POWERFREAK

OK, but your car will still have it. It comes activated.

JCS30TH

thanks for the info. Something I will have to figure out how to bypass.

GoFast908Z

All great reasons that solidify my decision to never buy a new car after teh new camaro. Only classic muscle for me.

RussStang

Not necessarily. If my car were sending signals out about my emissions compliance, I would be screwed. And yet, somehow I just got fresh new PA inspection/emission stickers on my windshield.

JCS30TH

as they say. Its who you know.

Z28Vert19

I used to work for Subaru and it is all true...however when you look at the readings on the scan tool, you can see how much throttle imput the driver was giving, how hard the car was shifting, where the boost was at...etc. Its not about the racing aspect of it, It voids the warrantee because it is considered "Abuse". When the check engine light goes on it records readings at that time, which is how they can void your warrantee. I know its stupid, but whatever.

POWERFREAK

I wonder if you buy the extended warranty, if they can void that too. It's BS on a performance car...it sould be expected to perform, just like on a work truck, it should be expected to work...tow, plow etc...

jg95z28

There actually is a mandate that states the 1995 LT1s burn cleaner with the emissions equipment removed. A friend of mine did this and even has the sticker saying that its legal. (Sorry I can't remember if it was CARB or a Federal mandate.)

greg_nate

Actually, it is quite easily done. Just gotta have the right software. For about $500 you can not only delete the diagnostic warnings, but you can also prevent the warnings from being logged all together.

Traction control system engagements are logged. So are charge system faults. Cat problems, air pump problems, HVAC system errors are also logged. You'd be surprised what the computer stores.

JCS30TH

I wasn't aware of that. HMM. Justification for a custome ecm flash.. heads/cam/headders.........

hmmmmmm.

guionM

1st, you wouldn't be screwed. Emissions systems are under warranty for 100,000 miles, so any thing wrong would be covered. Since you haven't been able to tamper with emissions equptment on new cars for over a decade and only certain things on the engine can be changed without voiding the warranty, it's a non issue.

2nd, your car doesn't have OBD3, so there's no mystery about your car sending out signals.... it didn't.

Can't remove a functional cat, can't use off-road lighting, can't roll back the odometer, can't use certain tires, can't put lights where ever you want on the car, can't run without mufflers if the cars too loud, nitrous is illegal in most every state on street cars, nationally, there's laws about tampering with any emissions equptment, most states have bi-annual inspections and/or emissions testing just to make sure you're in complience & haven't done any illegal modifications, I can go on and on, but these make the point enough.



I think there's alot of people behind the learning curve about what's going on in new cars and what can & can't be done on vehicles on public roads. There's the fantasy way of how some believe things are, and the reality of it.

Any vehicle driven on a public road is regulated. Tax money maiontains the roads, and as the saying goes, he who has the gold makes the rules. Federal, State, and Local governments can regulate what you can do to your car, and even take your car from you for gross violations such as excessive speeding, non-complience with emission standards through vehicle modification, running non factory items such as nitrous & off road lighting, or even too many parking tickets.

As far as voiding the powertrain warranty, any modifications to the engine that involves parts covered by warranty (essentially leaving just the oil & air filter) will kill it and you're on your own. This includes the computer.

In the REAL world of auto buyers, 99 percent of the people HERE (let alone the average car buyer) will not be doing anything to their car to void the warranty. That tends to happen when you lay out 25,000 plus dollars and finance something for 4 plus years.... let alone the people here who lease, so alot of the mock outrage here is just the herd following the leader. Perfect example would be a new car owner talking up how he's going to remove safety equptment on his new 5th gen to save weight, but hasn't touched a hair on his current, fully warrantied, still financed car.

Fact is when you take your car in for warranty work, one of the 1st things dealers do is to determine it's covered. Since manufacturer reimburse dealers, the factory is going to do as much as they can to give the dealers tools to help. This includes what to look for, and yes, the operation parameters of the engine at the time an engine code was thrown in the computer and the black box that records what you were doing at the time of an accident, so you can't sue for brake, steering, or throttle failure, and if you were traveling at 120 mph when your 80 mph rated tire blew out.


I suspect the average car buff in Californnia & the northeast are far more aware than the average car buff in some other places of what you can and can't do to your car that will throw your emissions out of complience, and what voids warranties. Especially here in Cali where our choices are more limited.


If you have alot of money, you aren't worried about warranty issue, and some states require lighter testing or no testing on newer vehicles, so you have a bit more flexibility than the buyer who wants to keep his warranty while making payments and those who have a car older than 5 years old.

RussStang

I haven't?

Looks like someone really dropped the ball on my emissions checkups then (and a lot of other people I know as well).

Uh, duh.

Wow. It amazes me how you seem to have all the facts, all of the time, no matter how obscure they are.

I wonder if 99% of the registered accounts here are even used?

Dave89IROC

I think he means, that LEGALLY, no tampering is allowed to emissions control systems/devices

guionM

Thank you Dave.

I didn't think I needed to spell things out.

razor02097

IMO OBD systems are great because of newer cars getting more complicated. OBDIII is going to be the next generation monitoring more systems generating more specific trouble codes. There are too many people thinking its all a conspiricy or something. Like they put a cat back on a car and the FBI will kill them.

Aftermarket companies spend MILLIONS of dollars developing new products for cars that come out. Performance mods that don't void the warrenty. In 2009 Im sure you can still get a catback system, CAI, performace tune, and headers. It seems the newer the car the less aftermarket parts you need to make it go faster such as ignition componets or fuel injection systems. Stock out of the box many engines handle 200, 300, 400 or more HP.

As for replacing a working cat being illegal... what if I beat the **** out of it with a baseball bat first and say it just fell off on the freeway You talk about removing cats on basically stock cars? You should go take a look at some rice... when they put those 4-6" fart cans on those cars they take off the cat, res, and muffler then replace with pieces of straight 1" Di. pipe!