BEWARE - stolen cat!

[Laird Scooby]

Originally Posted by Bugjam1999

I don’t have a car with a valuable cat on it (the modern car is both old and small enough that the cat isn’t worth much, making it not worth the effort and my 240 is old enough to not have one) but if I had a 940 I’d seriously consider taking the original cat out of the system and replacing it either with a cheap replacement cat or just another silencer, with the original cat kept and refitted for the mot. I appreciate that it’s illegal to drive a car without a cat if one was fitted from new as well as immoral, going against the whole reasoning for having a cat there in the first place, but if the alternative is shelling out £500 or so every so often for a new cat, with the associated aggravation etc, then what choice do people have really?

Cheers

Hmmmm, that's a bit of a raw subject for me - i think the whole things about cats being fitted is another govt scam. Just like we were told diseasels would be better for our health and now it's proved (something i've known for 40+ years) that diseasels aren't good for our health, far from it in fact!

Consider the cat for a moment though. It restricts power output and causes a fuel consumption increase. These are generally regarded as being about 15% losses. To work properly, cats produce H2S - Hydrogen Sulphide gas which just happens to be poisonous and when mixed with water (aka rain) creates H2SO4 aka sulphuric acid.

My 760 V6 (no cat) went through the MoT recently with 0.6% CO and 80 ppmHC. That is only a smidge over the limit for cat-equipped cars of slightly newer origin. To me that proves we don't need cats, the car has done 230k miles and doesn't produce hydrogen sulphide gas to poison people.
My other beast has a cat but also has an exemption on the emissions because of being in the changeover period. The limit for that is 3.5% CO and 1200ppmHC, same as the Volvo. On a cat test, it's still allowed 0.5%CO and 1200ppm HC. Granted it usually passes the cat test but on occasions becauses the cat has been cold (older design of cat so takes a bit more work to get it working) it hasn't, by the time the machine has been set for the specific car and the other test, the cat is warm enough and it passes both tests.

If (when) i convert it to LPG, i'll remove the cat (which is legally permitted as part of the conversion) and enjoy the extra 23bhp and 15% fuel economy hike that i'll gain. Also cheap fuel!

Going back a few years i had my cat removable by undoing two clamps, largely because the original downpipe had failed so i used clamps and bits of tubing to make it gas-tight. THis led to the idea of bolting the cat in and out around MoT time - much better economy and power while it was out and i reckon that overall, because i was using less fuel, that more than covered the slight increase in emissions meaning i was actually polluting less.

That puts a different view on the morality of things and also on the morality of the EU and govt when they forced us into having cats back in the mid 80s. Also at this time none of the major European manufacturers could produce lean-burn engines that would not need a cat. On the other hand, in the UK Vauxhall, Ford, Rover, Honda all had engines that did not need a cat to produce emissions capable of passing a cat test.

As for the diseasel thing, just before the summer holidays i found a book that explained diesel fumes were carcinogenic and also caused respiratory problems in the school library while researching something else for my Technology project. After the summer holidays, i looked for the book again but it had disappeared so i asked the librarian who told me it had been withdrawn as it no longer fitted the curriculum. The only different thing i had found in that book from other similar books still present was the bit about diesel engines/fumes.

Since the mid/late 80s, breathing disorders (asthma, COPD and similar) have increased in occurrence as have cancer cases. I've known of many bus/lorry drivers who have died of lung cancer and never smoked in their lives but have lived their working hours in a diesel fume generator. It will never be proved because these days sadly, most scientists are paid to find certain things, if they don't find them they don't get paid and none of the politiians will ever pay a scientist to find a link between diesel fumes and poor health. Why? Because they know there would be a massive public outcry and many cases of people suing the govt for damages.

Put all that together and you see why i don't believe in cats to start with. Granted they're different to diesel but the whole thing has been a scam for the past half century or more. Nikola Tesla had found a way of getting free, renewable energy almost anywhere on the planet without the need for cables to be run. Many influential people poo-poo'd his ideas and the extra research wasn't done, the CIA confiscated all his notes when he died in his hotel room and what happened to those notes, nobody knows.

You can see why those notes on power generation would have been deliberately lost though, it would have put many big companies out of business.

[griston64]

I solved the problem by installing a removable cat

[tofufi]

Originally Posted by Laird Scooby

Hmmmm, that's a bit of a raw subject for me - i think the whole things about cats being fitted is another govt scam.

I struggle to know where to begin with this...

Originally Posted by Laird Scooby

To work properly, cats produce H2S - Hydrogen Sulphide gas which just happens to be poisonous and when mixed with water (aka rain) creates H2SO4 aka sulphuric acid.

My 760 V6 (no cat) went through the MoT recently with 0.6% CO and 80 ppmHC. That is only a smidge over the limit for cat-equipped cars of slightly newer origin. To me that proves we don't need cats, the car has done 230k miles and doesn't produce hydrogen sulphide gas to poison people.
My other beast has a cat but also has an exemption on the emissions because of being in the changeover period. The limit for that is 3.5% CO and 1200ppmHC, same as the Volvo. On a cat test, it's still allowed 0.5%CO and 1200ppm HC. Granted it usually passes the cat test but on occasions becauses the cat has been cold (older design of cat so takes a bit more work to get it working) it hasn't, by the time the machine has been set for the specific car and the other test, the cat is warm enough and it passes both tests.

If (when) i convert it to LPG, i'll remove the cat (which is legally permitted as part of the conversion) and enjoy the extra 23bhp and 15% fuel economy hike that i'll gain. Also cheap fuel!

Actually, three-way cats are used to reduce NOx. Handily, your figures don't show the NOx figures for your cars as this isn't assessed at MOT time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cataly...rter#Three-way

Formation of Hydrogen Sulfide is an unwanted reaction for which there are treatments (Nickel or Manganese washcoats on the cat).

Originally Posted by Laird Scooby

If (when) i convert it to LPG, i'll remove the cat (which is legally permitted as part of the conversion) and enjoy the extra 23bhp and 15% fuel economy hike that i'll gain. Also cheap fuel!

Strange, LPG conversions are normally reckoned to lose up to 10% power. Is that figured into your calculation?

Originally Posted by Laird Scooby

That puts a different view on the morality of things and also on the morality of the EU and govt when they forced us into having cats back in the mid 80s. Also at this time none of the major European manufacturers could produce lean-burn engines that would not need a cat. On the other hand, in the UK Vauxhall, Ford, Rover, Honda all had engines that did not need a cat to produce emissions capable of passing a cat test.

Is that true?

70/220 as amended (bringing in Euro 1) does NOT specify a technology to meet the emissions requirements.
Nor do the current emissions legislation - which is why some early EU6 cars were able to avoid having AdBlue technology while others needed it.

Lean burn engines didn't work as they produce high NOx emissions - not because catalysts were mandated.

See the first answer here:

https://law.stackexchange.com/questi...erters-in-cars

And more here:

https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/advice/e...ons-standards/

[tofufi]

Originally Posted by Laird Scooby

My 760 V6 (no cat) went through the MoT recently with 0.6% CO and 80 ppmHC. That is only a smidge over the limit for cat-equipped cars of slightly newer origin.

Just one more thing from me - surely this just proves what a joke the MOT emissions requirements in this country are?

My 740 diesel, with no pollution control device, will just about meet the requirements for a brand new Euro 6 diesel at MOT time. It won't even get close to meeting the [Euro 6, or probably even Euro 2] type approval requirements though

Does my 740 meeting the MOT requirements for a Euro 6 diesel mean it is clean, or that the requirements are totally unfit for purpose?

[Laird Scooby]

Originally Posted by tofufi

Actually, three-way cats are used to reduce NOx. Handily, your figures don't show the NOx figures for your cars as this isn't assessed at MOT time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cataly...rter#Three-way

Formation of Hydrogen Sulfide is an unwanted reaction for which there are treatments (Nickel or Manganese washcoats on the cat).



Strange, LPG conversions are normally reckoned to lose up to 10% power. Is that figured into your calculation?



Is that true?

70/220 as amended (bringing in Euro 1) does NOT specify a technology to meet the emissions requirements.
Nor do the current emissions legislation - which is why some early EU6 cars were able to avoid having AdBlue technology while others needed it.

Lean burn engines didn't work as they produce high NOx emissions - not because catalysts were mandated.

See the first answer here:

https://law.stackexchange.com/questi...erters-in-cars

And more here:

https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/advice/e...ons-standards/

Not just a case of reducing NOx Jim, also the engines i referred to in the early 80s had lower than expected NOx levels so could still have got away without a cat. The French and Germans couldn't come close to getting their engines to run within the new emissions limits due to come in 1/1/92 so three-way cats were mandated by the EU at the time.

On the car in question where i will be removing the cat when i fit the LPG, they respond very well to LPG and don't lose power - the engine management is sophisticated enough to recognise the higher octane of the LPG (typically 105 ish) and advnace the ignition timing to suit restoring the power lost from the lower calorific value of the LPG. Oddly on both the LPG fueled cars i've run, they were actually more economical on LPG than on petrol, Jeep went from 18mpg on petrol to 24mpg on LPG, my 827 Coupe went from 22-24mpg on petrol to 26-28mpg on LPG although fitting a genuine Rover cat bypass box could have helped - official figures from Rover quoted 192bhp with that fitted instead of 169bhp for the standard cat engine.

As for the "see the first answer here", that bears out everything i said in my post, thanks for that!

[Laird Scooby]

Originally Posted by tofufi

Just one more thing from me - surely this just proves what a joke the MOT emissions requirements in this country are?

My 740 diesel, with no pollution control device, will just about meet the requirements for a brand new Euro 6 diesel at MOT time. It won't even get close to meeting the [Euro 6, or probably even Euro 2] type approval requirements though

Does my 740 meeting the MOT requirements for a Euro 6 diesel mean it is clean, or that the requirements are totally unfit for purpose?

Probably the latter Jim, the requirements are no longer fit for purpose. I wonder in many cases if they ever were, you only have to look at the Appendix for the In Service Emissions Standards to see that :

https://assets.publishing.service.go...th-edition.pdf

I haven't checked on this edition but a previous one gave the B200F (and maybe the B230F, can't remember now) an exemption as it wouldn't meet the cat test (original emissions standards) when new. Many other cars dropped into this category too.

If your 740 meets Euro 6 standards during the MoT then it's once more proof that a well looked after engine, despite the age can be just as efficient as a new engine. What we really need is more education for motorists, people switching their engines (and headlamps! That's another discussion as well as being illegal) off when parked, proper servicing routines maintained and so on. Too many people never even think cars need servicing and they just keep going then get a nasty shock at MoT time when it fails on multiple things.

[john.wigley]

Originally Posted by griston64

I solved the problem by installing a removable cat

The purrfect solution, 'griston64'. J.

[tofufi]

Originally Posted by Laird Scooby

If your 740 meets Euro 6 standards during the MoT then it's once more proof that a well looked after engine, despite the age can be just as efficient as a new engine.

No, it isn't proof of that at all.

My 740 diesel is neither as efficient overall, nor as clean as a Euro 6 diesel.

The emissions test requirements are a joke.

[tofufi]

Originally Posted by Laird Scooby

As for the "see the first answer here", that bears out everything i said in my post, thanks for that!

This one?

There is no EU law that requires vehicles to have a permanently active catalytic converter installed. There are various "clean air" regulations such as Regulation 715/2007/EC which covers the emissions standards vehicles must meet before they can be approved for sale within the EU. As long as the standards are met, the law is not particularly concerned with how those standards are met (excluding obvious cheating mechanisms, etc.)

Additionally, Directive 2014/45/EU covers vehicle roadworthiness and mandates regular emissions testing as part of it. All vehicles must meet the standards of the test to be considered roadworthy. In the UK, this is performed as part of the annual MOT test.

It appears that catalytic converters are simply one of the easiest ways to meet those standards, and it is probably cheaper/more efficient for manufacturers to install a permanently active catalytic converter (which can be applied across multiple markets) rather than implementing software or alternative solutions which may or may not meet regulations in all the markets the vehicle is sold in.

I'd say it makes it pretty clear that cats were NOT mandated by Euro 1

[Forrest]

Originally Posted by Laird Scooby

There are a few "occupational hazards" to being a cat thief, the most obvious being the jack collapses/car falls off the jack while the scrote is underneath

I have occasionally thought that if one were unfortunate enough to fall victim to this type of crime this might be the most satisfactory outcome. It could also afford the opportunity for a conversation with the perpetrator about life choices while waiting for the police to respond to your email.