiency and cleanliness. A Bently engineer went on the record with Motor Trend to say that the 6 3/4-liter V-8 they've been using for the past 50 some-odd years has been so refined that today it could run on the unburnt gas in the exhaust from an original 6 3/4-liter engine.

The point of C4C was to take inefficient, polluting vehicles off the road. So yes, if that old '93 Explorer goes off to the junkyard, it is off the road and will never pollute again. But the vehicle as a whole is not the source of the problem, it's the engine in the vehicle. If somebody pulls that engine out and puts it in another Explorer or something else, that source of pollution is right back on the road again. Now, instead of getting 2 clapped-out beaters off the road, we only get 1 off. Which is the greater net benefit? C4C was not designed to benefit junkyards or shade tree mechanics. That was never in the bill. It was always designed to get as many polluters off the road as possible and stimulate as many NEW vehicle sales as possible. Putting those engines back on the road completely negates 50% of the stated goal of the bill.

I realize people don't like C4C and I'm not even a huge fan of it myself, but I never thought I'd be arguing with someone over whether or not the government should be LESS efficient.

This is a great example. Some modest percentage of '93 Explorers were built with the 5.0L V8, and using the GT40P heads, which are proven to run cleaner than the E7TE heads they replaced. If a guy is running around with any stock pre-'93 5.0L Mustang, then swapping this GT40P-headed Explorer engine in will reduce emissions. Lucky for us, at least the heads are salvageable. BTW, these heads also add a few HP. It is all about efficiency. The Gov. ain't gonna get enthusiasts to part with their beloved 5.0L Mustangs, so may as well permit them to make the car run cleaner for cheap.

[The Dark Side of Will]

1) Wasn't that the entire POINT of this thread? I'm pretty sure this whole debate started over people complaining that they couldn't get good junkyard engines anymore because of C4C. If my assumption is faulty and it's based on that original assumption, then the original assumption must be faulty as well.

2) You're misconstruing my characterization of older engines. I never said that and older engine is, by definition, worn-out and unclean. I said that compared to modern engines, one made in the '90s (or 80s, or earlier) is a joke. I know I don't need to explain to you the enormous advancements in engine management and efficiency in the past decade alone. In 1996, the 160-hp 3.4L V-6 in my car was considered average, even reasonable. A 200-hp V-6 for the Firebird was a Motor Trend cover story in 1998. If an automaker built a 3.4L V-6 today that made only 160 hp, they'd be laughed out of business. The new V-6 Camaro makes nearly twice that. Hell, naturally-aspirated four-bangers make more than that today. In terms of power, fuel-efficiency and cleanliness, engines old and inefficient enough to qualify for C4C can't hold a candle to a modern engine. If I'm Joe Greenlover deciding whether or not to support this bill, would I want to see a dirtier, less-efficient, 10- or 20-year-old engine back on the road, or a new one that burns cleaner and uses less fuel? It's an easy call.

Yeah, the point is that it was stupid and wasteful to destroy those engines. You're saying "It makes sense if you stick you head far enough up your ass" and I'm saying "yeah, but your head's still up your ass".

Think about emissions for a minute... pollutants are measured in PPM and grams/mile. An older engine with lower specific output can be just as clean in terms of PPM as a newer engine with a much higher output. Grams per vehicle mile follow suit... if the engine's passing less air, it's burning less fuel and making less pollution. The technology doesn't come from reducing emissions... it comes from keeping them low as engine output increases.

[Atilla the Fun]

When a C4C car is removed from the road, that vehicle will never run again under it's own power. If they plasma torched key structural chassis points (hopefully nothing saleable), or yanked out the VIN and blacklisted it, making it impossible to register, then so be it.

VA, and I assume other states as well, have a "non-repairable" title that can be issued to a car when it goes to a junkyard. This makes it impossible to legally re-title the vehicle for road use. That would have been more than sufficient.

Now, instead of getting 2 clapped-out beaters off the road, we only get 1 off. Which is the greater net benefit? C4C was not designed to benefit junkyards or shade tree mechanics. That was never in the bill. It was always designed to get as many polluters off the road as possible and stimulate as many NEW vehicle sales as possible. Putting those engines back on the road completely negates 50% of the stated goal of the bill.

Your accounting's off. I'm not sure where you think that second "clapped out beater" is coming from. If you have two cars on the road, and one gets traded in on C4C, the other's still on the road. If the other needs an engine at a later date, C4C had nothing to do with taking that car off the road... that's just simple attrition. Now if the owner of that car can't afford a new car, C4C does him absolutely no good. The owner's going to replace the engine because that's a lot cheaper than a new car. He could do that engine cheap with a C4C take out, or he can do it at a higher price, but his car's staying on the road because he needs it to get to work, buy groceries for his family, etc.

As a pollution control mechanism, C4C was idiotic. The carbon footprint of a new car (manufacturing must be included) is huge compared to the carbon footprint of continued operation of a used car.

Stimulating new vehicle sales is just another bailout for the auto industry. The two goals, while not mutually exclusive, are not parallel.

The assumption was that if the C4C car's engine was not destroyed, it would be reused. In that case, instead of two dead cars (one from C4C and the other from whatever cause you like), there's only one dead car - the C4C car - because the other's been put back on the road. If your goal is to reduce pollution, you have no choice but to destroy the engine. If it goes right back out again in another car, what have you accomplished with that multi-thousand dollar incentive? I don't disagree that C4C was minimally effective as a pollution control measure, but that was how they sold it to the greenies - it was a stated objective and a convenient way to get people on board with what was essentially a second bailout, as you note. All I'm saying is that to get the desired result (public support for the bill), they had to make a compromise, and that was putting the engines out of commission. Why would someone who bought the green angle go for it if the polluting engine they hate so much was going right back into another vehicle?

Again you miss. Try it this way: If Joe Fastback86 Smith has a Fiero and a Caddy Northstar, and turns the Caddy in under C4C, then he's got a new car and a polluting old Fiero. If the Fiero's engine cracks the block (the 2.5s do this) then Joe Fastback86 Smith isn't gonna let the Fiero go get crushed. He's gonna remember how much he loved his Northstar, and go get a used one for his Fiero. So now the Fiero is polluting less, because the Northstar runs far cleaner than the old 2.5 did. The net result is better than if the Fiero was taken off the road, because in the lighter Fiero the Northstar will get better mileage than it did in the Caddy. This is even better than if the Caddy was kept on the road and the Fiero crushed.

[Fastback86]

Fastback86 - You know, the thought did cross my mind, and I considered limiting my statement to cases, if any, where few American workers benefit. But I think you're right - few "imports" are really imported at all anymore in this day and age. *If* it helps American workers, I'm more for it.

That said, I still can see no reason at all to destroy the engines. What's done is done, thankfully. When a C4C car is removed from the road, that vehicle will never run again under it's own power. If they plasma torched key structural chassis points (hopefully nothing saleable), or yanked out the VIN and blacklisted it, making it impossible to register, then so be it. Why fuck the junkyards and the guys who can't go buy a new car? I heard that the engine can be ~60% of the profit for a JY. Once the chassis/VIN is made impossible to register and return to the road, the total number of that type of car has then been permanently reduced by one.

C4C engines would be in better than typical shape, and their abundance would allow and encourage people to change out a worn, or fatally damaged engine for a fresher one on the cheap. Replacing clapped out engines would reduce pollution by a proportionally large degree. Destroying a supply of good engines is ineffective at pushing extra people into throwing down at the dealer, since it only makes it harder, but not impossible to source a replacement anyway.

And, on a final note, wasn't luring people into loans for new houses and cars they shouldn't have undertaken one of the main causes of the economic crash, anyways?

Perhaps, but the requirement of C4C was that the vehicle be running. I suppose that's a marginally better engine than one that isn't running at all, but it's no crate motor. My point is, what good is replacing one high-mileage, 15-year-old engine with another one? Will it pollute less? Probably a little, but a brand new engine will pollute WAY less. Even if the replacement engine was running in tip-top shape, it would still be miles behind a brand new engine in efficiency and cleanliness. A Bently engineer went on the record with Motor Trend to say that the 6 3/4-liter V-8 they've been using for the past 50 some-odd years has been so refined that today it could run on the unburnt gas in the exhaust from an original 6 3/4-liter engine.

The point of C4C was to take inefficient, polluting vehicles off the road. So yes, if that old '93 Explorer goes off to the junkyard, it is off the road and will never pollute again. But the vehicle as a whole is not the source of the problem, it's the engine in the vehicle. If somebody pulls that engine out and puts it in another Explorer or something else, that source of pollution is right back on the road again. Now, instead of getting 2 clapped-out beaters off the road, we only get 1 off. Which is the greater net benefit? C4C was not designed to benefit junkyards or shade tree mechanics. That was never in the bill. It was always designed to get as many polluters off the road as possible and stimulate as many NEW vehicle sales as possible. Putting those engines back on the road completely negates 50% of the stated goal of the bill.

I realize people don't like C4C and I'm not even a huge fan of it myself, but I never thought I'd be arguing with someone over whether or not the government should be LESS efficient.

This is a great example. Some modest percentage of '93 Explorers were built with the 5.0L V8, and using the GT40P heads, which are proven to run cleaner than the E7TE heads they replaced. If a guy is running around with any stock pre-'93 5.0L Mustang, then swapping this GT40P-headed Explorer engine in will reduce emissions. Lucky for us, at least the heads are salvageable. BTW, these heads also add a few HP. It is all about efficiency. The Gov. ain't gonna get enthusiasts to part with their beloved 5.0L Mustangs, so may as well permit them to make the car run cleaner for cheap.

I think we can agree, that's the exception, not the rule.

[Fastback86]

1) Wasn't that the entire POINT of this thread? I'm pretty sure this whole debate started over people complaining that they couldn't get good junkyard engines anymore because of C4C. If my assumption is faulty and it's based on that original assumption, then the original assumption must be faulty as well.

2) You're misconstruing my characterization of older engines. I never said that and older engine is, by definition, worn-out and unclean. I said that compared to modern engines, one made in the '90s (or 80s, or earlier) is a joke. I know I don't need to explain to you the enormous advancements in engine management and efficiency in the past decade alone. In 1996, the 160-hp 3.4L V-6 in my car was considered average, even reasonable. A 200-hp V-6 for the Firebird was a Motor Trend cover story in 1998. If an automaker built a 3.4L V-6 today that made only 160 hp, they'd be laughed out of business. The new V-6 Camaro makes nearly twice that. Hell, naturally-aspirated four-bangers make more than that today. In terms of power, fuel-efficiency and cleanliness, engines old and inefficient enough to qualify for C4C can't hold a candle to a modern engine. If I'm Joe Greenlover deciding whether or not to support this bill, would I want to see a dirtier, less-efficient, 10- or 20-year-old engine back on the road, or a new one that burns cleaner and uses less fuel? It's an easy call.

Yeah, the point is that it was stupid and wasteful to destroy those engines. You're saying "It makes sense if you stick you head far enough up your ass" and I'm saying "yeah, but your head's still up your ass".

Think about emissions for a minute... pollutants are measured in PPM and grams/mile. An older engine with lower specific output can be just as clean in terms of PPM as a newer engine with a much higher output. Grams per vehicle mile follow suit... if the engine's passing less air, it's burning less fuel and making less pollution. The technology doesn't come from reducing emissions... it comes from keeping them low as engine output increases.

Well I already said I'm no big fan of the bill, I'm just explaining why it's written the way it is. Devil's advocate, if you will. You don't tell a bunch of greenies that you're gonna take a bunch of old cars off the road, then put their engines right back on. Why would anyone support that? It doesn't make any sense. Whether it worked or not (and we agree it didn't), half the purpose of the bill was emissions control. With that as a primary objective (right after bailing out the auto industry), there is simply no way you can put the engines of the "clunked" vehicles back on the road. It completely negates the objective. Then engines had to go.

Besides, for every engine swap scenario where the net result in emissions might be a reduction, there's one where it might be an increase. Who swaps engines, anyway? Guys keeping a beater on the road and guys looking for cheap(er) performance. Either of those situations can end up with an engine that pollutes more just as easily as it could end up with an engine that pollutes less. None of this can be conclusively proved either way.

[Fastback86]

Again you miss. Try it this way: If Joe Fastback86 Smith has a Fiero and a Caddy Northstar, and turns the Caddy in under C4C, then he's got a new car and a polluting old Fiero. If the Fiero's engine cracks the block (the 2.5s do this) then Joe Fastback86 Smith isn't gonna let the Fiero go get crushed. He's gonna remember how much he loved his Northstar, and go get a used one for his Fiero. So now the Fiero is polluting less, because the Northstar runs far cleaner than the old 2.5 did. The net result is better than if the Fiero was taken off the road, because in the lighter Fiero the Northstar will get better mileage than it did in the Caddy. This is even better than if the Caddy was kept on the road and the Fiero crushed.

Your example assumes that this hypothetical person has the spare cash and know-how to pull off a N* swap. I'd say given the tech "advice" I see on Old Europe, that's not a likely scenario. It's more likely he'll throw in another 2.5 or 2.8. Anyway, it doesn't matter. Even in your scenario, the net result is better. The old Caddy is off the road and he has a cleaner, more-efficient new car and the Fiero's crappy old 4-banger is gone, replaced with a better Caddy engine. In fact, I'm really not even sure what you're getting at. In your scenario, it doesn't matter which car is crushed because Mr. Smith still ends up with a new car and a N* powered car.

[The Dark Side of Will]

Well I already said I'm no big fan of the bill, I'm just explaining why it's written the way it is. Devil's advocate, if you will. You don't tell a bunch of greenies that you're gonna take a bunch of old cars off the road, then put their engines right back on. Why would anyone support that?

The cars that need engines due to attrition are going to get new engines (or not) basically regardless of the status of C4C. I think that there would only be a small fraction of those cars which would be swing choices based on the price of a new engine.

Basically, it's wasteful and ignorant for someone to destroy something just because *they* don't see a use for it, and don't understand the circumstances of its use.

[Atilla the Fun]

Every time there are elections, all car guys everywhere need to send new letters to their new representatives. Letters that are first polite, second brief, third clear, fourth logical and factual, and fifth express our desires. Like an essay. In an eaasy, the first paragraph tells the reader what they're going to learn in the main body, then in the main body, you present what you will, then in the final paragraph, you summarize. And BTW, a paragraph can be as short as 2 sentences. Be sure it's easy to read, and doesn't upset the reader.

[Indy]

Yeah...I've got a '97 Explorer with plenty of miles on the clock. Can't afford another new car payment in addition to the wife's 07 Equinox, so if the engine or trans blows I'll just have to look for a new engine. The sad thing is that in our society, everything, even complex machinery with thousands of Joules of energy devoted to its production, is becoming disposable. Disposable and eco-friendly simply don't go together.

[Cheeze]

Wow, so many quotes to point out and refute. I'll just say ditto Dark Side and wtf to Fastback. The first time I heard about what was actually going on with C4C I was enraged. I could not believe someone would actually ruin running engines like that. Unbelievable. Here watch it in action. Don't tell me you think this is good http://freemarketmojo.wordpress.com/200 ... good-cars/
This program was such a colossal waste of both old cars and new money. I do not believe this program was intended AT ALL to reduce emissions although it made a good cover story. The point was to get Americans to spend money to somehow "stimulate" the economy through an apparent good deal. The illusion of credit and people who can't afford to fix their current car are better off buying a new one is a joke. Yes a lot of foreign cars are made and designed here but did you ever stop to think why that is? I think you have A LOT more reading to do. Start with GATT, NAFTA, WTO, foreign car company kickbacks through tax breaks and the lack of them for US companies.......the list goes on and on. If the point was to reduce emissions there are plenty of better ways of doing that then by destroying running cars and American's personal finances. Take the tire case for example. I was shocked to see gas stations in California with the sticker on the air pumps saying it was mandatory to supply free air and water. It's $0.75 here for enough time to barely fill four tires if you are quick and don't need much air. How many people want to do this? I've even said multiple times I'll just wait till I'm home to do it and then forget. How much is that polluting? Read here: http://www.nicholas.duke.edu/thegreengr ... kerswrapup
Or what about just not driving like an ass if you are concerned about emissions? http://www.suburbandollar.com/2009/08/1 ... -your-mpg/
Only two of the top ten highest purchased cars were from an American owned company. http://www.carlocate.com/Articles/Top-C ... aspx?id_22
And who is paying for all this rebate money? Where is it coming from? Where is it really going? This has been a terrible program for America and a terrible program for our "free market" which becomes more socialist everytime the government puts their hand it in. http://wizbangblog.com/content/2009/08/ ... conomy.php
http://www.americanissuesproject.org/bl ... onomy.aspx
It's wrong, even more so than destroying good engines and frustrating people like us. I could post you links all day with reasons and data as to why this one of the stupidest things to come out of Washington. If anyone wants info and proof for me to back up what I have said then please ask. I will be more than delighted to do some actual research beyond my opinions to make a case. Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to hop into my shitty pickup truck and do some snow donuts, maybe even top it off with a burnout if I see a Prius.

[Atilla the Fun]

When a C4C car is removed from the road, that vehicle will never run again under it's own power. If they plasma torched key structural chassis points (hopefully nothing saleable), or yanked out the VIN and blacklisted it, making it impossible to register, then so be it.

VA, and I assume other states as well, have a "non-repairable" title that can be issued to a car when it goes to a junkyard. This makes it impossible to legally re-title the vehicle for road use. That would have been more than sufficient.

Now, instead of getting 2 clapped-out beaters off the road, we only get 1 off. Which is the greater net benefit? C4C was not designed to benefit junkyards or shade tree mechanics. That was never in the bill. It was always designed to get as many polluters off the road as possible and stimulate as many NEW vehicle sales as possible. Putting those engines back on the road completely negates 50% of the stated goal of the bill.

Your accounting's off. I'm not sure where you think that second "clapped out beater" is coming from. If you have two cars on the road, and one gets traded in on C4C, the other's still on the road. If the other needs an engine at a later date, C4C had nothing to do with taking that car off the road... that's just simple attrition. Now if the owner of that car can't afford a new car, C4C does him absolutely no good. The owner's going to replace the engine because that's a lot cheaper than a new car. He could do that engine cheap with a C4C take out, or he can do it at a higher price, but his car's staying on the road because he needs it to get to work, buy groceries for his family, etc.

As a pollution control mechanism, C4C was idiotic. The carbon footprint of a new car (manufacturing must be included) is huge compared to the carbon footprint of continued operation of a used car.

Stimulating new vehicle sales is just another bailout for the auto industry. The two goals, while not mutually exclusive, are not parallel.

The assumption was that if the C4C car's engine was not destroyed, it would be reused. In that case, instead of two dead cars (one from C4C and the other from whatever cause you like), there's only one dead car - the C4C car - because the other's been put back on the road. If your goal is to reduce pollution, you have no choice but to destroy the engine. If it goes right back out again in another car, what have you accomplished with that multi-thousand dollar incentive? I don't disagree that C4C was minimally effective as a pollution control measure, but that was how they sold it to the greenies - it was a stated objective and a convenient way to get people on board with what was essentially a second bailout, as you note. All I'm saying is that to get the desired result (public support for the bill), they had to make a compromise, and that was putting the engines out of commission. Why would someone who bought the green angle go for it if the polluting engine they hate so much was going right back into another vehicle?

The first thing you asked here, no average-intelligent person could ask if they read the example I made using you. The rest of it, If they want to reduce pollution, they need to give big money for any car more than x number of years old, without requiring us to buy a new car. Lastly, most of these C4C engines are cleaner than the ones that Pick-N-Pull mavens pull them to replace. My local PNP did a survey, one week. Instead of charging the usual dollar admission, you had to fill out the survey if you wanted in. Better than 60% were updating or upgrading, and less than 40% were stock-replacing.

[Atilla the Fun]

Fastback86 - You know, the thought did cross my mind, and I considered limiting my statement to cases, if any, where few American workers benefit. But I think you're right - few "imports" are really imported at all anymore in this day and age. *If* it helps American workers, I'm more for it.

That said, I still can see no reason at all to destroy the engines. What's done is done, thankfully. When a C4C car is removed from the road, that vehicle will never run again under it's own power. If they plasma torched key structural chassis points (hopefully nothing saleable), or yanked out the VIN and blacklisted it, making it impossible to register, then so be it. Why fuck the junkyards and the guys who can't go buy a new car? I heard that the engine can be ~60% of the profit for a JY. Once the chassis/VIN is made impossible to register and return to the road, the total number of that type of car has then been permanently reduced by one.

C4C engines would be in better than typical shape, and their abundance would allow and encourage people to change out a worn, or fatally damaged engine for a fresher one on the cheap. Replacing clapped out engines would reduce pollution by a proportionally large degree. Destroying a supply of good engines is ineffective at pushing extra people into throwing down at the dealer, since it only makes it harder, but not impossible to source a replacement anyway.

And, on a final note, wasn't luring people into loans for new houses and cars they shouldn't have undertaken one of the main causes of the economic crash, anyways?

Perhaps, but the requirement of C4C was that the vehicle be running. I suppose that's a marginally better engine than one that isn't running at all, but it's no crate motor. My point is, what good is replacing one high-mileage, 15-year-old engine with another one? Will it pollute less? Probably a little, but a brand new engine will pollute WAY less. Even if the replacement engine was running in tip-top shape, it would still be miles behind a brand new engine in efficiency and cleanliness. A Bently engineer went on the record with Motor Trend to say that the 6 3/4-liter V-8 they've been using for the past 50 some-odd years has been so refined that today it could run on the unburnt gas in the exhaust from an original 6 3/4-liter engine.

The point of C4C was to take inefficient, polluting vehicles off the road. So yes, if that old '93 Explorer goes off to the junkyard, it is off the road and will never pollute again. But the vehicle as a whole is not the source of the problem, it's the engine in the vehicle. If somebody pulls that engine out and puts it in another Explorer or something else, that source of pollution is right back on the road again. Now, instead of getting 2 clapped-out beaters off the road, we only get 1 off. Which is the greater net benefit? C4C was not designed to benefit junkyards or shade tree mechanics. That was never in the bill. It was always designed to get as many polluters off the road as possible and stimulate as many NEW vehicle sales as possible. Putting those engines back on the road completely negates 50% of the stated goal of the bill.

I realize people don't like C4C and I'm not even a huge fan of it myself, but I never thought I'd be arguing with someone over whether or not the government should be LESS efficient.

Mentioning crate motors is a mistake. For crapanese cars, buying an imported low-mileage engine from Japan, which is popular, is Federally and California illegal. For american cars, 99% of crate engines available have cams in them that likewise aren't emissions-legal. There should be many laws against crate engines, and even more laws against off road cams, which is any cam that has any overlap at 0.050" lift. Yes, I hate crates partly because every crate engine installed locally is one less rebuild putting money in my pocket as an automotive machinist, but this field has been suffering since 9/11, when the free financing made it look cheaper to get a new car rather than fix the one you had. Anyway, crate engines are worse than used engines. With virtually any engine built in the last 15 years, the biggest thing affecting their emissions is the rotting of rubber valve seals, rubber smog-control hoses, and so on. Replace all the rubber, and any failed sensors, you're clean again.