COBB Tuning Hit With $2.9 Million Fine Over Emissions Defeat Devices

Recently, the EPA and COBB Tuning have settled after the latter was sued for providing emissions control defeating equipment. As per the EPA’s settlement details document, COBB Tuning have since 2015 provided customers with the means to disable certain emission controls in cars, in addition to selling aftermarket exhaust pipes with insufficient catalytic systems. As part of the settlement, COBB Tuning will have to destroy any remaining device, delete any such features from its custom tuning software and otherwise take measures to fully comply with the Clean Air Act, in addition to paying a $2,914,000 civil fine.

The tuning of cars has come a long way from the 1960s when tweaking the carburetor air-fuel ratios was the way to get more power. These days cars not only have multiple layers of computers and sensor systems that constantly monitor and tweak the car’s systems, they also have a myriad of emission controls, ranging from permissible air-fuel ratios to catalytic converters. It’s little surprise that these systems can significantly impact the raw performance one might extract from a car’s engine, but if the exhaust of nitrogen-oxides and other pollutants is to be kept within legal limits, simply deleting these limits is not a permissible option.

COBB Tuning proclaimed that they weren’t aware of these issues, and that they never marketed these features as ’emission controls defeating’. They were however aware of issues regarding their products, which is why they announced ‘Project Green Speed’ in 2022, which supposedly would have brought COBB into compliance. Now it would seem that the EPA did find fault despite this, and COBB was forced to making adjustments.

Although perhaps not as egregious as modifying diesel trucks to ‘roll coal’, federal law has made it abundantly clear that if you really want to have fun tweaking and tuning your car without pesky environmental laws getting in the way, you could consider switching to electric drivetrains, even if they’re mind-numbingly easy to make performant compared to internal combustion engines.

109 thoughts on “COBB Tuning Hit With $2.9 Million Fine Over Emissions Defeat Devices

  1. Take one cruise liner out of commission and it would cut more emissions and toxic dumping than everything cobb tuning has ever sold, including the manufacturing emissions. Better yet, one ship of war. Lawsuits like this are a joke. Don’t get me started on the toxic garbage that comes from creating batteries for electric cars or the complete lack of infrastructure for ‘recycling’ them. This is simply a tax on the average person, and the continuation of the narrative that it is us as individuals that are the problem, and not mega corporations or the military industrial complex. Sure, the super low percentage of people tuning their personal vehicles single-handedly brought down our ecosystem and caused all the toxic pollutants resulting in the highest cancer rates ever. Don’t get me started on how this is an egregious over reach of power by the EPA.

    1. Well the recycling of the batteries is always going to lag – there is no point building huge refurbishing and recycling centres for giant lithium battery piles before the pile of said batteries really exists – no where near enough big lithium batteries have hit EOL to create a valuable ‘waste’ stream… Nor while the demand for new ones while high not high enough to make setting up a whole new infrastructure to recycle them economically viable.

      Warships do seem to be trending towards nuclear power and much cleaner more refined fuels more often than they used to now, and most maritime nations have cut the numbers they run hugely in the last few decades. Probably in most cases cut them a bit too far, as distasteful as the concept of having to use them is until some magic turns every nation into peace and love hippies that accept anybody else’s rights to do their own thing in their own backyard…

      Also rules are rules in this case for a good reasons – just because the number of folks using their products are small doesn’t mean I want the local boy racer brigade dumping crap in the air right next to me in the middle of a city with poor airflow to help distribute the crap… So while I do agree going after a small tuning company isn’t going to change the world the rules are there to reduce the toxic crap in the air and have to apply to everyone.

      Also while regulations that affect international shipping fuel/emissions are usually slow they have been forced to clean up a great deal as well in recent times. So yes much more could and should be done across the board, but the regulators catching up with emission cheat devices (even if that wasn’t the whole purpose it is the effect) is just another part of that.

      1. no where near enough big lithium batteries have hit EOL to create a valuable ‘waste’ stream

        Yes they have. Don’t forget lithium batteries have been in common use since the 90’s.

        It’s just that lithium recycling is more expensive and more energy intensive than making new batteries out of raw ores, so the process doesn’t make sense in neither economic nor environmental sense and the batteries are instead made inert and dumped into landfills. If the process made sense, the recycling would have come about years ago.

        1. There’s certain practical issues, like how do you break down and grind the cells without setting them on fire and burning down your facility? One solution is to dump liquid nitrogen on them and grinding them frozen in an inert atmosphere. Hugely expensive and difficult.

          Or, you chuck them in a big waste incinerator, diluted in a larger stream of garbage to prevent runaway reactions, and then you get a mix of ash to sift through for the valuable metals – which is again difficult and hugely expensive.

        2. The existing stream of Lithium batteries are rather tiny cells that tend to end up in landfill anyway – a giant car or house battery is actually going to be recoverable in bulk when they are reaching EOL and each one provides huge quantity of materials. Laptop, phone, etc batteries are all very different to each other, so may well required thousands of dedicated tools to extract ’em safely and they don’t naturally gather in easy to harvest piles either – its just not going to be a dense enough source to be worth the effort…

      2. the only ships warships powered by a nuclear reactor are aircraft carriers and big submarines with the russian Petr Veliky class being the only exception (heavy missile cruiser) and even it is hybrid (pure nuke up to 20kts, then the gas turbines have to help)

        you are unlikely to see any different new class of nuke powered warship in your lifetime

        1. I did say Nuclear and cleaner fuels – not just nuclear. Though what ships are already laid down and already built may have no bearing on what the fleets will look like in even 20 years time… And I’d certainly hope quite reasonably that I’ve got double that left…

          What ships of the next few decades will be like really depends on the shape of the world – if it continues to look like the world will be getting less stable and thus more defence spending is going to be happening, perhaps cold-war research race style, then…

          I’d not put it past the bulk of the high tech developed naval nations to finally go back to coil/rail gun research in a big way as the cost of missiles to shoot down all the pretty cheap drone swarms is insane, even if they are relatively light and cheap air-air from the carriers fighters. Or to go in for even more powerful EW suites, and there is the laser option too, probably all of the above, but they all have on thing in common a huge hunger for electricity.

          And if that is the case we may be about to see almost every ship go nuclear to have sufficient electrical capacity to run this stuff, and keep running it for the length of a deployment, with only the coast patrol type shallow water ships staying small and conventional. Obviously that outcome isn’t in anyway certain no matter what the shape of the world is, the point being only that if as looks likely the world is going to be ramping up and staying up on weapons development for a while the building the same ship class that is only a tiny step up from the old ones for 10+ years and keeping them all in service for a few decades isn’t going to be the norm.

          1. you can have plenty of electrical power with conventional fuels, you just have to account for that need during the design phase, not after the ship has entered service…
            A naval reactor is quite the money pit, which is why only the capital ships run them. These use 90+% enriched fuel unlike civilian power plants (<20%) and that stuff makes gold look worthless.

          2. you can have plenty of electrical power with conventional fuels

            Sure, but can you have that much electrical power for the months you may be at sea in a danger zone?

            Needing these things at least in the ‘instant on’ level of standby and quite possibly actively in use day in day out dealing with swarms of low cost relatively low tech drones… I’d say still technically possible, but the bunkerage required would start getting insane – though as the coil/rail guns, EW and laser etc of the future are still very unknown quantity still it may not be as bad as I’m suspecting.

            However when you consider how long the missile boats taking drones down to keep the shipping lanes open really last on station before the ammo is gone today, and then extrapolate to preparing for a real fight with a nation that can produce and field vastly more of them rather than a relatively small bunch of folks only able to be a threat at all because they are sponsored by another larger but still relatively minor nation… You are going to really need huge amounts of power generation, and sustained power generation – which does start to make nuclear look more likely. I really hope the second coming of a cold war doesn’t really happen and stick around for half a century again, so there isn’t that big push to find better ways to kill each other and defence budgets to match – it is so wasteful, at least if you can convince nobody to play that game… But it does look to be a very plausible future right now.

    2. Many things can be wrong at the same time, don’t you know?

      Why do people always turn to “WELL, ACKCHUALLY someone else is doing a bad thing, so another bad thing should be excused”?

      1. I think it is more of a, “out of all the things they could be trying to solve, this is the best use of their time?” sort of scenario. They probably spent more time litigating and investigating than the actual number applied to the fine.

      2. It’s called the worse problems fallacy.

        The corollary to that is the “no problem too small” fallacy, that leads to banning candles on birthday cakes because burning them gives off soot particles – as if that was an actual problem instead of just technically bad. Disproportionate reactions.

        1. For instance, as emissions regulations get tighter, fine particulate emissions aren’t following along. Why? Because engines aren’t the only source. The question then becomes, does it even make any sense to aim for zero emissions for engines when you can’t physically make zero emission cars in the first place?

          https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/14/3/1000

          “As the amount of fine dust emitted by engine combustion has greatly reduced, there has been increasing interest in fine dust generated by non-exhaust sources. In the road pollutant sector, as announced by the German Environment Agency, the relative contribution of non-exhaust emission fine dust will account for 93% of PM10 and 74% of PM2.5 by 2030”

          1. And in case you jump to the conclusion that banning cars is the solution for zero emissions, let me remind you that going outside and kicking dust on the ground releases particles that contribute to silicosis of the lungs, asthma, etc.

            The point is, at what point do you call it not a problem anymore? Every action you take has some adverse consequences and costs, outweighed by its benefits. Blindly aiming for something like zero emissions for cars is throwing the baby out with the bath water.

      3. “Why do people always turn to ‘WELL, ACKCHUALLY someone else is doing a bad thing, so another bad thing should be excused?'”

        I don’t view @it’s-our-fault’s comment that way. I think this is a matter of absurdly selective and disproportionate enforcement. The same bureaucracy that will get bent out of shape over a comparative handful of hot-rodders “polluting” the air, seemingly has no problem with this:

        https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2094033/Illegal-immigrants-leave-trash-deserts-border-cross-US.html

        In the latter case, the Feds have not only turned a blind eye, they’ve actually fostered and encouraged this environmental damage–on a massive scale. I live in a border state and have witnessed this sort of thing with my own eyes…even on my own land. I’m told by people I trust that there are migration trails within driving distance where the disposable diaper, clothing, and empty plastic bottle accumulation is 18-inches deep. This damage includes miles of trails inside of “protected” national forests.

        By the way, while I’m mandated to emission test my own vehicles every year, there are thousands of cars on the road around here, bearing plates from south of the border, to which none of the “emission control” (let alone safety) requirements apply.

        People are growing fed up with “rules for me, but not for thee.” As far as the EPA is concerned, they are what every modern government agency/bureaucracy seems to be–founded on sound ideas and good intentions, but having since degenerated into money-grubbing monsters whose only real mission now is to self-perpetuate and accumulate more regulatory power.

        1. The EPA was founded to bypass the constitutional limits of power on the federal government. Since it isn’t the government but a “special organization”, it’s not bound by the rules that apply to the state and it’s not democratically chosen or governed, so of course it becomes self-serving.

          One might argue that it wasn’t founded on good intentions, but on exactly the attitude of “rules for thee, not for me”, where certain people and political groups find themselves above the rule of law and the ideals of a republic because they have a “better idea” and the founding principles that were designed to prevent arbitrary and tyrannical rule are getting in the way.

  2. And just remember, the only reason the EPA gets away with any of this rent-seeking is that they go after the manufacturers. If they were forced to actually enforce the laws they create from whole cloth on an individual level, they’d get disbanded faster than you can say “nitrous.” Just imagine if every car sale broke out “additional costs incurred due to government regulation” on an itemized basis…

    1. If they were forced to actually enforce the laws they create…

      They don’t create laws, they develop and enforce rules and regulations that others (e.g. States) enforce. You see this in the form of things like annual emissions compliance checks that states mandate before you can register your vehicle.

      The EPA will take legal action but it’s usually against large polluters or enablers, not individuals. The EPA employs 15,000 people which is around 300 people per state. Most of those employees are regulators or civil engineers working on environmental remediation (e.g. clean up).

      It would not be feasible or realistic given their staff or budget to go after individuals circumventing emissions controls in their vehicles.

      1. That’s crazy, right. Their budget is over $600,000 per employee and all they can do is sit around and write rules and do a few checks here and there… Government efficiency at its best.

        1. Most of the EPAs budget goes towards remediating Superfund Sites. Many sites were contaminated by companies that no longer exist or mysteriously go bankrupt when found liable for cleanup. The sites still need to be cleaned up.

          In southern Georgia there’s numerous sites like the Camilla Wood Preserving Company which had literal trenches filled with creosote that they would soak logs in. When it would rain those trenches overflowed and contaminated the entire town’s soil. The EPA had to remediate by digging up the first couple feet of soil for an entire town, replace it, and then sequester the containment soil.

          In Chattanooga a forge would give spent casting sand to the town for infill. This casting sand contained all sorts of toxic heavy metals. Again the EPA had to come in and dig up acres of soil and then haul it off to be sequestered.

          These projects take years and there are anywhere from a few dozen to hundreds per state.

          1. The largest toxic waste and polluted place in the US is Picher, Oklahoma and it is also the largest EPA superfund site.

            The story about the area and those who lived there more or less starts with the Trail of Tears and the forced settlement of native Americans, and ends with a town so toxic it’s unlivable. The first part is something that is glossed over in almost every reporting or documentary about the place.

          2. Most of the EPAs budget goes towards remediating Superfund Sites

            The EPA’s 2023 budget was about $10.1 Billion dollars. $744.5 Million was used for the Superfund program that year. That’s a significant amount, but a far cry from “most”.

      2. They don’t create laws, they develop and enforce rules and regulations that others (e.g. States) enforce.

        That’s the joke bruh. These are effectively laws, being created by executive agencies instead of congress. But they know which side their bread is buttered on, so they target the point of sale. They COULD make a ‘regulation’ that said ‘no car shall be operated that emits…’ – and even include the manufacturing year to smooth impact. That would actually make using these emissions-defeating devices illegal, which is theoretically what we care about, since they don’t pollute until they are used. But then people might start to notice….

  3. What I don’t get is why they weren’t marketing them as track-only devices. The exceptions for racing vehicles are so nonexistent that you can burn printed EPA regulations for a steam engine if you want. The vehicle just becomes illegal to drive on the street afterwards.

    1. According to the EPA modifying a road legal car to be track only does not make it exempt. You can build a track car from scratch, but if you start with something that was emissions compliant it technically must remain compliant.

      1. That’s what the EPA says, yes. That’s very clearly not what the Clean Air Act says though. The law says you cannot modify/disable/remove emissions equipment on an engine not on a vehicle; but the EPA pretends the terms are interchangeable when it suits them and different when that interpretation is to their advantage. The EPA has stretched that bit of language far beyond what Congress ever authorized and a lawsuit with real money behind it would end those shenanigans.

  4. There are countless people who have been deleting these systems by themselves for decades. With a little research and help from our friends in eastern europe or china, deleting any emissions system is quite doable by a hobby level mechanic. And what choice do people have? When you are barely getting by paying your bills, and your emissions system fails with a repair cost averaging between $3,000 and $8,000 depending on the vehicle type, but a delete will cost you only $800, what do you do? There is only one choice if you want to keep a roof over your head and keep making it to your job every day.

    I completely disagree with rechargeable vehicles being the “solution” to “tweaking” our cars – We have private jets, rocket launches, mass plastic being dumped in the ocean as the real pollution concerns – While citizens driving LEV’s and ULEV’s which are so clean you can practically breathe the emissions out the tailpipe being told that they are the problem. It’s all a big lie designed to make the corporations and investment firms who own the “green” companies and solutions earn more and more money at the citizen’s expense.
    Furthermore, rechargeable cars are horribly toxic and dangerous.
    2 days ago, not far from my house, a tesla collided head on with a small SUV. Speeds were low; Both vehicle cabins were fully intact, only front end damage. However, the tesla instantly went thermal and the tesla driver died screaming in fire as he wasn’t able to get out of the vehicle fast enough. Worse yet, both passengers in the SUV where overwhelmed by the toxic smoke coming out of the tesla and were overwhelmed, they both died as well.
    Rechargeable cars are NOT a solution for anything but destruction and chaos, and hopefully we can soon completely gut the EPA’s authority to do anything at all thanks to the chevron deference ruling.

    Until all child slave labor is removed from the rechargeable car supply chain (and by now you should all know that the rechargeable car fully depends on child slave labor even at the current prices which are unafforable by anyone but the rich), no one should be doing anything but shaming them.

      1. The closest story I was able to find is this: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/out-of-control-tesla-explodes-after-crashing-into-apartment-building-killing-2/ar-AA1qFOfC . If Walrus’ story – which differs significantly from the link I just provided – is true, then there are two recent EV horror stories.

        Not that the case regarding EV dangers hasn’t been convincing for quite a while now. A quick YouTube search for “EV explosion” turns up more results than you likely want to see. Add to that the fact that an EV involved in even a minor accident is potentially a time bomb which may explode hours or days after the crash, and I’m really not looking forward to EVs being ubiquitous. Unless the batteries become a lot safer – but I’m not sure that’s even possible, never mind practical, in the context of the existing technology.

      2. I am in Ypsilanti MI simply google “M-14 tesla crash” the rest of the information and pictures is on the local facebook groups from people who were stuck on M-14 while commuting that morning. It is so horrible, these poor people.

        1. You’re embellishing a few things and filling in gaps on others. Seeing as how the Tesla got crumpled all the way up to the a-pillar and even kinked the a-pillar this was anything, but low speed. There is also no information from officials to suggest how the drivers of the SUV died. I’m arm-chairing here, but looking at the damage to their windshield I’m guessing both occupants were not using their restraints. I think it’s premature or a reach to say they died of smoke inhalation.

          It is, regardless, a terrible situation for the Tesla driver and I won’t disagree that the difficulty to extinguish a battery fire directly contributed to their death.

          1. There are comments on a few of the facebook groups that I don’t even want to read again. Some of the news articles have already established, as a result of this information, that at least some of the occupants were still alive after the crash. Yes, the combined speed was likely close to 100mph, well within survivable head on collision speeds for vehicles this size, happens all the time. The fact is that the cabin of both vehicles are intact with minimal pillar damage; Both vehicles have excellent supplemental restraint systems; The rechargeable car immediately ignited and burned for 4 hours before they could put it out and extract the bodies. It’s just a terrible terrible situation and I feel sorrow for those people and their families.

          2. @Walrus

            To imply a head on at around 100mph closing speed is survivable in that way is just flat out wrong, that sort of collision can be survivable, might even be 9 in 10 times. But collisions with that much energy that the frame is clearly bent even if its minor around the passenger compartment is a crash that will have folks getting burned alive sometimes. At least assuming they were wearing the seatbelts and the airbags work properly rather than lethally so they actually lived long enough to burn.

            As when the occupants are going to be at best dazed, maybe even out for a while and the doors probably don’t open, the engine, cat etc are really hot and the place is now covered in combustible fuel (hopefully for their chances Diesel not a more volatile Petrol) it is going to happen from time to time.

            Its horrible when it happens, and maybe in such a collision an EV is more likely to burn, or to become a large fire faster. But there have been plenty of high speed crashes with EV where nothing more than a crumpled beer can effect is the result – not seen enough data to really have a feel for if they are in any way worse on that score. But even if they are you are talking about the kind of collision I’d hope driving and car maintenance standards are high enough a person will only get caught up in the aftermath a few times in their entire lives and you’d have to win the shit happens lottery or be actively seeking a Darwin award for it to happen to you directly.

            Also child labour and crappy practices isn’t exclusive to any one product, and these days almost no product is really free of it. And the ones that can actually prove they are will generally be really premium products with the price tag to match… Heck even fruit and veg could be picked by effective slave labourers, and you have no way to know unless you are picking it yourself or can audit it all the way from the growhouse…

          3. @Foldi
            This is probably the last time I will look at this comment thread because it is so darn long, but your observations are just not correct.

            The structural damage to these vehicles is minimal and are not much more severe than the 40mph offset crash tests. Meanwhile, every day people survive crashes that are just twisted wreckage – I don’t have the statistics, but the last time I checked, there were more survivors from these twisted wrecks than deaths; It really defies logic, but given the number of accidents per year we are very fortunate to have fatalities be so much lower than the quantity of these wrecks and that is testament to just how effective supplemental restraint systems and modern engineering are at saving us.

            Someone elsewhere pointed out that the damage to these vehicles appears to be close to the 40mph offset test because both of these vehicles had Autmated Emergency Braking. So, both vehicles applied the brakes, and if the vehicle were approaching a stopped car, would likely have prevented any damage at all. However, they were heading directly towards each other, and therefore were only able to shed some portion of their speed (let’s assume 50-70%). So this is why the structural damage was not severe. It is confirmed that the tesla driver was alive when the car went thermal, and given the minimal cabin damage, compared to other accidents, could very likely have survived if he wasn’t driving an IED on wheels. The nissan’s cabin damage was extremely minimal and survivable for the occupants, especially such young people who always seem to fare much better in accidents than elderly people.

            Maybe there will be some final report released explaining more details but I won’t be surprised if the nissan occupants died from toxic fume/smoke exposure, that thing was burning like white phosphorous for many hours. Reminds me to avoid rechargeable cars on the road at all costs, they are a disaster waiting to happen.

          4. Walrus just because people can survive sometimes doesn’t mean they ALWAYS will, with car wrecks plenty of relatively minor looking ones will be fatal, and some astonishingly bad ones can be survived. The outcome often depends on how quickly good help arrives, and just how lucky you get – as even a relatively tiny collision can be enough split a fuel tank and produce a spark, and if your that unlucky and too dazed or unable to open your slightly deformed door fast enough you are screwed…

            Take Richard Hammond in that Rimac electric sports car thing, goes off the edge of a very steep hill perhaps better described as cliff like at high speed and survived just fine, yet that same sort of accident in similar events has proved fatal…
            Or all those very well documented Tesla ‘self driving’ that smash themselves into concrete etc at high speed – rarely anything more than a crumpled mess of metal is the result.

            One event is meaningless statistically, somebody does win the Lottery even though its astonishingly unlikely from time to time, you just happened to notice this ‘winner’.
            And in this case that person certainly can be driving any powertrain at all, as there is plenty of evidence of such with every other form of vehicle. From the data available the most biased against the EV thing you can actually say that is maybe, and only maybe factually accurate is they increase the probably of you being burned alive by a tiny amount.

    1. What are you talking about? What emissions system is failing that costs that much and the car won’t work? Every car I’ve ever driven with an emissions system that could fail would just throw an error code and keep on going. They don’t even go into limp mode.
      Someone just “barely getting by” is not driving a new car with a fancy emissions system, and is just gonna ignore the engine code.
      COBB is not cheap gear, it’s for people with money to burn. They knew what people were using it for, and continued to do what they were doing. Nobody was “just trying to make it to work each day”.

      1. In a lot of states if your car doesn’t pass emissions, it wont pass inspection and you’re not allowed to drive it anymore. That could be what they are referring to when they say the car won’t work, its more like, the car won’t be usable. Plus, often a lot of features get disabled when emissions checks fail: For example, my Toyota 4Runner disables the ABS, traction control, and stability control if the emissions fail, for.. some reason.

        1. If it fails emissions you have to repair the vehicle, it’s usually something simple like an 02 sensor. There is however a repair cost threshold at which point you can get a waiver; in Georgia it is $979, California it’s $650, Texas is $600, and Virginia is $850.

          Emissions Checks aren’t binary checks performed by the vehicle and they certainly don’t disable vehicle systems. Modern cars have sensors that report values like O2 and NO levels. An Emissions Check is a technician reading these raw values from the car using the Onboard Diagnostic port and then comparing the values to the limits defined by regulation.

          Everything you’ve said is false.

          1. Peter, you are patently incorrect for cars made after the early to mid 2000’s. Please read up on Tier IV emissions systems, then look at what the Tier IV cars are doing when one of the plethora of sensors, actuators, catalysts, etc are not happy.
            Then look at one of these repair cost aggregator sites to see what the common problems are and what they cost to fix.
            The projected lifespan of the emissions systems in vehicles is 12 years/100,000 miles. And that is about how long it takes to develop massive problems. Some vehicles which were driven less last longer, some vehicles which were driven hard fail earlier. Just the cost of diagnosing these new complex systems has skyrocketed. The days of “An O2 sensor or two” are long gone – Now it is a massively complex system full of control loops using O2 sensors, NOx sensors, EGT’s, various valves and actuators, coolers, heaters, single ended and differential pressure sensors, etc etc etc. Many independent shops simply aren’t equipped to diagnose some of these vehicles and they have to go to the dealer where some of my friends have had over $1000 just into diagnosis of an emissions code on their newer cars.

          2. Bruh, I am not false lol, I’ve lived through this. With that 4runner. It had a failed air injection pump, an emissions system that only matters during cold starts and does not run otherwise. When the computer realized it failed, it locked out all of those systems. I checked, I slammed on the brakes and it locked them up.

            Replacing that pump, I was quoted around 3000 dollars. I decided to do it myself. I can see why, I had to tear the entire top of the engine apart. I previously did the timing belt, and it took longer to do this than the belt job.

            Once I fixed that, the code went away, and the systems came back on. As someone who has had many cars lose emissions equipment, I can tell you for certain that it’s almost never “just an O2 sensor” and that cars don’t disable systems in response to them.

            In the state of NJ, as far as I know, they do not actually check the emissions, but instead just ask the computer if it is happy and all checks have passed. I know this because usually the vehicle isn’t even running when I’ve witnessed them doing their computer checks.

            I’ve never heard of this waiver thing before, it is very interesting. I’ll have to dig more into that, but it seems like a bit of a headache. Nice to know a way out of it if the price gets too high, though!

          3. It is normal for an engine with failed emission system to try to go with errors but that will cause lowered power and torque/max RPM of the engine. This is done to not damage the system more or destroy the engine.
            And this power loss is causing other issues like: turning off ABS/TC or other systems due to abnormal behavior from that systems point of view and this causes the systems to throw errors or turn off to prevent additional damage.

          4. I cannot reply to ITman496, but I can confirm his experience as the owner of a 2005 4Runner that also had a failed air injection pump. The car was driveable with the fault, but at a notably low miles-per-gallon efficiency, lack of traction control, digitally-limited engine power (50% or 60% throttle opening if I recall), etc. If it isn’t fixed soon, the rich mixture might coke up your catalytic converter too, incurring more costs.

            Fixing it involved removing the intake manifold and several other systems on top of the engine, then replacing some components in a very tight area between the back of the engine and the vehicle’s firewall. It would have cost a pretty penny in labor alone.

            The failure was caused by a poor decision at design time (un-filtered air causes a foam part to degrade, which sucks it into the air injection pump and clogs up the rest of the air injection system with melted foam particles).

            The air injection delete kit was looking pretty attractive, I wouldn’t be surprised if most people facing that issue just remove the air injection system entirely.

      2. The catyltic converter in my wife car died some years back. I live in a “blue” state that follows CARB. In the neighbooring state I could buy a new cat for $800.

        But because my state follows CARB rules a new cat cost me close to 3 grand. That isn’t the dealer either btw. It was a independent shop.

        If I didn’t get the car fixed, I can’t get it to pass the state inspection, which is as good “not working”.

        I had a pickup truck that had a evap canister go bad. It was a dealer only part, I could not buy it for that truck. It would have cost me a grand+. Did some research, I bought the evap canister for a SUV based on the same platform for $15, a couple of hose clamps and heater hose and it worked until the cab mounts rusted and fell off the frame.

        I miss that truck.

      3. Brad, that was true for older vehicles, but not for Tier IV vehicles. They will do anything from “punish” you for not fixing it by disabling traction control and other systems in the car to simply displaying a timer telling you that you have X starts before the vehicle will no longer start and require repair and reset by the dealer. It’s horrible. Even these little catalytic converters on some of these new cars cost more than I paid for the car I drive every day. I drive an old beat up car and always will, I would never be able to afford the price these new cars cost, let alone the cost of the emissions components!

    2. “We have private jets, rocket launches, mass plastic being dumped in the ocean as the real pollution concerns”

      If only we had an organization charged with protecting the environment. Maybe we could call it the Environmental Protection Organization.

      1. Under the EPA this pollution has increased, not decreased, because corporations own the government and these bureaucracies, and that pollution benefits the corporations. I am not proposing a solution, I think the only solution would be individual choice to minimize activities which cause actual pollution, but that would not be in the best interest of investor profits. Given that most people in my country subscribe to the extreme side of the consumer mindset, I doubt they would make these choices as it would remove a lot of the mindless entertainment and consuming from their life, and I think they really depend on that to get by?

        1. Dude quit reading all that doom and gloom stuff. I have a 15 year old VW TDI with periodic sensor and part failures. Figure which actual thing fails, replace it, reset computer to turn off dash light, drive happy. Dpf replacement is gonna be a big issue, but thats because it’s expensive and weighs a lot. Wont brick the car when it goes bad. Could even buy a drum and acid wash it clean myself

          1. You are incorrect… If your DPF starts to fail and your soot load increases past maximum threshold you will be RPM and speed limited followed by turbo failure if you don’t repair it… If your VW uses DEF, any failure in the DEF system including the SCR will result in a countdown timer (50km IIRC) after which your car will not start until the dealer tool or one of the few VW specific tools is used to clear the codes and run a service regen so that the car will release the SCR/DEF lock – The scan tools can not release the lock, the car has to decide that everything is fixed. If your DEF injector malfunctions (very common) you’ll end up with a SCR hopelessly clogged with crystallized DEF… etc. Have you seen the price on a new VW DPF and SCR and the other associated parts you replace with them? There are no aftermarket. Have you ever tried to wash a DPF? I’ve tried many times, NOT using acid (what the heck lol), using the DPF specific cleaning compounds and even pressure washing them. This stuff seems to work sometimes on big trucks, but zero luck for me on passenger cars and more than half of those cars got traded in for pennies when the customer saw the repair bill. You could buy another used VW for the price that the dealer charges to replace this stuff….
            Source: I work as a grease monkey for low pay after walking away from the corporate world during corona.

      1. Lithium, Niobium, and Cobalt are the big ones. I refuse to buy any new electronics that contain this stuff, and so should everyone else. I am sure I have a few secondhand devices with conflict minerals in them, but literally the only lithium powered stuff I have are my 10 year old laptop and my 6 year old phone, and it’s a flip phone so I doubt there is much in it. I don’t understand how anyone can claim to support a movement for bettering the world when the cornerstone of that movement is child slave labor. It’s unconscionable.

        1. That is very noble of you. Note, agriculture is by far the largest user of child labor (70%), so remember to not any eat food you didn’t grow yourself.

          Of course not all food is the product of child labor, and similarly not all battery Lithium, Niobium, and Cobalt was mined with child labor. If you want to end child labor best vote for administrators that are willing to increase regulations around mining requirements and accountability.

          1. I don’t know what food you eat but I only eat local meat and vegetables all summer and fall, I eliminated processed/corporate foods from my diet a long time ago and I hunt a majority of the meat I eat. Sure it’s not always as tasty as store bought beef but it fills the belly and I’ve learned to cook around it quite well. Last time I checked, store bought meat prices were so high I can’t imagine buying it. I use my PTO every year to fill the freezer. In the winter and early spring my vegetables come mostly from the west coast and developed south american countries? Are you telling me the west coast or these south american countries are using child slave labor? If so, I need to read about this. Might be time to start canning more…

          2. In the USA there is an estimate of 300k to 800k children working in agriculture. In California it is legal to use children as young as 12 years old to do farm work. I am not going to look up the stats for south american counties, but I don’t expect them to be much better.

            Ultimately I don’t think a boycott by individuals is going to move the needle very far.

            All the best with the canning. A nice dehydrator can help for fruits, I am also a fan of fermentation for preservation.

          3. Irox, we are talking about slave labor, not working for a wage.

            I worked for a farmer in southeast michigan starting when I was barely 12. That was my first job. I was paid… It was the best thing ever I just moved hay or took care of animals or whatever other thing he told me to do and I got paid for it all summer long and I often got 10+ hours per week in the non summer months too!!!

            When I say that rechargeable cars, lithium batteries, anything that uses niobium, cobalt, etc depend on child slave labor, I am talking about actual slaves. Children who live and work in the worst of the worst conditions, aren’t paid, have very short life expectancy. I believe the average life expectancy for these people in one particular african country is below age 30??? There is no comparison between this and being paid to do basic menial tasks on a farm in north or south america….

    3. 2 days ago, not far from my house, a tesla collided head on with a small SUV. Speeds were low; Both vehicle cabins were fully intact, only front end damage. However, the tesla instantly went thermal and the tesla driver died screaming in fire as he wasn’t able to get out of the vehicle fast enough. Worse yet, both passengers in the SUV where overwhelmed by the toxic smoke coming out of the tesla and were overwhelmed, they both died as well.

      Based on how you’ve grossly downplayed the circumstances of the accident and falsely explained the outcome, I don’t think it’s possible to trust ANYTHING you say.

      Here’s a video of the accident showing the extent of the damage to both vehicles:
      https://www.wxyz.com/news/3-dead-in-crash-on-m14-entrance-ramp-in-plymouth-township

      An Nissan Rogue mistakenly got on the highway and then tried to get off at an entrance ramp colliding head-on with a Tesla that was getting on the highway. The cars were wrecked at the end of the ramp which would indicate that at best SUV had only just started to slow and the Tesla was likely already at speed to merge onto the highway. I guess 45+ mph is “low speed”.

      The video clearly shows the driver side front quarter of each vehicle is completely demolished. The front bumper of the Rogue is gone and what’s behind it was pushed back at least a foot behind the front of the crumpled up hood. Neither vehicle was “intact” or drive-able.

      Furthermore the Rogue is lying over 8 ft away from the Tesla, it’s highly unlikely that the occupants of that vehicle die from smoke inhalation.

      You completely fabricated a false narrative that fits your world view or agenda.

      1. Peter,

        Strange how you can look at that video and the other pictures online and come up with this strange idea of what “completely demolished” looks like. Have you ever seen a picture of a car accident before? The only damage to the tesla is the drivers side, with the firewall pushed towards the top of the A pillar, but the cabin is completely intact. Ignore the fact that the crash burnt every piece of glass, plastic and aluminum out of the car. The nissan’s cabin is completely intact, with the glass shattered by the air bags, same as any modern vehicle that has the front airbags deploy??? Have you seen the countless pictures of completely demolished vehicles with crushed cabins from head on collisions that passengers and drivers have still managed to survive from? Sheesh. Based on the damage to the rogue, which is a light duty vehicle, and the fact that it kept its tire on the impact side, I would be surprised if both vehicles were going even 45mph. I’ve seen lower speed collisions rip the entire front suspension off of one side of a light duty vehicle like that.

        You seem to really, really, really want this to not have anything to do with the tesla going thermal and burning? You seem to have no idea how smoke propagates; Are you aware that Michigan has been seeing cold overnight temperatures and at the time this crash occurred the temperature had barely reached 60 degrees, with dew still on the ground? Have you ever seen smoke propagate in these colder temperatures? How it just hangs, moves outward as much as upward? Have you seen any of the facebook pictures of the smoke? Sure, I don’t know for sure that the people in the rogue died from smoke inhalation, but wow that rogue looks exactly like a survivable accident.
        I don’t know if you are some corporate shill or if you just want to disagree but you are definitely not an authority on anything you are talking about. I am not claiming to be either, I am just making observations, but you seem to have it all figured out…

      2. Peter,
        Also, my goodness, look at the tesla and rogue front offset crash test pictures and videos. Not much much more damage in these accident photos than the offset crash test at 40mph? Makes me think that they were going maybe a combined 70-80mph at most?
        QED.

    4. I feel like it would be more accurate to say the small SUV collided with the Tesla as the SUV was traveling the wrong way on a freeway while the Tesla was simply lawfully merging onto the freeway. A head-on crash is never non-violent, especially not at the likely speeds involved. It is hard to attribute the deaths to the fire.

    5. “When you are barely getting by paying your bills, and your emissions system fails with a repair cost averaging between $3,000 and $8,000 depending on the vehicle type, but a delete will cost you only $800, what do you do?”

      This situation means you can’t afford a car. Sell the car and use public transport.

  5. ackshually
    it’s against the law in US to modify EVs too because their modification may result in increases to CO2 emissions from non-renewable energy sources used to provide juice to the batteries.
    I could do a deep dive in the regs, but it’s there, though not enforced.

  6. If I own it I should be able to do whatever I want with it if its legal.
    In many states its 100% legal to delete, modify, or do pretty much whatever you want with your vehicle’s tune, or do anything else with it as well as long as it has lights, can keep up with traffic, and doesn’t annoy others.

    Most people don’t have the technical knowledge to safely tune their vehicle anyway.
    Like most people don’t have the technical knowledge to install an Android alt on their phone.

    This is on par with a government suing LineageOS, if LineageOS produced a tool for modifying Android devices.
    If COBB doesn’t go open source as a big F-YOU to the EPA then all of the development time and marketing will have been for nothing.

    1. You’re confusing minimum state requirements with federal regulations. Your state may only require lights and wheels for a vehicle to be considered operable, but that does not override the federal regulations such as emissions.

      Just because a state isn’t testing for it does not make it legal to delete or modify.

      1. Federal regulations are that the vehicle have to come with the emissions equipment when sold, not remain on it throughout the lifetime of the vehicle once its in private hands, depending on the state, like in California all 1975+ vehicles need to pass smog tests & inspection.

        If the state you reside in isn’t inspecting for it, you can absolutely modify or delete whatever emissions equipment you want. No EPA agent is going to fine you or slap you with a felony for making your car run better on an aftermarket tune or bypassed EVAP canister.

        Fun fact: Federally owned vehicles are exempt from all emissions standards, testing, or regulations.

        1. While the EPA has not typically gone after individuals, their verbiage does make it clear that they consider any tampering to be illegal. Much of that focus is on the manufacturing and selling of defeat devices, but it also makes statements like, “any person to… install… any part or component intended for….”.

          “Section 203(a)(3)(B) of the Clean Air Act makes it a violation for any person to manufacture or sell, or offer to sell, or install, any part or component (i.e., “defeat device”) intended for use with, or as part of, any motor vehicle or motor vehicle engine, where a principal effect of the part or component is to bypass, defeat, or render inoperative any device or element of design installed on or in a motor vehicle or motor vehicle engine in compliance with regulations under Title II of the Clean Air Act, and where the person knows or should know that such part or component is being offered for sale or installed for such use or put to such use.

          Also, section 203(a)(3)(A) of the Clean Air Act prohibits any person from knowingly removing or rendering inoperative (i.e., “tampering”) any such emissions control device or element of design.”

          “Violation of the tampering and defeat device prohibitions of the Clean Air Act may result in civil penalties. As of January 13, 2020, a person may be liable for a maximum civil penalty of $4,819 per defeat device manufactured, sold, or installed, or per vehicle tampered.”

          https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2020-12/documents/tamperinganddefeatdevices-enfalert.pdf

          “Section 203(a)(3) of the Act prohibits tampering with emissions controls, and also prohibits making and selling products with a principal effect of bypassing, defeating, or rendering inoperative emissions controls. The prohibitions in section 203(a)(3) apply to all vehicles, engines, and equipment subject to the certification requirements under section 206 of the Act, or other design requirements in the Act or regulations. This includes all motor vehicles (e.g., light-duty vehicles, highway motorcycles, heavy-duty trucks) and motor vehicle engines (e.g., heavy-duty truck engines).”

          “The Act’s prohibitions on tampering and defeat devices apply for the entire life of vehicles, engines, and equipment. They apply regardless of whether the regulatory “useful life” or warranty period has ended.”

          https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2020-12/documents/epatamperingpolicy-enforcementpolicyonvehicleandenginetampering.pdf

          You’re right that as an individual one is pretty safe to do anything they want, but that’s due to a lack of enforcement; not because it’s legal.

          1. Whats on paper is different from what goes on in the real world.
            If the state you live in isn’t inspecting for it, consider it legal.

            A cop will fine you for being annoying to other motorists before considering whats going on under the hood.

    2. Most of the stuff they do is more or less open source on forums and blogs in china, russia, and to some extent eastern europe. You just have to get an account on one of these forums and then spend a ridiculous amount of time understanding it all. This can be quite daunting if all you are trying to do is get your beater to work every day while working as much as possible just to make ends meet, but it is possible.
      A lot of the proprietary stuff that Cobb and other companies do is more like track stuff – Adding launch control to a vehicle, allowing selection of multiple tune profiles without having to reflash the control modules, etc. When it comes down to just surviving in this crazy expensive world by turning off something on your car that is keeping it from driving “because corporate-owned letter agency said so”, I think many more private individuals will be learning how to do this in the near future and the information required is out there.

  7. There’s ample opportunities to have a car that you can tune and play with – it’s called a track, and to my knowledge, there’s no such thing as emissions, not in my opinion should there be. Go have fun there – lots of people do, and you can get away with plenty of other things if it doesn’t have to be street legal. And also, why anybody would use a track car as their daily driver is beyond comprehension, yet we see it every day, lip spoilers dragging over the speed bumps at the Costco and vehicles with terribly uncomfortable suspension, stuck in traffic for hours. They’re like kids that have to bring their stupid plastic dinosaurs to restaurants and everywhere else they go.

    1. A lot of motorsport is open to daily-able cars (autotest and Production Car Trials come to mind) without modifications, but there are a lot of folk who just don’t have the cash for a second vehicle, or space to store one, so tweaking the daily is what they do (and what I’ll be doing as soon as I save up my pennies for a club membership to be able to participate).

      Mind you, lip spoilers and lowering aren’t what I’ll be doing, more likely to be tighter anti-roll bars and rear disc brakes.

  8. This is odd. A rather lengthy comment which I posted here within the last two hours has totally disappeared – along with the lengthy comment which I was replying to. The comment system here seems really flaky – the “save my name, email, and website” function has never worked for me – I have to enter Name and Email every single time I post. And sometimes a comment gets lost as soon as I click the Comment button. But this is the first time I’ve ever lost a comment which I’ve confirmed was still posted after a page refresh.

    Is it just me, or are other folks experiencing problems with Hackaday commenting?

    1. It has been happening in a lot of threads, theory is that there are corporate shills flagging comments which follow a narrative that is not beneficial to them, i.e. a comment that makes people notice things that they shouldn’t. Mods have been good about bringing those comments back, but the flagging will continue whether or not morale improves :-P

  9. Well, I see the corporate shills are robo-flagging comments again. I am just going to keep reposting the same comment, and here it is.

    There are countless people who have been deleting these systems by themselves for decades. With a little research and help from our friends in eastern europe or china, deleting any emissions system is quite doable by a hobby level mechanic. And what choice do people have? When you are barely getting by paying your bills, and your emissions system fails with a repair cost averaging between $3,000 and $8,000 depending on the vehicle type, but a delete will cost you only $800, what do you do? There is only one choice if you want to keep a roof over your head and keep making it to your job every day.

    I completely disagree with rechargeable vehicles being the “solution” to “tweaking” our cars – We have private jets, rocket launches, mass plastic being dumped in the ocean as the real pollution concerns – While citizens driving LEV’s and ULEV’s which are so clean you can practically breathe the emissions out the tailpipe being told that they are the problem. It’s all a big lie designed to make the corporations and investment firms who own the “green” companies and solutions earn more and more money at the citizen’s expense.
    Furthermore, rechargeable cars are horribly toxic and dangerous.
    2 days ago, not far from my house, a tesla collided head on with a small SUV. Speeds were low; Both vehicle cabins were fully intact, only front end damage. However, the tesla instantly went thermal and the tesla driver died screaming in fire as he wasn’t able to get out of the vehicle fast enough. Worse yet, both passengers in the SUV where overwhelmed by the toxic smoke coming out of the tesla and were overwhelmed, they both died as well.
    Rechargeable cars are NOT a solution for anything but destruction and chaos, and hopefully we can soon completely gut the EPA’s authority to do anything at all thanks to the chevron deference ruling.

    Until all child slave labor is removed from the rechargeable car supply chain (and by now you should all know that the rechargeable car fully depends on child slave labor even at the current prices which are unafforable by anyone but the rich), no one should be doing anything but shaming them.

    1. There is a strong chance that the recent chevron deference rule will finally gut these bureaucracies and put the power back in the people’s hands. The government can not do anything with efficiency, “efficiency” is literally on a different planet than every one of these agencies. We can only hope that this ruling will solve this problem, allowing us to finally focus on the real sources of pollution in this world.

    1. It is a strange world we live in isn’t it. The percentage of people that actually use the devices, I suspect, is quite low. I didn’t even know for example that COBB tuning existed. Easy to step on the small fry though… EPA needs to be revamped again ….

      1. I could be wrong but I think Cobb is a Subaru thing. I swear 75% of the impreza’s I’ve ever seen had Cobb parts on them. If an STI comes into the shop, almost guaranteed you will find at least one Cobb logo under the hood or in the cabin

  10. “if you really want to have fun tweaking and tuning your car without pesky environmental laws getting in the way, you could consider switching to electric drivetrains, even if they’re mind-numbingly easy to make performant compared to internal combustion engines.”

    Quite the opposite. You aren’t going to flash a tune on a Tesla, their software is very locked down.
    And you need to upgrade the inverter to see any dramatic changes.
    The best best is to toss a gen4 LS from a truck in a car and slap on a turbo, you can get Tesla Plaid or Hellcat performance for much less costwise.

    1. Yes! All EV software is locked down and next to impossible to bypass.
      Attempting to circumvent anything access control related to that is technically a copyright violation.
      So even if you did hack it, its illegal and you could be sued by the auto manufacture.

      1. I think the problem is closer to “all rechargeable cars depend on Over-The-Air updates and are continuously linked to the manufacturer”. Granted, most cars made after the early 2010’s are linked to the manufacturer as long as their cellular modem is still covered by the towers but most petrol cars are using that only to send your usage data/driving habits/location etc back; Some do OTA updates but that can be turned off and is not explicitly required to operate the vehicle. It is not illegal to hack your personally owned vehicle in any way but I would guess that doing so to one of these rechargeable cars would forever ban your car from future updates AND dealer service… Which would essentially brick the car lmao

    1. And moderated by someone with a deep hatred of the ICE. Not for supportable reasons but because they were told they should hate them. Been a ton of legitime comments taken down.

  11. The only reason that Cobb incurred a measly 2.9 fine is that they rolled over on the tuners and vehicle owners using their products. Cobb decided to team up with the EPA to avoid any meaningful fines. Cobb is basically the undercover at the car meets wearing a wire and camera trying to get others to incriminate themselves. Removed every Cobb product from my car so it won’t narc me out to the feds.

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